City Adjs. (Was: "Garden City")

[Mike Salovesh]

JP Villanueva wrote:
>
> Mr. Salovesh's use of _Chicagoan_ got me thinking about city/state
> adjectives.  Is there a list of irregular ones somewhere?  These always
> seem to be a big deal when studying other languages . . .
>
> Monaco--Monaguasque?

Somehow, that first "u" strikes me as intrusive. My spell checker says
Monegasque, but what does it know?

> Seattle--Seattlite (en espannol digo 'seatleteco' pero estoy bastante
> seguro de haberlo inventado yo)

Ooops.  Aqui tenemos que seguir caminos distintos. