For Africa we say African. For Mexico we say Mexican. America gets American. However, Canada and Florida gets an extra ‘i’ and we say Canadian and Floridian. Anyone know why?
Because “Canadan” sounds dumb?
Actually, I say ‘snowbirds’ . . . that’s people from Florida, right? 
But yeah, as a word, ‘Canadan’ has no balance.
It sounds dumb? It must be French then! ^_*
Is it “Alabamian” or “Alabaman”?
[sub]The first joker who responds with some variation of “redneck” gets a poke in the eye with a sharp stick.[/sub]
Canadan only ‘sounds silly’ because we aren’t used to it.
Why is someone from Holland, Dutch, and not Hollandian?
The hockey team is the Montreal Canadiens, with an “e”, but I suppose that’s French.
Because “Dutch” = “from the Netherlands”, and Holland is only part of the Netherlands. As to why they call themselves “Dutch” rather than “Nederlanders” I can’t remember, but I think it’s something to do with other people confusing them with Germans (“Deutsch”). No doubt a certain moderator will give a more accurate answer presently.
I suppose it could be done either way, but the one that sounds better to more people will dominate.
Where I live we’ve got a lot of Texans, but back when we were a country the denizens were Texians.
NOTE - in the post below, capital V stands for “any vowel”.
From the examples you give, it’s demonstrated that names ending in “-cV/-kV/-gV” get by with a simple “-an” ending: Costa Rican, San Fransiscan, San Diegan. The “k” and “g” sounds are known as velar stops, as they are pronounced with the tongue against the velum. It seems that English euphony allows the weak syllable “-an” after a “strong” velar consonant.
They don’t generally call themselves Dutch, but Nederlanders, as you noted. I’m sure Coldfire can enlighten us more.
[sub]fixed coding - DrM[/sub]
Well, I’m pretty sure Canadian is a corruption/borrowing of the French canadien. The French were the first Europeans to settle this country. They were the ones who believed kanata – an Iroquois word for village – refered to the whole region. And they were the first to call themselves canadiens.
As for why the French chose canadien and not canadain – as in américain and mexicain is beyond me. Nothing in my Précis de grammaire française says anything about it – so we’re back to square one.
Maybe they just picked it because it sounded cool – like someone from Bordeaux being a bordelais or someone from Vichy being a vichyssois (sp?). Someone from Madagascar is a malgache – which does sound neat, but is very counter-intuitive.
French is the only language I know whose teachers will justify a grammatical rule by “Because it sounds pretty!” Choosing suffixes for citizens of a country seems to work on the same principle.
“He says his land is called Ka-Na-Ta - Canada!”
“But, sir, I’m sure he means these houses, this village!”
And people from Paris are Parisites, right?
Ah, where would be without the Canadian Heritage Minutes to (mis)inform us of our nations’s proud history!
It’s a good thing they skip over the little things like racism, etc – wouldn’t want a little accuracy to get in the way of a good, sanitized national mythology!
This Canadian Heritage Rant has been sponsored by Heritage Ministry. Additional funds were supplied by the National Film board
I thought the name Canada originated from explorers not being able to come up with a name so they put a whole bunch of letters in a hat and then someone picked them out one at a time-
“C - eh?”
“N - eh?”
“D - eh?”