-ian OR -ese

"I know here are a lot of teachers and scholars, would you please explain on the distinguishing expressions on nationalities? The parlance I heard was that -ian means a more powerful country behind it in history and -ese the opposite? Is that true?"

"-ian or -an
American
Canadian
Australian
etc
...

-ese
Chinese
Japanese
Viet Namese
Burmese
etc
"
I read this on another forum and couldn't give myself an answer.?..
Any idea??

"American" doesn't end in "ian".

It has nothing at all to do with a country's power or weakness. It often has more to do with which ending is easier to combine with the root form of the country's name. Sometimes it may also just be completely arbitrary. They may be Vietnamese in Vietnam, but they're Guamanian on Guam, even though both places end with -am.

And don't forget there are many other adjectival forms besides -an or -ian and -ese. In Spain and Finland they speak Spanish and Finnish, Czechoslovakia was full of Czechs, people in the Phillippines are filipino, Switzerland has many Swiss, France is home to the French, Iran and Jordan are populated by Iranians and Jordanians but Iraq and Israel have Iraqis and Israelis. In Iceland they are Icelandic. And it can get more complicated than that: Sweden has Swedes who speak Swedish, Poland has Poles who speak Polish, inhabitants of the Netherlands are Dutch, and so on.

Adam, if you read the original post again, you'll see that provision was made for -ian OR -an.

<<"I know here are a lot of teachers and scholars, would you please explain on the distinguishing expressions on nationalities? The parlance I heard was that -ian means a more powerful country behind it in history and -ese the opposite? Is that true?">>

That theory doesn't hold much weight now does it? How can one say that China and Japan aren't or were never powerful countries when they controlled or influenced much of East Asia at one time or another. And then you have the terms "Portuguese", "Aragonese", and "Genoese", all of whom were major European powers back in the day.

Also, the terms "American", "Canadian", and "Australian" came about long before these countries rose in prominence. If you were to argue, "Yeah but they were all colonies of England, a powerful country, hence the -ian or -an suffix". Well, Vietnam was once a colony of France, another powerful country, yet the people of that country are called "Vietnamese" not "Vietnamian".

The -an, -ian, and -ese suffixes all stem from the Latin adjectival naming system:

-ian or -an, from Latin, –ianus, meaning "native of", "relating to", or "belonging to"

-ese, from the Latin, -ensis, meaning "originating in"

Why one nationality got assigned a -ian or -an suffix in the English language, while another got the -ese suffix is either an arbitrary evolution from an earlier form (usually from French), or simply whatever sounded nicer at the time, or maybe a combination of the two. At least, that's my theory, anyway.

Doggonnit, Uriel! You posted before I got to refresh. :-(

That's okay, Julian -- you busted out with the Latin roots -- very impressive! I had forgotten about that!

Re: -ian; -ese Both suffixes come from a Latin tradition as previously mentioned. Sinensis and Japonensis are neo-Latin words for 'Chinese' and 'Japanese' found in some botanical names.

The -ian(us) suffix is Latin but appears to be more Late Latin. For example, the Imperial Romans used Dacicus, Macedonicus, Parthicus (Trajanus Parthicus = Roman emperor and conqueror 101-106 A.D.) as epithets for 'Dacian', 'Macedonian' and 'Parthian' rather than Dacianus, Macedonianus, Parthianus etc. .

There is no hard fast rule as to how they were used but generally -ensis was used for smaller places like cities or towns as in Gallia Lugdonensis, a part of ancient Gaul named after the town of Lugdunum (Celtic for 'Lug's Fortress' < Lug the Celtic god of light), the modern French city of Lyon which has -ese in the adjectival form as in "eggs cooked Lyonese style." But there was also Gallia Aquitania (Aquitanian Gaul) named after the province (or region) of Aquitania in western Gaul (France).

"-ensis was used for smaller places" ... I wonder how we ended up with "Chinese" ...

See the first sentence in that last paragraph of Julian's:

<<There is no hard fast rule as to how they were used >>

Of course there is no hard and fast rule. It's just interesting that a suffix used generally for small things ended up being used for the third largest country in the World.

Well, "Chinian" sounds weird.

...and my 2nd grade teacher told us that Asians were '-ese' and everyone else was '-ian', '-ish', and '-an'.

Ignorance is the price you pay for American schools...

That'd be right... a room full of slackers... I mean students blaming schools and teachers for their loser attitude. Yeah, Korean should be "Kor-ese" because of teacher's hard-and-fast rule and discouragement for reading books.

I went to American schools and I never heard such a bullshit statement.