Why does English have different suffixes for referring to different ethnicities

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Like for example, why do we say things like Scottish, Saudi Arabian and Japanese and not things like Japanian, Arabish or Scottese?

Bonus points if somebody can point a reason why a lot of these suffixes are pretty consistent to their world regions? Many European countries refer to their people as ___ish, many Asian countries as ___ese and many Middle Eastern countries as ____ian?

Thanks!!

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4 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

There’s also some that are completely off the wall. Yeah Pennsylvanian or Texan make sense, but a person from Indiana? A Hoosier.

Poor Purdue kids.

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