Michael Poe wrote:
Slamlander wrote:
Damn! Now I gotta change the wiki,
it's not "Farrelites", it's "Farellians", damn, damn, damn, damn, damn!
To be honest, I don't really know myself. I just default to '-ians' for every country.
Are there some actual linguistic rules about what suffix is to be used based on the spelling of the location/group it's affixed to?
Partially. If the country name ends in "-ia," more likely than not, "-ians" is the suffix for inhabitants. Examples: Serbia/Serbians, Lithuania/Lithuanians, California/Californians, Indonesia/Indonesians. Therefore Veracia/Veracians is easy. I don't know of any significant exceptions to this one.
For other place names, it's simply a matter of usage. Many place names in the United States that end in a vowel sound are then modified for inhabitants by appending "-an," throwing away the previously terminal vowel if necessary: Alabama/Alabaman, Santa Fe/Santa Fean, New Mexico/New Mexican, Illinois/Illinoisan (remember it's the
sound that drives the change, not the letter -- only a barbarian pronounces the "s" in Illinois). Hence Tsuiraku/Tsuirakuan or Tsuiraku/Tsuirakan, and to my ear at least, the former sounds better. But there are idiosyncratic cases even here. Many people call residents of Illinois not "Illinoisans" but "Illini." (For the non-US readers, the terminal "i" is long -- ill-EYE-neye.) There's no rule that covers that. Furthermore, these rules don't apply very well if the place name is not of English origin; consider China/Chinese, Malta/Maltese, and so on.
And there are all manner of weird exceptions for other kinds of place names. Where do Spain/Spaniards, Greece/Greeks, etc., come from? And almost any weird modification is possible for place names of Britain. Glasgow/Glaswegian? Where did
that come from?
For Farrel, one might imagine all sorts of possibilities: "Farrelian," "Farrelese," "Farrelite," even "Farrishman" or "Farter"... the mind positively boggles, I tell you. Just pick something and use it.