Demonym

With the help of popular names ( ethnonyms or Ethnic ) ethnic groups or peoples are named state ( in the form of Demonymen ). The ethnonymy as a branch of onomastics and Ethnology deals with collection, classification and mapping of these names as well as their interpretation, conceptual history and sociological and linguistic function.

Word Meaning and Definition

Ethnonym comes from the Greek ethnos ἔθνος " people, people group, population " and ὄνομα onoma " name " in the suffix- nym, Demonym of δῆμος in the same meaning. Other expressions are ethnic name, Common name, ethnic group or tribal designation designation.

The underlying concepts Ethnos, Demos, people, ethnicity, nation diffizil delineate, and according to the names of terms often in several of these senses in use. While the term Demonym focused settlement geographical aspects, the ethnonym processed primarily populated geographical aspects. In most cases, this is roughly congruent, but there are numerous variations, such as Saracens, gypsies, and similar terms Welsche complex levels of meaning. The separation between ethno - Demonym Glottonym and is not necessarily the case ( the name of the language used ) in many cases, with some names but significantly ( German / German, English / English), it is rarely clear ( Roman / Latin).

Classification and formation

Two categories are distinguished:

  • Autonymous ( autos "self" ): self or one's own name
  • Xenonyme ( xenos " foreign" ): External or foreign name

While self- designations will be considered positively - and in so far is essential part of the identity of an ethnic group - or a general character, foreign names are often pejoratively ( Ethnophaulismen ). So, for example, a number of self- definitions derive simply from the respective word "man", while foreign names are selected in the sense of " Sprachunkundiger " (Polish Niemiec " Mute " for German, or nonspecific Barbarian " Stammler " for the non-Greek peoples )

A common phenomenon is the designation of a people for a subgroup whose eg, French allemand " German " after the Alemanni or Estonian sakslane " German " by the Saxons.

In English, the adjectival form of the word, the membership adjective, often created through -ish, and the noun, if it is not already the root, by - er,- ier, or - ienna. See, for example, the etymology of the word " German ".

Linguistic position

The People's names are a subset of the collective names ( socionyma ). You can group members be used as a proper name ( proprium ) of a specific group, such as genus name ( appellatives ). Therefore, they take an intermediate position in these two basic classes of nouns.

Name suffixes

Following Suffixkonstruktionen be people names often by certain of the folk, country or language name characterized.

  • -e e - Bulgaria → Bulgarian, Denmark → Danish, Finland → Finn, Estonia → Este, Greece → Greek, Ireland → Irish, Croatia → Croatian, Latvia → Lette, Poland → Pole, Romania → Romanian, Serbia → Serbian, Scotland → Scottish, Sweden → Swedish, Slovak Slovakia → Slovenia → Slovene, Czech Republic → Czech, Turkey Turk →
  • Arde - Savoie Savoyard →
  • - ne Chile Chilean →
  • - (ec) → asse Madagascar Malagasy, Monaco Monegasque →
  • - ese China → Chinese, Genoa Genoese →, → Calabria Calabrian, Lebanon → Lebanese, Nepal → Nepalese, Sudan → Sudanese, Taiwan → Taiwanese, Vietnam → Vietnamese
  • - hese Portugal → Portuguese
  • Read- Congo → Congolese
  • He - Egypt → Egypt, Albania → Albanian → English England, Gibraltar → Gibraltarians, India → Indians, Iraq → Iraqi, Iran → Iranians, Italy → Italian, Japan → Japanese → Libya Libyans, Lithuania → Lithuanians, New Zealand → New Zealanders, Norway → Norwegian → Pakistan Pakistanis, Sri Lanka Sri Lankans → Ukraine → Ukrainian
  • - ( i) → Algeria Algerians, Argentina → Argentina, Armenia → Armenian, Australia → Australian → Georgia Georgians, Indonesia → Indonesians, Canada → Canadian, Spain → Spaniard, Tunisia Tunisians →
  • - ( a) ner → Cuba Cubans, Korea → Korea, United States of America → American, South Africa → South Africans, Venezuelans → Venezuela, Haiti Haitians → Morocco → Moroccan, Mexico → Mexicans, Peruvians Peru →
  • - eser Malta → Maltese
  • - iter → Muscovite Muscovy
  • -at Asia → Asian
  • -it Israel ( Ancient ) → Israelite, Yemen Yemeni →
  • - iot Cyprus → Cypriot,
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