# From Nigeria -\> Nigerian From America -\> American From China !\> Chinan **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [July 25, 2013, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-nigeria-nigerian-from-america-american-from-china-chinan/664518 "2013-07-25T19:56:25Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 13\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2013, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-nigeria-nigerian-from-america-american-from-china-chinan/664518/1 "2013-07-25T19:56:25Z")
in re the other countries I can think of which end in the letter “A” We just add an “N” at the end and call it good. Why not Chinan? How did we get Chinese instead? ---
**Author:** ![DrFidelius](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/drfidelius/32/3447_2.png) [@DrFidelius](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DrFidelius)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2013, 7:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-nigeria-nigerian-from-america-american-from-china-chinan/664518/2 "2013-07-25T19:58:14Z")
From the Portugans. ---
**Author:** ![Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tastes_of_chocolate/32/3232_2.png) [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tastes_of_Chocolate)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2013, 8:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-nigeria-nigerian-from-america-american-from-china-chinan/664518/3 "2013-07-25T20:07:18Z")
English, French, German (close, but not exactly just adding an N), Japanese, Swedish, Finn, Welsh, Taiwanese Hmm, -ese seems to be more common with Asian countries. ---
**Author:** ![naita](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/naita/32/5862_2.png) [@naita](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/naita)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2013, 8:13pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-nigeria-nigerian-from-america-american-from-china-chinan/664518/4 "2013-07-25T20:13:44Z")
WAG, these nationality adjectives came through the romance languages? And before I posted this I figured it’d be better if I did a bit of research. And according to this the -ese words are loans from Italian. > [@](#): > > Let us now turn to the controversial suffix -ese. You could well say that there does not seem to be a pattern geographically. Countries using -ese are scattered everywhere in Asia, Africa, South America, and we also have Portugal in Europe! But my attention turns to Italian when I give this suffix some more thought. > > In Italian, -ese is a much more common suffix of nationality than in English. Words that use -ese in Italian but not in English include danese (Danish), finlandese (Finnish), francese (French), inglese (English) and islandese (Icelandic). In fact, -ese (from Latin -ēnsis) is the next most common suffix after the Latin triplet -ian/-ean/-an. > > It turns out that words ending in -ese in English actually come from Italian. Recalling that Marco Polo and other Italian traders were the first Europeans to reach the Far East, it is therefore no surprise that many Asian countries use -ese. In addition, the countries using -ese in South America are all very close to where Christopher Columbus, himself an Italian, first landed on the continent. But of course, why some countries in Africa and the Americas use the Italian suffix, while others use French or Spanish suffixes is a result of their long and complicated colonial histories. > **[So many nationality suffixes – Linguistics.hk](https://www.linguistics.hk/2008/10/22/so-many-nationality-suffixes/)** ---
**Author:** ![CookingWithGas](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/cookingwithgas/32/485_2.png) [@CookingWithGas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/CookingWithGas)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2013, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-nigeria-nigerian-from-america-american-from-china-chinan/664518/5 "2013-07-25T20:17:57Z")
> [@naita](#): > > And according to this the -ese words are loans from Italian. Interesting. I wonder why they don’t say “Amercanese.” ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2013, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-nigeria-nigerian-from-america-american-from-china-chinan/664518/6 "2013-07-25T20:38:42Z")
Because they got it from Spanish. ---
**Author:** ![aNewLeaf](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@aNewLeaf](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aNewLeaf)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2013, 8:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-nigeria-nigerian-from-america-american-from-china-chinan/664518/7 "2013-07-25T20:46:09Z")
Euphony ---
**Author:** ![Shagnasty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/9dc877/32.png) [@Shagnasty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Shagnasty)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2013, 9:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-nigeria-nigerian-from-america-american-from-china-chinan/664518/8 "2013-07-25T21:02:55Z")
I heard the nomenclature originated with the Lebanese or maybe the lesbians, I can’t remember. A Sudanese guy told me that but the Pakistani woman next to him said he was wrong. ---
**Author:** ![jtur88](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e9c0ed/32.png) [@jtur88](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jtur88)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2013, 9:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-nigeria-nigerian-from-america-american-from-china-chinan/664518/9 "2013-07-25T21:51:19Z")
Those are called Demonyms, and are not always logical. > **[List of adjectival and demonymic forms for countries and nations](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_adjectival_and_demonymic_forms_for_countries_and_nations)** > > The following is a list of adjectival and demonymic forms of countries and nations in English and their demonymic equivalents. A country adjective describes something as being from that country, for example, "Italian cuisine" is "cuisine of Italy". A country demonym denotes the people or the inhabitants of or from there, for example, "Germans" are people of or from Germany. > Note: Demonyms are given in plural forms. Singular forms simply remove the final s or, in the case of -ese endings, are t... ---
**Author:** ![PatriotX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/c4cdca/32.png) [@PatriotX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatriotX)\ **Post date:** [July 25, 2013, 11:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-nigeria-nigerian-from-america-american-from-china-chinan/664518/10 "2013-07-25T23:39:36Z")
thank you for the replies ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 10:01am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-nigeria-nigerian-from-america-american-from-china-chinan/664518/11 "2013-07-30T10:01:40Z")
> [@Tastes\_of\_Chocolate](#): > > English, French, German (close, but not exactly just adding an N), Japanese, Swedish, Finn, Welsh, Taiwanese. You have to distinguish between adjectives based on country names and words for a person from there: [ol] [li]English, French, German, Japanese, Swedish, Finnish, Welsh, Taiwanese[/li][li]Englishman, Frenchman, German, Japanese, Swede, Finn, Welshman, Taiwanese[/li][/ol] ---
**Author:** ![Nava](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/da6949/32.png) [@Nava](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nava)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 10:04am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-nigeria-nigerian-from-america-american-from-china-chinan/664518/12 "2013-07-30T10:04:38Z")
Adjectives are words. You mean “distinguish between adjectives and nouns”. ---
**Author:** ![Floater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/dc4da7/32.png) [@Floater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Floater)\ **Post date:** [July 30, 2013, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/from-nigeria-nigerian-from-america-american-from-china-chinan/664518/13 "2013-07-30T12:15:01Z")
I was debating with myself how to best word that.