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In English there is a very notable asymmetry between demonyms ending in -ese and -ish and other demonyms. The latter can be used as a regular count noun, but the former are almost always restricted to being plural:

  • An American, two Americans, the Americans
  • *A British, *two British, the British
  • *A Portuguese, *two Portuguese, the Portuguese

In these examples, the -ish and -ese demonyms are not only mostly used in the plural, but mostly used in the specific construction "the ____ese/-ish". The other forms are possible, but seem discouraged and even criticized by some pedants.

It's especially strange when it comes to the French-origin -ese suffix. Parallels in German and of course French don't inhibit countability and declension at all:

  • (German) Ein Chinese, zwei Chinesen, die Chinesen (singular Chinese, plural Chinesen; ein for "a(n)/one", zwei for "two", die for plural "the")
  • (French) Un Anglais, deux Anglais, les Anglais (singular Anglais, plural Anglais; Anglais for "English(man)", un for "a(n)/one", deux for "two", les for plural "the")
  • (French) Un Finnois, deux Finnois, les Finnois (singular Finnois, plural Finnois; Finnois for "Finn")

(Note for the French examples, there's no irregularity. The plural forms are simply exactly the same as the singular ones because the singular ones already have an s at the end.)

German doesn't seem to use its own version of -ish, -isch, for demonymic nouns, instead opting for -er as in Engländer (not * Englisch) or Deutscher (not * Deutsch).

So what is with English that there's this arbitrary "rule"? Why doesn't it sound quite "right" to say something like "I saw two Japanese at the market yesterday" or "There was a blond British at the mall"?

Edit: Apparently the way the suffix -ese behaves now is rather new. It used to be acceptable to use Chinese the same way you would have American. Here are some quotes from Basil Hall Chamberlain's translation of the Kojiki:

Korean King and of three or four other Koreans and Chinese.

But the compiler of the latter work, whose object it was to appear and to make his forefathers appear, as reasonable as a learned Chinese, adds a gloss to the effect that [...]

A Japanese, to whom the origin of the word is patent, and who uses it every day in contexts by no means divine [...]

Vun-Hugh Vaw
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    Note that Dane::Danish is analogous to Briton::British. Your title may need adjustment. Also two Chinese and two Japanese have certainly been acceptable in the past and may still be. – Andrew Leach Oct 16 '22 at 08:08
  • Title fixed. It's funny you mentioned the past, because I remember reading this translation of the Kojiki by Basil Hall Chamberlain and he did use "a Chinese" from what I can recall. When did that start to become "wrong", even deemed "racist" by some. – Vun-Hugh Vaw Oct 16 '22 at 08:53
  • Are you sure you aren’t confusing fused modifier-head NPs with actual nouns? Related and possible duplicates: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10. – tchrist Oct 16 '22 at 15:00
  • @tchrist I'm aware that there are such expressions as "the deaf", "the blind", "the dead" wherein no reasonable person would consider "deaf", "blind" or "dead" nouns. But demonyms are problematic, because they do in fact double as nouns and are labeled as nouns in some dictionaries. But thanks for that term, "fused modifier-head NP". "The Chinese" might be nothing but a fused modifier-head NP, or it's actually a noun phrase in itself, given how the word "Chinese" used to be used by writers like Basil Hall Chamberlain. – Vun-Hugh Vaw Oct 16 '22 at 15:07
  • @tchrist the fact people say "the Americans", is in my opinion evidence for why "the Chinese" and "the British" might not be as simple as "fused modifier-head noun phrases". Because why then wouldn't anyone say "the American" instead? Isn't "American" an adjective too? Why must there be separate treatments for the -ish and -ese adjectives and adjectives with other endings? – Vun-Hugh Vaw Oct 16 '22 at 15:47
  • Buzzer: A British and a Portuguese.. A British person, woman, man or dog. The same goes for Portuguese. Especially Portuguese water dogs. [joke] – Lambie Oct 16 '22 at 19:19
  • Irishman is ok, but Chinaman is not -- even though other uses parallel "Chinaman," such as "Clansman," and even "Jamaicaman." – Ann Oct 18 '22 at 19:12
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    Here are two perfectly valid instances of the sequence *two Portuguese sat* and many instances of *the Portuguese asked* clearly showing the word used as both a singular and a collective noun. *The British, on the other hand, only works as a collective. We don't normally say Two British sat at the bar. They'd be Two Brit[on]s*. – FumbleFingers Oct 23 '22 at 02:08
  • Still more related questions about the Chineses from the same asker. – tchrist Mar 24 '23 at 04:27

