Gentilé

History

The term gentilé is attested in French as of 1752 and comes from the Latin gentile nomen , which corresponds to the family name at the Romains (for example, “Julius” in “Caius Julius Caesar”, Latin name of Jules César). The Encyclopedia or reasoned Dictionary of sciences, arts and the trades of Diderot indicates (in 1757): “GENTILÉ, S. Mr. gentilé of only one man can be in three manners & three kinds of denominations: gentilé, for example, of the painter Jean Rothénamer is German, Bavarois and Munichien; German means that it is of Germany; Bavarian, that it is Cercle of Bavaria; & Munichien known as '' Of Munich '' today, that it is of Munich. ” The word gentilé is unknown TLFi but documented well in the various Robert dictionaries.

The term gentilé was recommended by the Office of the French language Québécois on February 5th 1982, like equivalent of the English name off inhabitants or gentilic .

Use of gentilés

Let us recall that according to the typographical conventions of French:

the Name of inhabitant or Gentilé (which is a Substantif) takes a capital (“ the French spread the taste French . ”)
the Adjectif corresponding to gentilé takes the tiny ( a Basque cake, a Breton far ).
the name of Langue (or Glottonyme) takes also the tiny one (“ Né Breton, I speak the Breton and I teach it in a Breton school ”).

That even makes it possible to distinguish:

“ a German scientist ” which is a scientist of German nationality.
“ a German scientist” , i.e. a German who knows many things: in this case one makes the Liaison (i.e. one pronounces, but slightly, the T of the erudite adjective ).

The Adjectif identical to is gentilé with the capital near; the following case, where gentilé differs from the adjective not only by its initial capital letter, but also by its termination - ess specific to the female Substantif S, is perhaps single: “ the Suisse its carry only Swiss watches. ”

Often one can use the adjective as well as gentilé: “ I am French ” is quite as correct that “ I am French . ”

These rules can differ according to the languages:

the English employs the capital letter in the three cas French letter is said in French a has hoods English ” to see with capitalization-->.
the Spanish employs the tiny one in the three cases (recommendations of the Spanish royal Académie).

The use could, of the remainder, to change in time and one can observe drive out-crossed between the Russian and the French in connection with the capital letters.

It happens that the Gentilé loses its capital letter when he ends up indicating a human type simply:

Swiss ( Swiss of church for example) because one often recruited guards in Suisse formerly;
the lesbians do not merge exactly with living Lesbos;
sybarite refers to the inhabitants of the antique Sybaris,
in 1938 the French were divided into of Munich in favor of the Accords of Munich and anti-inhabitant of Munich ;
since 1945, the French political community is distributed between Atlantic S placing their confidence in the European NATO and (with tiny) in favor of European construction.

For the city-centers, one will take the following example: an inhabitant of Orleans is a Orléanais , the area whose Orleans is the center is called the Orléanais (to be included/understood country orléanais ): the inhabitants of Orléanais are also called the Orléanais just like those of only Orleans; French forever developed the double-compound ones of the type * - aisien or * - oisien .

The cases where gentilé or the corresponding adjective another thing indicates that a human type hardly pose of difficulty practice and take also the tiny one:

Danish (or German Mastiff) indicates a race of Chien;

(example: “Danish of the Dane barked unceasingly. ”)

Percheron indicates a race of Cheval;
the Parmesan is a Fromage…

One gentilé can become a anthroponyme. For example, it came one moment when the queen Marie-Antoinette of Austria was nothing any more but “the Autrichienne ” for her subjects. One of the five components of the Arab Name traditional, the nisba, generalizes the process: Abdelkader the Algerian for example; or Abou Moussab Al-Zarqaoui (thus named to be born in Zarqa, in Jordan).

Study of the formation of gentilés

If the science of the toponyms or place names is the Toponymie, the science of the anthroponymes or names of people is the Anthroponymie, it does not exist term devoted for those of gentilés, which perhaps corresponds to a lack of interest. André Roland de Denus has the appearance of “a precursor” in the study of gentilés. Among the large ancestors, one will quote Etienne de Byzance and his Ethnika .

One gentilé is often quoted with the plural masculine ( the French, the Germans ), but one can also find in some rare cases the singular masculine ( the English ).

