# Whence the -i in “Kuwati,” “Pakistani,” etc.? **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [April 29, 2022, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-i-in-kuwati-pakistani-etc/963668 "2022-04-29T11:54:16Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2022, 11:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-i-in-kuwati-pakistani-etc/963668/1 "2022-04-29T11:54:16Z")
(My Googling was surprisingly unhelpful, even when I inserted the keyword “demonym”). What is the origin of the suffix -i as an adjective for “a country or its people”? It’s used (at least in English) for SOME of the Arabic speaking world (Saudi, Iraqi, Yemeni…), plus Hebrew (Israeli), but not ALL of it (Moroccan, Egyptian, Lebanese…). It’s also used for SOME of the Indo-Iranian (branch of IE) speaking world (for languages and regions, not just countries) (Hindi, Bengali, Azeri, Afghani), but not all of it (Persian/Iranian). I’m guessing it’s a Semitic (Afro-Asiatic) suffix that was adopted into the languages of the Mughal empire…but ??? (If so, this sort of parallels how -stan for “country” spread from Indo-European — specifically, Old Persian — into Turkic regions like Kazakhstan). ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2022, 11:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-i-in-kuwati-pakistani-etc/963668/2 "2022-04-29T11:58:49Z")
I do not know about Indo-European, but here is a wiki synopsis of the Arabic nisbah: > [@](#): > > The _nisba_ (اَلنِّسْبَة **nisbah** ) is a common suffix to form adjectives of relation or pertinence. The suffix is ـِيّ **-iyy-** for masculine and ـِيَّة **-iyya(t)-** for feminine gender (in other words, it is **-iyy-** and is inserted before the gender marker). > > - لُبْنَانُ **Lubnān(u)** “Lebanon” > - لُبْنَانِيٌّ **lubnāniyy(un)** “Lebanese” (masculine nominative singular) > - لُبْنَانِيَّةٌ **lubnāniyya(tun)** “Lebanese” (feminine nominative singular) > - لُبْنَانِيُّونَ **lubnāniyyūn(a)** “Lebanese” (masculine nominative plural) > - لُبْنَانِيَّاتٌ **lubnāniyyāt(un)** “Lebanese” (feminine nominative plural) > > A construct noun and **nisbah** -adjective is often equivalent to nominal composition in English and other languages (_solar cell_ is equivalent to _sun cell_). > > The feminine **nisbah** is often used in Arabic as a noun relating to concepts, most frequently corresponding to ones ending in _-ism_ , with the masculine and feminine **nisbah** being used as adjectival forms of the concept-noun (e.g. _-ist_ ) depending on agreement. Thus the feminine **nisbah** of اَلْاِشْتِرَاك **al-ištirāk** “partnership, cooperation, participation (definite)”, اَلْاِشْتِرَاكِيَّة **al-ištirākiyyah** is the Arabic word for “socialism,” and the word “socialist” (both as an adjective and as the term for one who believes in socialism) is اِشْتِرَاكِيّ **ištirākiyy** in the masculine and اِشْتِرَاكِيَّة **ištirākiyyah** in the feminine. > > The Arabic _nisbah_ has given rise to English adjectives of nationality for Arabic countries: Iraq_i_ (from عِرَاقِيّ), Kuwait_i_ (from كُوَيْتِيّ), etc. ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2022, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-i-in-kuwati-pakistani-etc/963668/3 "2022-04-29T12:00:34Z")
Thank you. That’s surely it. (All that’s left is to confirm or refute my hunch about how it ended up in non-Arabic places like Pakistan and Punjab). ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2022, 12:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-i-in-kuwati-pakistani-etc/963668/4 "2022-04-29T12:02:42Z")
Also why is it Iraqi, but Leban **ese** instead of Lebani or Lebanoni or whatever? ---
**Author:** ![JKellyMap](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jkellymap/32/15880_2.png) [@JKellyMap](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JKellyMap)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2022, 12:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-i-in-kuwati-pakistani-etc/963668/5 "2022-04-29T12:04:28Z")
Right. Maybe (in English) it’s about “former British colonial activities” vs. “former French ones”? (In Arabic, the Lebanese DO call themselves the “Lebani”). ---
**Author:** ![DPRK](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/4491bb/32.png) [@DPRK](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DPRK)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2022, 12:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-i-in-kuwati-pakistani-etc/963668/6 "2022-04-29T12:06:33Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > (In Arabic, the Lebanese DO call themselves the “Lebani”). Lebanoni (= a (male) person from Lebanon) ---
**Author:** ![MrDibble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mrdibble/32/114_2.png) [@MrDibble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MrDibble)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2022, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-i-in-kuwati-pakistani-etc/963668/7 "2022-04-29T13:25:43Z")
One possibility - is it that the -i ones tend to be more modern-named countries than the non-i-suffixed ones? So the -i ones were named when hewing closer to local names was actually of diplomatic concern. Whereas before, those places were all just part of “Arabia” or “India” ---
**Author:** ![Schnitte](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/schnitte/32/9033_2.png) [@Schnitte](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Schnitte)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2022, 1:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-i-in-kuwati-pakistani-etc/963668/8 "2022-04-29T13:30:40Z")
French influence, I guess. It’s _libanais_ in French (based on the -ais ending that is quite common in that language). Lebanon became a French mandatory territory after WWI and, to this day, French has a strong position in cultural and intellectual life in the country. ---
**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:** [April 29, 2022, 1:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-i-in-kuwati-pakistani-etc/963668/9 "2022-04-29T13:31:03Z")
> [@JKellyMap](#): > > but not ALL of it (…Egyptian “Egypt” is the English word for the country. The Arabic word is Misr (مصر) and a male person from there is Misri (مصري). ---
**Author:** ![Babale](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/babale/32/15666_2.png) [@Babale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Babale)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2022, 2:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-i-in-kuwati-pakistani-etc/963668/10 "2022-04-29T14:00:22Z")
Yes, in both Hebrew and Arabic, “thing that embodies these qualities/nationality” is communicated through the -i suffix. So in Hebrew you have Israeli, Yehudi (Jewish), Amerikai (American), Tzarfati (French), etc etc “Am” means “nation” or “peoples”, so a folk song or tale that’s unattributed to a specific author is described as “Amami”. Etc etc ---
**Author:** ![alovem](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/b38774/32.png) [@alovem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alovem)\ **Post date:** [April 29, 2022, 5:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/whence-the-i-in-kuwati-pakistani-etc/963668/11 "2022-04-29T17:03:07Z")
Spanish does it, too, with an accented i at the end: _israelí, marroquí, catarí, iraní, iraquí, somalí, omaní, saudí, pakistaní_, etc., and it’s also applied to the inhabitants of some Spanish cities, such as _marbellí_ (from Marbella). Doesn’t seem to happen much in reference to Latin America. There are words like _guaraní_, but that comes from the native lanuage of those people (same in English).