Professor Geoffrey Sampson of the School of Cognitive & Computing Sciences at the University of Sussex explains the use of the ese suffix as not being tied to languages in particular; but rather as it merely being an adjectival suffix. He explains further that the Japanese language
is called “Japanese” because the adjective from Japan is Japanese –
“Japanese people”, “Japanese geography”, so also “Japanese language”, or
just “Japanese” in a context where it is obvious that it’s the language
being discussed.
He further explains why, in his opinion, nationality adjectives relating to
Asian nations in particular favour the -ese suffix. It may be because
of the historical sequence in which English-speaking people became
familiar with different distant parts of the world. He states, that for the nearby European nations, English formed adjectives very early, before
the English language was influenced by French, had words
like French, Dutch, Spanish; or in cases like Italian, we adapted the nation’s own self-description (italiano) to our language.
However, in cases like Japanese and Chinese, which came much later, but still early relative to smaller distant nations or for instance African names; English used mangled forms of the natives’ name for their country, and stuck on a suffix which happened to be popular at that particular period (he believes that the adjectives may have come to English under French influence, and that -ese is an Anglicization of the suffix which in modern French appears as -ois).
Further, he explains, we were more aware of the native languages’ own
structure, so for instance many nationality-adjectives relating to South
or Southwest Asia end in -i (e.g. Hindi), which is not an English or a
French suffix but the native suffix. Or, he continues, we use a general classical adjective suffix – the language of the Sioux is called Siouxan (I believe) not because -an is an adjective suffix from the native English rootstock, nor because it is how the Sioux describe themselves, but because it is a Latin adjective suffix which was natural for scholars to use.
Then, he suggests, if this kind of history has happened to throw up several -ese words for major nations in one particular world region, such as East Asia, that would have been influential when people were coining adjectives for smaller groups in the same region – i.e., “Madurese”, because it is in the same general region where people had become accustomed to the adjectives “Chinese”/“Japanese”.
The Professor concludes that if his suspicion is anywhere near correct, it means that the apparent regularity of use of the ese suffix with East Asian nations is more a question of the fluctuations of fashion or
habit than anything else.
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