Rather than to resort to Bracket S to announce differences of number and of kind (brackets which disfigures the words and is of an interpretation sometimes difficult by a schoolboy or a foreigner), one will proceed by enumeration in the following order:

male Singular, male Plural, female singular, female plural

The suffix S trainers of gentilés most current are in French:

- Ain (E) (S) or - in (E) (S) especially for the cities and districts.
- board (E) (S) for the cities (Bayonne: Bayonne ) but also for the countries (Taiwan: Taiwanese , France: French )
- IEN () (S) or - éen () (S) especially for the countries (Italy: Italian , Malaysia: Malaysian ), but also Paris: Parisian , Calais: Calaisian , Savoy: Savoyard , Savoyens , but also Savoyard
- ois (E) (S) is a little out-of-date in France, and is used especially for the cities (Amiens: Amiénois , Blois: the oldest Blésois ) and villages. It is very vigorous with the Quebec, where it represents more half of gentilés the

Other rarer suffixes are met:

- ard (E) (S) or - art (E) (S) : aged, and sometimes employed in a disrespectful or slang way instead of another usual suffix
- asque (S) : borrowed from the languages celto-Ligurians ( Tendasque, Monegasque S, Ézasques ….)
- aud (S) /- Aude (S) (for example the Pelauds for Eymoutiers)
- water (X) /- it (S) (for example the Tourangeaux for Turns)
- èque (S) /- tèque (S) : perhaps borrowed by Spanish from méso-American languages (for example: Olmèque , Chichimèque , Aztec , Mixtèque , etc; but also: inhabitant of the Guatemala: Guatemalan )
- them /- euse (S) : sometimes slang
- ic (S) /- ic (S) : a little erudite, but devoted in some gentilés of everyday usage.
- iche (S) : generally popular and slang instead of another usual suffix, in reference to gentilé corresponding in English (Angliche)
- ist (S) (for example: inhabitant of the town of Douarnenez: Douarneniste or for Tulle the Tullistes )
- (I) ot (E) (S) or - (I) At (E) (S) , the I being removed if it follows another I semivowel
- one () (S) or - year (E) (S)
- or () (S) : aged suffix, preserved by the historical use. (for example the Miaulétous for Saint-Léonard-with-Noblat)
- hat (S) or - wreck (S) : generally popular and slang
- uche (S) : enough rare and always slang (Libanuche, Albanuche)

When the toponym ends in the suffix - IE , generally, this suffix is often removed if gentilé obtained ends in one of the suffixes above, or converted into - IEN () (S) if that creates an ambiguity of direction.

Gentilés the correspondent with made up toponyms are generally irregular in French, often rather far away from the toponym (even if there can remain a common historical origin) as for Trifluviens of Three-Rivers. There is no established rule for their formation, even for the toponyms running starting with Saint- or Sainte- (this element often is not represented in gentilé. Saint-Etienne: Inhabitant of Saint-Etienne ), but the initial article prefixing certain toponyms practically always is ignored in gentilé (for example, La Rochelle: Rochelais ).

The roots of toponyms containing of the first names (often very old and international) often derived in are gentilés French using old Latin roots, Greek or resulting from other languages. Gentilés the French resulting ones from made up toponyms are generally contracted in a nonmade up term, after elimination of the internal articles and reduction of the other roots.

Gentilés scientists, gentilés political

In social sciences, one distinguishes from now on the scientific gentilés founded on the primarily linguistic ethnological definitions, and identified by the suffix… phons , and the political gentilés founded on definitions taken by the legislative powers or executive of the states, and identified by an initial capital letter.

Gentilés scientists

To avoid the inaccuracies and not to confuse more nationality (i.e. Citizenship), religious membership (i.e. Confession), geographical membership (i.e. place of origin and/or of residence), and speech community, the scientific rule is to employ, to define the latter, the suffix: phons . According to this rule, the community " francophone" (with the ethnological direction of the word) includes/understands of the French (but not all), of the Canadians (but not all), of the Belgians (but not all), of Swiss (but not all)…

Ethnologiquement, an anglophone , a French-speaking , a German-speaking or a Russian speaker is a usual speaker of language parental respectively English, French, German or Russian, but is not inevitably an English, a French, a German or a Russian: it can be for example American, Canadian, Autrichien, Suisse, Belgian, Moldavian.

To define a Language, the scientists use the isoglossal concept of . A Isoglosse brings together two speakers when they can be included/understood spontaneously and completely without translator. In the contrary case, it separates them. For example, a German and an Austrian include themselves/understand spontaneously and completely without translator: they are both German-speaking, isoglossal joins together them. Even thing for a French and a French-speaking Switzerland. On the other hand, two Swiss, two Belgians or two Moldavians can not be able to include themselves/understand spontaneously and completely without translator: isoglossal separates them.

