5 ms·

Not sure why people didn't just agree on -i. Qatar -> Qatari, Zanzibar -> Zanzibari, to me Myanmar -> Myanmari makes perfect sense to me.

• adhesive_wombat 4y ago
  The -i ending comes from Arabic which makes it seem a bit out of place in Myanmar (not to mention the obvious religious tension). -ese, -ian, -an and -n all come from Latin via routes of varying directness, which is why they feel somewhat "neutral" in English (e.g. Congolese and Japanese both seem cromulent and not intrinsically African or Asian).
  • kenneth 4y ago
    How did we arrive at Guamanian as the adjective for of Guam?
  • joshxyz 4y ago
    myanmarese maybe? or myanmarian? haha
  • thaumasiotes 4y ago
    > (e.g. Congolese and Japanese both seem cromulent and not intrinsically African or Asian) I have faced questions from Chinese people about why only Asians receive an -ese suffix in English.
    • adhesive_wombat 4y ago
      "Chinese" in English comes from Portuguese ("chinês"), who were some of the earliest Europeans there. -ês and -ese both come from the same Latin origin. I hazard that words like Cantonese, etc., came either via the same route, or by back-formation to match the existing wider term "Chinese". Interestingly, "Japanner" used to be another word for a Japanese person.
• yencabulator 4y ago
  Swissi? Austriai? Norwayi?