Why does English have different suffixes for languages (-ese, -ish, -an)?
In: Culture
The “true” English demonym suffix is -ish, e.g. Spanish, Turkish, Welsh, Swedish.
However sometime in the last few centuries English speakers stopped applying that suffix, and instead started borrowing existing demonyms from other languages, mostly French.
Do other languages not have this?
[“English is a Germanic language, its native suffix for nationality is -ish, which accounts for the names of nearby nationalities. But before English had gone global and applied its suffix to other nationalities, it was influenced by Latin and French. The default suffix of nationality used in the language was replaced by the Latinate -ian/-ean/-an, so more recently coined nationalities made use of them instead. Later, the contact between Italy and the Far East, together with the European colonization of Africa and South America, brought in some nationalities ending in -ese. Then, Islamic countries near the Middle East retained their Arabic -i when their names entered English. Lastly, a few places that end in -land or Island make use of the suffixes -er/-ic.”](http://www.linglish.net/2008/10/22/so-many-nationality-suffixes/)
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