The word " gentilicio " is used as a noun to refer to the inhabitants of a certain region or country. This means that, for example, a person born in Mexico is Mexican; a person residing in London is a Londoner; an inhabitant of Argentina is an Argentine; and so on. All this will depend on the etymology used in the region, and from there infinite gentilices arise according to the cultural and ethnic integrity of the place.
What is a gentilicio
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When it is said what is gentilicio, mention is made of a person who comes from a certain geographical place or who lives in it. This is called gentilic adjectives. On the other hand, the gentilicio nouns make mention of the person or thing coming from a place, being able to substitute its name only for the gentilicio.
These adjectives are generally derived from the name of a person's place of origin, be it their country, state, city, province or town. In another sense, in the same way they are also used to name a person who follows or belongs to some institution, a political party, lineage or family.
Even if a person changes their place of residence, they will not cease to be from where they came; That is why the name is an unbreakable condition of the human being, of vital importance for society and that denotes the culture of each person.
On certain occasions, they are also used to call someone out of affection; In other words, the person adopts his own nickname as a nickname, and this is because his cultural roots stand out notoriously, so this is common in small communities. It is not strange to meet a baker who is nicknamed "the Portuguese", or referred to as "the Chinese", among other cases.
The etymology of this word comes from the Latin word “ gentilitus ”; whose prefix "gens" or "gentis" means "tribe" or "family" and the suffix "itus" relates to "belonging" or "relationship". In this sense, its name indicates the origin of an individual with respect to the place where it comes from.
On the other hand, there is the concept of hypocoristic associated with this adjective, and that represents the qualification of a gentilicio to a person as an affectionate nickname. This has taken on an affectionate and joking value, although its origin had more tendencies towards the pejorative. Examples are the "ticos" in Costa Rica or the "chilangos" in Mexico City.
How to build a name
The Spanish language is the one that has the most of these adjectives, its flexibility is so great that you can create one from anywhere. Spanish is an abundant, evolutionary language, characterized, popular and easy to conjugate, it is important to highlight the use of gentilics with this language since the vast majority are derived in this language.
For the composition of each of them, a large part of the name of the place of origin is usually taken (which in this case would be the eponymous) and, sometimes, the whole word. A clear example of the last case is the name of a person from Colombia, since the one corresponding to the inhabitants of this country is “Colombian”; As can be seen, all the letters of the name of the country were used to form the gentilicio.
However, there are authors who claim that there are no defined rules for the creation of gentilices, although they suggest (as already mentioned) that the root (also called lexeme) and the suffix (also called morpheme) be taken. There will be some cases where more than one morpheme applies; for example, with the inhabitants of the city of Quito, whose original name could be "quiteño" or "quitense", both terms being correct.
According to the number that exist, their construction rules can be summarized as:
- When nouns end in a vowel, the morpheme –ano or –ino must be used to form their name.
- When it ends in –land, -landia or –landa, the morpheme –és or –esa is added (special case Denmark).
- When it ends in a consonant, such as “d”, “l” or “n”, the morpheme –í is usually added, although it can take the morpheme –eño or –ero.
- When it ends in –on, -ord or –polis, its morpheme will be –iano.
In some cases, these adjectives are determined by other aspects that are not directly related to the provenance name, such as historical or language related. Such is the case of the inhabitants of Mexico, whose ethnic name is Mexican and Mexican, but they are also called Aztec due to the empire with the same name that made life in Central American territory before the Spanish conquest. The same happens with the Lusitanians (inhabitants of Portugal), the Helvetians (inhabitants of Switzerland), the Teutons (inhabitants of Germany) or those colloquially called “Ticos” (inhabitants of Costa Rica).
Some of the most used morphemes in the construction of ethnic names are:
- year / ana (as Veracruzano and Veracruzana, Campechano and Campechana, Baja California and Baja California).
- –Ense (like Coahuilense, Hidalguense, Cuernavaquense).
- –Ino / ina (such as potosino and potosina, villahermosino and villahermosina, capitalino and capitalina).
- –Eco / eca (as Chiapaneco and Chiapaneca, Yucatecan and Yucatecan, Tamaulipeco and Tamaulipeca).
- –És / esa (such as Neo-Leonese and Neo-Leonese, Cordovan and Cordovan, Thai and Thai).
- –I (as Moroccan, Iranian, Guarani).
- –Eño / eña (such as Acapulqueño and Acapulqueña, Colimeño and Colimeña, La Paz and La Paz)
- –Ero / era (like santanero and santanera, barranquillero and barranquillera, santiaguero and santiaguera)
- –Ejo / eja (as cañarejo and cañareja, linarejo and linareja); -aco / aca (such as Austrian and Austrian, Polish and Polish, Slovak and Slovak).
- –Io / ia (such as Egyptian and Egyptian, Libyan and Libyan, Serbian and Serbian); among many others.
Types of people
There are several types, and these are:
Gentilic adjectives with highly used suffixes
This type is the one that has the most used morphemes or suffixes. Among them we can mention:
- –Ano / ana. Example: Colombian and Colombian, Bolivian and Bolivian, Ecuadorian and Ecuadorian, Mexican and Mexican.
- –Sense. Example: Rio de la Plata, Buenos Aires, Hollywoodense, Jalisco (from Jalisco).
- –Eño / eña. Example: Brazilian and Brazilian, Panamanian and Panamanian, Guadalajareño and Guadalajareña, Belizean and Belizean.
- –Th / that. Example: English and English, Dutch and Dutch, Scottish and Scottish, Japanese and Japanese.
- –Iano / iana. Example: Hawaiian and Hawaiian, Italian and Italian, Haitian and Haitian, Asturian and Asturian.
Gentilices with suffixes of occasional use
This class deals with those whose morphemes are of occasional appearance, as the case of:
- –I open. Example: Cantabrian (from Cantabria, Spain), whose bro (from Armenia, Quindío department in Colombia; it should be mentioned that this term is pejorative).
- –Aco / here. Example: Austrian and Austrian, Slovak and Slovak, Polish and Polish.
- –Ache. Example: Malagasy (from the island Madagascar).
- -Hello. Example: Gallic.
- –Ando. Example: benicarlando (from Benicarló in Spain).
- –Ata. Example: Galatian, Croatian, Kenyan.
- –Ego / ega. Example: Greek and Greek, Galician and Galician, Norwegian and Norwegian.
- –Eno / ena. Example: Nazareno and Nazarena, Chilean and Chilean, Heleno and Helena.
- –Eo / ea. Example: European and European, Galilean and Galilean, Eritrean and Eritrean.
- –Ero / era. Example: habanero and habanera, santiaguero and santiaguera, Brazilian and Brazilian.
- –Ino / ina. Example: Filipino and Filipino, Algerian and Algerian, Andean and Andean.
- –Io / ia. Example: Libyan and Libyan, Syrian and Syrian, Indian and Indian.
- –Ita. Example: selenite, yemenite, salemite.
- –On. Example: Japanese, Teutonic, Macedonian.
- –Ope. Example: Ethiopian.
- –Ol / wave. Example: Spanish and Spanish, Mongolian and Mongolian.
- - note. Example: Tokyo, Cypriot, Cariot.
- -or. Example: Hindu, Papuan, Zulu.
- –Ucho / ucha. Example: gaucho and gaucha, maracucho and maracucha.
- –Light. Example: Andalusian.
Special cases
Since the rules are not applicable to all types of names, there are special cases in which they cannot be anticipated based on their toponym. A particular case is that of the same place names but their names are different (the case of Cuenca, Spain, whose name is Cuenca; and Cuenca, Ecuador, whose ethnic name is Cuenca).
Particular cases
- Hydro-warm and hydro-warm (name of Aguascalientes).
- Hand and hand (corresponds to those of Aragon, Spain).
- Complutense (name of Alcalá de Henares, Spain).
- Porteño and porteña (referring to those from Buenos Aires, Argentina).
- Hierosolimitano and hierosolimitana (gentilicio of Jerusalem).
- Materditano and materditana (name of Madre de Dios, Peru).
- Carioca (corresponds to those of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil).
In some cases the morphemes are linked to some geographic area. In the case of the morphemes –eco and –eca, they are mostly related to the names of Mexico and Central America, such as: Zacateco and Zacateca, Guatemalan and Guatemalan. Another case is the morpheme –i, which is used for Asians and North Africans, such as: Somali, Saudi, Iraqi.
The gentilicio of India is Indian and Indian, and tends to generate confusion, since there are those who think that it is " Hindu ", when in fact this is the way to which those who profess the religion of Hinduism are called.
The alternative names
They are those that coexist with others whose origin may be different (due to their place-name, historical or other origin).
Among the people whose past is historical there are the following examples:
- Germano (a) and Teutón (a) for those of Germany; Hispanic (a) and Iberian (a) for those of Spain.
- Galo (a) for those from France; Hellenic (a) for those of Greece.
- Azteca for those from Mexico.
- Hebrew for those of Israel.
- Magyar for those from Hungary.
- Chapín (a) for those from Guatemala.
- Guaraní for those from Paraguay.
- Inca for those from Peru.
- Boricua for those from Puerto Rico.
- Luso (a) and Lusitano (a) for those from Portugal.
The people from dynasties
In the past of each country, there are the following examples: Siamese (a) for those of Thailand; Persian for those from Iran; Ottoman for those of Turkey; Japanese (a) for those of Japan; Helvetius (a) and Helvetic (a) for those from Switzerland.
Non-topographic names
It corresponds to the group that do not have their origin or relationship with their toponymy and that are not official, although their use is common among the inhabitants of said geographical space. An example is the case of Castillejo de Azaba, Salamanca in Spain, which have the adjective of foxes, since in that geographical area there are many of these canids.
Gentile in English
Here is a list of examples of English names:
- Antigua and Barbudans. People of Antigua and Barbuda.
- Dane or Danish. People of Denmark.
- Belarusian. From Belarus.
- Cape Verdean or Cape Verdian. From Cape Verde.
- Ecuadorean. From Ecuador.
- Greece. From Greece.
- Haitian. From Haiti.
- Jamaican. From jamaica.
- Mexican. From Mexico.
- Netherlander, Dutchman / woman, Hollander, Dutch. From Holland.
- Peruvian. From Peru.
- Qatari. From Qatar.
- Spaniard or Spanish. From Spain.
- Turk or Turkish. From Turkey.
- Emirian. From United Arab Emirates.
- Vietnamese. From Vietnam.
- Zimbabwean. From Zimbabwe.
