Dave's ESL Cafe's Student Discussion Forums

[nadinem]

Hi!
I need your help!
Actually, i am writing my graduation paper on linguistics and need native speakers' assistance to arrive at some conclusions.
The subject is forming people's nationality from the place they were born, like in America-American.
Nationality is not the exact word, as names of towns, islands and states are also in the scope of work.
Please, try and form nationality words from the place names below:
1. Memphis
2. Toledo
3. Galloway
4. Arlington
5. Minneapolis
6. Palermo
7. Niger
8. Colorado
9. Indiana
10. Quito
You can post your answers here or send me an email at [email protected]
_________________
cheers, N

[Bob S.]

Some of what you are looking for can be found at the CIA World Factbook. You can link to it thru: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA_World_Factbook or go directly to it at www.cia.gov/cia/publications/factbook (though it wasn't working at the time I wrote this).

Adjective forms of many places can be found here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_adjectival_forms_of_place_names

For those state and city governments in the U.S., see http://www.statelocalgov.net/index.cfm (some may have the adjective form in their government homepage).

[nadinem]

Hi!
Thanks for the links, so are really very interesting and useful.
However, actually, what i need is not a standard word form (the standards, or some of them are registered in dictionaries). I am more interested in how people actually do it, form these adjectives.
Now, i know that a person living in Belgium is Belgian, and probably you do. And if you did not, what would you call him?
And if there exist several possible variant to call the person, which one would you choose? Why?

Dictionaries is one thing, word creation and usage - another Try and create a couple of words, or just say you know how they are formed.
_________________
cheers, N

[Bob S.]

Okay, then just off the top of my head (nothing official here):
1. Memphis - Memphan, Memphisite
2. Toledo - Toledoan, Toledoite
3. Galloway - Gallowayean
4. Arlington - Arlingtonian
5. Minneapolis - Minneapolan, Minneapolitan
6. Palermo - Palermoan, Palermian
7. Niger - Nigeran (Nigerien sounds too much like Nigerian)
8. Colorado - Coloradan, Coloradoan
9. Indiana - Hoosier, Indianan
10. Quito - Quitan, Quitoian

Anybody got other ideas?

Edited: Cheeseheads are from Wisconsin, not Minnesota. My mistake.
-Bob

[nadinem]

thanks for feedback, if you are interested, i could publish the summarized survey results and the dictionary variants of the words.

But that will be later when more feedback received and analysed.
_________________
cheers, N