Why is not there no gender - neutral reference for someone from England or France,

[Corry_El]

@EastUmpqua

The problem with using ‘a Korean’, or ‘a British’ or ‘a French’ is that you expect a noun to follow(e.g. a Korean writing system, a British accent, or a French military victory). So we get expressions like “a room full of Brits, Kiwis and Aussies.

As was mentioned before language doesn’t have to be consistent. The difference between calling someone from Korea ‘a Korean’ and someone from France ‘a French’ is simply that the former is standard English, and the latter isn’t English at all. There doesn’t have to be any other reason, just like there’s not for all kinds of variations in virtually all languages. But as a practical matter I dispute there’s almost ever any real confusion caused by referring to a person from Korea as ‘a Korean’.

[Lamoral]

@Corry_El

There’s some recent tendency in English to avoid singular demonyns that are also adjectives as somehow impolite, amidst a generally raised consciousness of formerly correct but now (claimed to be) impolite words especially related to nationality, race, ethnicity, etc. But it’s actually a little hard to believe you’ve never heard (it would be harder still to believe you’ve never read if you read much) a person from Japan or China referred to as a Japanese or a Chinese.

After thinking very hard about it, I actually have read - not actually heard spoken, but read - “a Vietnamese” in writing about the Vietnam War. I’ve never heard it in reference to other “-ese” groups.

[Lamoral]

Oh, apropos of nothing, someone from Monaco is called Monegasque. Not an ethnicity that many Americans will ever have occasion to discuss, since perhaps 5% of them even know what or where Monaco is.

[hibernicus]

@psychonaut

Historically, it wasn’t always the case. The Oxford English Dictionary includes senses for “French”, “Irish”, and “Welsh” as count-noun demonyms, with plural forms “Frenches”, “Irishes”, and “Welshes”. That is, “French” has been used to mean “a Frenchman or Frenchwoman”, “Irish” for “an Irishman or Irishwoman”, etc. Quotations are provided from several well-known authors:

All of these senses are marked as obsolete in the dictionary. So the real question here isn’t why we don’t have count demonyms for these nations, but why the ones we do have have fallen out of use.

The Shakespeare quote is not an example of “French” or “English” being used as a singular noun. If it were, it would be “a dozen Frenches” and not “a dozen French”.

[EastUmpqua]

@Lamoral

Oh, apropos of nothing, someone from Monaco is called Monegasque. Not an ethnicity that many Americans will ever have occasion to discuss, since perhaps 5% of them even know what or where Monaco is.

I know where Monaco is. Are you French?

[Quartz]

@Pleonast

I’d say a “person from New Zealand”. “New Zealander” sounds as awkward as “Netherlander”; understandable but strange.

Both are perfectly normal here in the UK.