The gentilés scientific ones, based on ethnographic definitions, can also take into account the religion, even the lifestyle, when those result in a isopraxe : there is isopraxe when the religion and/or the lifestyle, and with its continuation the habits, the writing and the identity of a group, separate it from the close groups, were of the same language. For example, a Croat, a Bosno-Moslem and Serb speak with few things close the same language, but the differences of religion, writing, habits since the high-Means-Age created isopraxes between them, they created different states, took different historical parties, and set up strongly identified, different groups. In fact also isopraxes identify Ashkénazes German-speaking of Germany, or english-speaking of America, or Sépharades Arabic-speaking people of Morocco, or the Spanish-speaking Gipsies of Spain, Citanlar Turkish-speaking of Turkey or the Gypsies roumanophones of Romania.

Gentilés policies

One gentilé political does not need scientific rules: it rises from a political will (shared or not by the populations concerned) either to gather, or to distinguish. Thus, in Yugoslavia of the years 1930, the majority population was defined like Serbocroate without distinction, on exclusively linguistic criterion (will to gather, translated on the ground by territorial cutting into Banovines which " effaçaient" old Croatian, Bosnian borders, Montenegrins and Serb). Today, on the contrary, the same language is called officially Croatian , Bosnian , Serb Montenegrin or depending on the new states, and is used to define their national identities (will to distinguish). One could just as easily, in Western Europe, to call the Gascon, the Catalan and the Provençal: " Occitan " (will to gather) or on the contrary to define languages Walloon in French Belgium or in Swiss different from the French (will to distinguish). In Republic of Moldavie, since 1991 the controversy makes rage to know if the language of the indigenous majority ( roumanophone according to the scientists) is Rumanian (will to gather) or Moldavian (will to distinguish). One could multiply the examples through Europe and the world.

Among the gentilés political ones, one finds the rule of the politically correct not , invented as of the 19th century by American, as it is often thought, but by French: Emile Ollivier, Edgar Quinet, Elysium Recluse. And it was applied by the Soviets in the years 1920 (they re-elected almost all the Siberian people) well before being adopted, in the years 1970, by the National Geographic Society , then, in the following years, by the American university world, which also extended it to the social minorities. The goal of this rule is to avoid the inaccuracies and not to more be likely to indicate the communities by pejorative nicknames, in their giving the name by which they indicate themselves. Thus d'" was passed; esquimaux" with Inuit S, or of " gitans" , " bohémiens" , " romanichels" or " tziganes" with Rroms for example.

Some gentilés of scientific origin can them also become political: for example, " French-speaking s" , in the political direction of the word, does not appoint only usual speakers of French parental language, but any person and any state including/understanding French or member of the Francophonie .

Gentilés and Droit .

The choice of one gentilé often rises from a legal choice between Droit of blood and Droit of the ground . If one chooses the Right of the blood, according to which any person belongs to the group of her ancestors, where that she lives and whatever her citizenship, one will choose one preferably gentilé traditional: a person originating in the Muslim community of the the Maghreb, for example, will remain for always Maghrébine even if it were born and lives in France, only speaks French and has French nationality. If one chooses the Right of the ground, the origin does not count any more: it is the territorial membership and policy which precedes: French all the owners of the French citizenship are thus , whatever their ascents, their religions or their memberships cultural.

Right of blood and Droit of the ground can combine in variable proportions (in France for example, the Right of the ground precedes, but the Right of blood also exists: a French citizen abroad born or having the ascending ones born abroad must constantly be the proof of its and their French citizenship, with each operation of civil statue, whereas those born, like their ancestors, on the metropolitan territory, are exempted by it).

Right of blood and Droit of the ground can also combine with the gentilés scientific ones, or many gentilés political. For example, in Switzerland or Moldavie, if one refers to the Right of blood and gentilés political, one has the French ones, of Schwyzertütschen, Romanches and Tessinois of Suisse citizenship, or many Moldavians, of Pridnistréens or Moldavian Gagaouzes of citizenship, whereas if one refers to the Right of the ground and gentilés scientific, one has Swiss French-speaking people, German-speaking, Romanches and italophones, and Moldavians roumanophones, Russian speakers or Turkish-speaking.

The choice and the use of one gentilé translated the cultural and ethical orientation of those which make this choice.

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