It's apparently not only us Goanese (oops, sorry!) who get into a
tizzy every now and again over what we are called. And unlike what
Uncle George J. Pinto says, I believe this debate is crucial for us to
understand why Goans disagree so strongly with one another, and why we
could never taken a united front on, say, mining!
Check out this very interesting Linguish.net ("where English meets
linguistics") blog, which appears to me to be a rather rational
discussion on the subject.
Thomas Tsoi writes
[http://www.linglish.net/2008/10/22/so-many-nationality-suffixes/]
about there being so many nationality suffixes. He says:
QUOTE
After posting my other article So many negative prefixes, I received
very positive feedback and many readers apparently found the article
interesting and useful. Indeed, these little affixes (prefixes and
suffixes) can be puzzling when they are similar in meaning but
nevertheless non-interchangeable. That makes people ask why they are
what they are: is there a subtle rule beneath all the messy
superficial distribution, or things just happen by chance?
Not long ago, a friend asked me whether there are rules governing the
usage of those suffixes of nationality, such as -ese, -ian and -ish. I
thought about it for a while, then I remembered that years ago I read
a post on the Internet, saying that -ese is a derogatory ending used
only on those countries that the western world thought to be inferior,
so we have adjectives like Chinese, Vietnamese and Burmese. After all,
many of the Asian countries do form their adjectives in -ese. But I
had doubts, don’t the westerners just love Japanese stuff? And why
Korean, Indian, Malaysian and Indonesian then? So I decided to look
for the answer myself.
UNQUOTE
Check out some of his 'maps', about who gets called where. Amazing stuff!
In particular check this:
QUOTE
-ese
Let us now turn to the controversial suffix -ese. You could well say
that there does not seem to be a pattern geographically. Countries
using -ese are scattered everywhere in Asia, Africa, South America,
and we also have Portugal in Europe! But my attention turns to Italian
when I give this suffix some more thought.
UNQUOTE
And now you expect me to tell you who was right, eh? Sorry, for that
you have to visit
[http://www.linglish.net/2008/10/22/so-many-nationality-suffixes/]
You'll be amazed at what the good Tsoi says in conclusion!
This has been a rather interesting and educative debate! I've learnt
too! For a wonder, we didn't have people cursing each other too early
in the debate. So a lot of ideas came up and water flowed down the
Mandovi (yes, together with mining rejects, and barges taking good
earth out so that Commie China can prop up Capitalist US, et al) etc
etc... FN
--
Frederick Noronha :: +91-832-2409490
Writing, editing, alt.publishing, photography, journalism
ANOTHER GOA: http://tiny.cc/anothergoa
