# Countries where the language is the same word as the citizens **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 16, 2020, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-where-the-language-is-the-same-word-as-the-citizens/918245 "2020-08-16T05:46:17Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 10\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2020, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-where-the-language-is-the-same-word-as-the-citizens/918245/21 "2020-08-17T16:54:44Z")
Because the OP is looking for a noun, not an adjective. A person from France is a Frenchman/woman, not a French. ---
**Author:** ![EllisDee](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/ellisdee/32/4531_2.png) [@EllisDee](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EllisDee)\ **Post date:** [August 17, 2020, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-where-the-language-is-the-same-word-as-the-citizens/918245/22 "2020-08-17T18:21:36Z")
> [@eschereal](#): > > Because the OP is looking for a noun, not an adjective. A person from France is a Frenchman/woman, not a French. > \* And that’s exactly what led me to this train of thought originally. (A few years ago.) Being happy that as an American, I didn’t have to worry about now needing new non-gendered words for citizens. Then I thought about “and our word for citizens _could_ be the same as our language, but isn’t. Whose is? Germany! There must be others…” Thus that original thought (“first”, not “unique”, clearly) precludes using adjectives in the first place. But again, it’s totally arbitrary. \*Discourse sucks. When I put a quote in a post it’s because I want that quote in my post. ---
**Author:** ![BwanaBob](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bwanabob/32/2985_2.png) [@BwanaBob](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BwanaBob)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2020, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-where-the-language-is-the-same-word-as-the-citizens/918245/23 "2020-08-18T15:42:18Z")
Cool fact of the day - I never knew this. ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 18, 2020, 4:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-where-the-language-is-the-same-word-as-the-citizens/918245/24 "2020-08-18T16:14:55Z")
Am I the only one who is bothered by the fact we’re talking about how people in other countries describe themselves and their non-English language…in English? Wouldn’t right question be whether the French use the same word to describe their language and their people _in French?_ And so on? ---
**Author:** ![CairoCarol](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cairocarol/32/3825_2.png) [@CairoCarol](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CairoCarol)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 3:14am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-where-the-language-is-the-same-word-as-the-citizens/918245/25 "2020-08-19T03:14:53Z")
If there were an assumption of superiority or universality about English, or if we were employing racist or derogatory terms, sure, that would be bad. But discussing particular quirks of the English language? Why is that bad? You’d be hard pressed to have the same conversation in Indonesian, but I suppose someone might ask whether there are nationalities whose languages have names that are different from the countries in question. Mostly they are the same - “orang Perancis” is French person, “bahasa Perancis” is French language, “orang Jerman” is German person, “bahasa Jerman” is German language and so on. But if someone Indonesian wanted to remark on the fact that “orang Amerika Serikat” is an American but “bahasa Inggris” is the national language, that wouldn’t be bothersome, would it? ---
**Author:** ![begbert2](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/begbert2/32/3357_2.png) [@begbert2](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/begbert2)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 4:07am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-where-the-language-is-the-same-word-as-the-citizens/918245/26 "2020-08-19T04:07:50Z")
It’s not bad, it’s just strange to me that a topic so _non-_ English-centric would be approached from a purely English direction. I was also curious whether other languages had a similar trend of overlapping the terms for speech an speaker - which you touched on the answer to, so thanks! ---
**Author:** ![eschereal](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eschereal/32/18939_2.png) [@eschereal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eschereal)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 4:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-where-the-language-is-the-same-word-as-the-citizens/918245/27 "2020-08-19T04:15:53Z")
You really have to approach it from the outside, though. In a country that is linguistically homogenous, their name for the people who speak the language is “us”. ---
**Author:** ![PlaceboTarget](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/placebotarget/32/1073_2.png) [@PlaceboTarget](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PlaceboTarget)\ **Post date:** [August 19, 2020, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-where-the-language-is-the-same-word-as-the-citizens/918245/28 "2020-08-19T12:18:42Z")
**Romanian** _adjective_ relating to Romania or its people or language. _noun_ 1. a native or inhabitant of Romania, or a person of Romanian descent. 1. the language of Romania, a Romance language influenced by the neighbouring Slavic languages. It is spoken by over 23 million people in Romania itself and by the majority of the population of Moldova. ---
**Author:** ![Siam\_Sam](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/d78d45/32.png) [@Siam\_Sam](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Siam_Sam)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 3:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-where-the-language-is-the-same-word-as-the-citizens/918245/29 "2020-08-23T03:48:09Z")
> [@jtur88](#): > > Indonesian and Malaysian are the same language – Bahasa. Each country has standardized the sligftly-different version in that country, known as Bahasa Indonesia and Bahasa Malaysia. It was originally collective known as Malay. Yes and no. I have known Indonesians and Malaysians who tell me while the former can understand the latter, the latter cannot always understand the former. They’re basically the same people, but once Malaysia came under British control and Indonesia under Dutch, the language started diverging to some extent. ---
**Author:** ![dtilque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/d6d6ee/32.png) [@dtilque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dtilque)\ **Post date:** [August 23, 2020, 5:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-where-the-language-is-the-same-word-as-the-citizens/918245/30 "2020-08-23T17:39:53Z")
He’s a Burman She’s a Burwoman They speak Burmanian Burma Shave [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/countries-where-the-language-is-the-same-word-as-the-citizens/918245.md?page=1)