Nationalities

This page explains the difficulty of talking about nationalities and languages.

In one respect English is certainly easy. The name of the language, the name of the people and the associated adjective are all the same.

  • Can you speak English? (language)
  • The English are famous for their strange humour. (people)
  • Do you like English food? (adjective)

And a single English person is an Englishman or Englishwoman. This gives us the following table:

Language
Adjective
Group of People
Single Person
English
English
English
Englishman

However, with other nationalities things can be a lot different. For example: A person from Finland speaks Finnish but is called a Finn not a Finnishman. Two men from France are Frenchmen, but two men from Germany are not Germen but Germans (or to be more exact German men).

A female from Ireland is an Irishwoman (one word) but a female from Greece is a Greek woman (two words). People from Norway speak Norwegian and are called the Norwegians (with an -s), whereas people from Portugal, who speak Portuguese, are called the Portuguese (without an -s).

Quiz

Test your knowledge of nationality words by filling in the following table:

Language
Adjective
Group of People
Single Person
Dutch
Polish
the Spanish
the Vietnamese
a Mexican
Language
Adjective
Group of People
Single Person
Dutch
Dutch
the Dutch
a Dutchman*
Polish
Polish
the Poles
a Pole**
Spanish
Spanish
the Spanish
a Spaniard**
Vietnamese
Vietnamese
the Vietnamese
a Vietnamese**
Spanish***
Mexican
the Mexicans
a Mexican**

* There is no word Dutchwoman. It has to be a Dutch woman.

** To be unambiguous about sex, you have to use adjective + noun. For example, a Spanish man or a Vietnamese woman.

*** This is one of the very many examples where the name of the people is not the same as the name of the language. E.g. Israelis → Hebrew or Brazilians → Portuguese.