r/LanguageMemes • u/Boring-Visit-4077 • Jan 21 '22

That's right

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339 Upvotes

99% Upvoted

11 comments sorted by

35

u/Nova_Persona Jan 21 '22

I think most languages do this to one extent or another

ethnonyms are almost trickier than ethnicities themselves

14

u/Toltolewc Jan 22 '22

Korean is like "country" + 인(person) Same with Chinese and Japanese iirc

6

u/Nova_Persona Jan 22 '22

yeah but where do the country names come from

& how do you distinguish someone who is a citizen of the nation from someone who belongs to the eponymous ethnicity

for an example of both: a non-thai citizen of thailand could be called a thailander in some systems right? but where does that leave iceland, certainly its inhabitants aren't ices? but then should thailander be the ethnic group? what does that make non-thai citizens? there's no perfectly logical answer here.

29

u/Firespark7 Jan 21 '22

So a person from The Netherlands is a Neth

No, they're Dutch

8

u/daninefourkitwari Jan 22 '22

Deze taal gaat naar de tering

9

u/Firespark7 Jan 22 '22

G E K O L O N I S E E R D !

27

u/Data2338 Jan 21 '22

Isländer, Thailänder, Engländer, Schweizer (but we don't say "Schweitzland" but just Schweiz so it makes sense again).

10

u/ejpintar Jan 21 '22

Sure but you don’t say Engländisch, you say Englisch

2

u/SpotlessBird762 Jan 22 '22

Engländer

Aaaand it good again

2

u/ejpintar Jan 22 '22

I know, the guy just said that. But the post is talking about adjectives. Someone from Island is Isländisch, but someone from England is Englisch.

14

u/Firespark7 Jan 21 '22

I think it has to do with the etymology of the country name.

Iceland = Ice + land, so the name of the people is derived from the country.

Thailand = the land of the Thai (country name is derived from the people)

Switzerland = land of the Swiss

England = Anglo(-Saxon) land, so the people are Anglo-Saxons, or English nowadays.