2 Answers2

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There is already an established way to nominalise the following country adjectives: English, Welsh, Scottish, Irish, and French and that is by adding the suffixes -man, -men, -woman and -women: Englishman, Scotsman, Welshman, Irishman, and Frenchman are still used today along with their female counterparts while the gender-neutral person is rarely, if ever, attached to a demonymic word *Englishperson.

There is also Briton and its plural Britons from which the more popular diminutive forms Brit and Brits were most likely derived. This might explain why the English language has never felt the necessity to make the demonyms English and British function as nouns too, that gap had already been filled.

On a final note, the plural Englishes denotes the different varieties of the spoken language in the world and not to the inhabitants of England.

Mari-Lou A
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  • I suppose. If there's already a well established way, why bother with anything else? Although the binary suffixes -man and -woman are more and more problematic, so we have to deal with ungainly two word constructions like "English person" which still irks a neat freak like me. Why do you work like this, English??? – Vun-Hugh Vaw Oct 18 '22 at 14:40
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The answer lies in the function of these words:

In English, no* adjectives take inflections regardless of their function in the sentence:

The large cat / the American soldier

*The larges cats / * the Americans soldiers.

The word British is not a common noun, it is only an adjective that can be used

(i) attributively: "The British weather is fickle."

(ii) predicatively "I am British" and

(iii) substantivised "The British are phlegmatic."

There is a parallel with other such words, e.g. "deaf"

The deaf patients are seen on Thursday / He is deaf / The deaf are very patient. (* The deafs are in the waiting room.)

Thus substantivised adjectives appear to act as uncountable nouns.

Some, but not all, demonyms (see Wikipedia's List) are common nouns and thus do take a plural:

That American has a large car / Those Americans have large cars.

*valid for large values of "no." There are a few adopted foreign adjectives that are sometimes pretentiously inflected for gender.

