If there any linguists around, why is it that I can say a phase like "I am talking to an American" for many countries like "German, Australian, Russian" and so on, but the exact same construction for some countries like "I am talking to a Japanese" sounds wrong and also a little racist, and so we would normally say "I am talking to a Japanese person" ? Idk even the words to search for grammar rules like that
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@jonny Something else to throw into the pot: the -ese words are commonly used as nouns, but for languages, not people: Vietnamese, Japanese, Chinese. Is that one reason why it’s awkward to use them as demonyms? (I can’t think of examples of -ese nationalities that aren’t languages.) And -ish words are similar: Finnish, Spanish.
@jonny
Not sure, but... 🤔
Not sure, but... 🤔
How does "I am talking to a Portugese" sound? It sounds odd to me, too. I think we want these words to be adjectives only.
That's where the "-ese" ending comes from (due to the circumstances of Western contact). None of the Asian countries we use it for actually have it in their language -- a Japanese person is a "Nihonjin" in Japanese language ("Nihongo"), for example.
@jonny great question. I think Japanese is an adjective and there is no corresponding demonym. You can't count Japaneses. You can only talk about "the Japanese." Anyway here are some demonyms and adjectives.
@jonny There is a variety of demonyms which sound wrong for an entirely different reason: "I am talking to a Manx/Alsatian/Dalmatian/Pomeranian/Siamese" make it sound to me as if am channeling Doctor Doolittle because the terms have been co-opted by companion animals
@jonny one of the grammar terms to look for might be substantivized adjective. and the usage notes on this page make it sound like the -ese suffix is generally not substantivized into a noun, but rather remains an adjective. that's probably what makes it feel wrong to use -ese without "a(n) x-ese person"
i'm just a random idiot and this could be way off
@jonny here's a Reddit thread discussing this: https://www.reddit.com/r/grammar/comments/a8re5r/why_does_an_american_sound_correct_but_a_chinese/
@jonny "I am talking to a Japanese" "I am talking to a Polish" "I am talking to British" -> these seem really common and the "an" ending is the exception (?)
@jonny Not a linguist but I noticed the ones that sound OK without 'person' end in -an and the ones that sound wrong end in -ese. My guess is the -ese turns things into adjectives, so you need a noun to go with it. So for any word that is an adjective (Chinese, Japanese, Burmese, French, Spanish) you need 'person' and for any term that is a noun (Norwegian, Australian, Brazilian) you don't.
@jackyan
That's what I was thinking too, but why are some only adjectives while others are adjectives and nouns? E.g. one can say "I am Japanese" and "They are Japanese" as one would say "I am German" - like why does word ending cause some words to not be nouns even when they are the word for that country that would be used in all the matching places the noun form of other countries would be?
That's what I was thinking too, but why are some only adjectives while others are adjectives and nouns? E.g. one can say "I am Japanese" and "They are Japanese" as one would say "I am German" - like why does word ending cause some words to not be nouns even when they are the word for that country that would be used in all the matching places the noun form of other countries would be?
@jonny Great question and observation. I imagine some will be down to usage evolution. Also the difference between -an and -ese could be down to when Anglophones encountered each group?
@jackyan
And I have noticed my Japanese friends who learned English as a second language sometimes saying "he is a Japanese," so it seems like it might just be an English idiomatic thing? But I'm curious where that comes from, if there is a name for that phenomenon
And I have noticed my Japanese friends who learned English as a second language sometimes saying "he is a Japanese," so it seems like it might just be an English idiomatic thing? But I'm curious where that comes from, if there is a name for that phenomenon
