Adjectivals and demonyms for cities

The following is a list of adjectival forms of cities in English and their demonymic equivalents, which denote the people or the inhabitants of these cities.

Note: Demonyms are given in plural forms. Singular forms simply remove the final 's' or, in the case of -ese endings, are the same as the plural forms. The ending -men has feminine equivalent -women (e.g. an Irishman and a Scotswoman). The French terminations -ois / ais serve as both the singular and plural masculine; adding 'e' (-oise / aise) makes them singular feminine; 'es' (-oises / aises) makes them plural feminine. The Spanish termination "-o" usually denotes the masculine and is normally changed to feminine by dropping the "-o" and adding "-a". The plural forms are usually "-os" and "-as" respectively.

Adjectives ending -ish can be used as collective demonyms (e.g. the English, the Cornish). So can those ending in -ch / -tch (e.g. the French, the Dutch) provided they are pronounced with a 'ch' /tʃ/ sound (e.g. the adjective Czech in /k/ does not qualify).

Where an adjective is a link, the link is to the language or dialect of the same name. (Reference: Ethnologue, Languages of the World)

Many place-name adjectives and many demonyms refer also to various other things, sometimes with and sometimes without one or more additional words. (Sometimes, the use of one or more additional words is optional.) Notable examples are cheeses, cat breeds, dog breeds, and horse breeds. (See List of words derived from toponyms.)

Note: Many of these adjectivals and demonyms are not used in English as frequently as their counterparts in other languages. A common practice is to use a city's name as if it were an adjective, as in "Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra", "Melbourne suburbs", etc.

References

1. ^ Street, Hudson (1911-09-13). "Old Torontonian; If He Likes Toronto So Much, Why Live Here?". The New York Times: p. 8. http://query.nytimes.com/gst/abstract.html?res=9806EFD91531E233A25750C1A96F9C946096D6CF. Retrieved 2008-02-23.