Greybeard
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    I don't think this is as clear cut as "adjectives vs nouns". Some dictionaries actually list "the British" in a "noun" entries, while simultaneously list "deaf" exclusively as "adjective". Moreover, this still doesn't explain why other adjectives like "American" have plural forms. The suffix -anus was originally adjectival in Latin, and later nominalized in both Latin, and English -an. Plus there's also the adjectival Latin -ensis which bore English -ese, but which isn't as functional in English as -an. – Vun-Hugh Vaw Oct 16 '22 at 10:47
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    other adjectives like "American" have plural forms. That is rather my point - adjectives do not have plurals... Your questions to yourself should be "Is it a noun or an adjective? Can I add 's'?" – Greybeard Oct 16 '22 at 14:02
  • @Vun-HughVaw You won't get any further grammatically trying this on ❌ a French, let alone with ❌ any Frenches you might come across. Nouning gentilic adjectives of these sorts risks being insultingly inappropriate, lest it produce cheesy nonsense like Danishes instead of Danes — or even Polishes instead of Poles. – tchrist Oct 16 '22 at 14:25
  • "risks being insultingly inappropriate", so is it like a matter of style or politeness? That's kind of weird but I suppose it's a possible reason. Could you elaborate on this with an answer? – Vun-Hugh Vaw Oct 16 '22 at 15:10
  • @Greybeard Okay, poor choice of words. What I meant was "other nominalized adjectives with plural forms". As in adjectives that became fully fledged nouns, like "American". – Vun-Hugh Vaw Oct 16 '22 at 15:20
  • @Greybeard There's also another wrinkle to your line of reasoning. If "British" in "the British" is undoubtedly an adjective, not a pluralizable noun, then why do people also say "the Americans" instead of "the American". Why not just use the adjective American in such apparently parallel construction? What's so special about the suffixes -ish and -ese that make them incapable of generating true nouns with plural forms? – Vun-Hugh Vaw Oct 16 '22 at 15:37
  • @Greybeard If you insist on this "adjective not noun" line of reasoning, then you could think of my question as about why "British" in "the British" and "Chinese" in "the Chinese" must be adjectives, but "American" in "the Americans" must be a noun? – Vun-Hugh Vaw Oct 16 '22 at 15:41
  • @tchrist Hmm, there's a germ of an answer in the comments. Isn't that frowned upon? – Mari-Lou A Oct 17 '22 at 00:24
  • @Mari-LouA I don't have an answer, just ideas. And I have no proof. – tchrist Oct 17 '22 at 00:25
  • @Vun-HughVaw You misunderstand: the word “British” can function only as an adjective; the word “American” can function as an adjective or a noun. Nouns can be pluralised - adjectives can't. – Greybeard Oct 17 '22 at 10:41
  • @Greybeard I don't actually. Again, if you insist "British" in "the British" is without a doubt an adjective, then why do we say "the Americans" instead of "the American"? Why do we use adjectives some of the times, and noun other times, in the same kind of construction? Is the simple fact that one spelling, "American", represents both an adjective and a noun is good enough a justification? In that case, I could make a case that one spelling, "British", also represents both, with "British" is in fact a number-invariable noun, the same way "sheep" or "fish" is. – Vun-Hugh Vaw Oct 17 '22 at 16:44
  • @Vun-HughVaw Again, if you insist "British" in "the British" is without a doubt an adjective Please be careful in the use of conditionals - my insisting on anything does not affect the noun and adjective "American". Language evolves by use, and evolution is not regular. In my answer, I linked to a list of demonyms: Your job is to find some "rule" that will satisfy you: I can't see one, but then I think there are no "rules" in English - there is only guidance. As a consequence, all I can do is explain the grammar behind the eclectic list. – Greybeard Oct 17 '22 at 19:57
  • @Greybeard I'm sorry but you seem to completely miss the point of my question. If all I was looking for was "English is irregular, deal with it" then why would I even bother asking anyway? Yes there's no absolute rule, yes language is complicated, but that does not mean language is just completely illogical for the lack of rules in itself. I said "what stopped" and "why" precisely to figure out if there's any logic to this at all. Like I said in my now edited question, it used to be possible to say "a Japanese", which means there must be a reason why you can't do that now. – Vun-Hugh Vaw Oct 18 '22 at 02:12
  • 2nd, I know you're explaining the grammar points you think is relevant, and I've already acknowledged that. But I also pointed out in my comments that it's possible for "British" to be grammatically a noun, given how many reputable dictionaries (Longman, Merriam-Webster, Oxford) label them as such, and the plethora of other demonyms that are both adjectives and nouns. You're just assuming it's an unchangeable fact that "British" is an adjective and simply incapable of becoming a noun. That's not a given. "English" started out as an adjective too, but it's now a regular noun just like any other – Vun-Hugh Vaw Oct 18 '22 at 02:21
  • Your answer is, at best, very limited in scope, because it only addresses the -ish word as indisputable adjectives without considering any other possible reason why they're so unique compared to -ese and -an words. At worst, it's redundant because I've already acknowledged the existence of such construction as "the + adjective", by this point, multiple times, and I've also pointed out the flaws in that line of reasoning as regards this specific question of mine. – Vun-Hugh Vaw Oct 18 '22 at 02:27
  • @Vun-HughVaw In my answer, I linked to a list of demonyms: Your job is to find some "rule" that will satisfy you: I can't see one, but then I think there are no "rules" in English - there is only guidance. As a consequence, all I can do is explain the grammar behind the eclectic list. I think it is time for you to do some work. – Greybeard Oct 18 '22 at 09:38
  • Again, I'm not asking for "rules", but possible theories. Ironically enough, in your vehement denial of rules, your answer is perfectly demonstrative of a rule: "'British' in 'the British' is definitely an adjective, and adjective don't have plural forms like nouns do" – Vun-Hugh Vaw Oct 18 '22 at 14:31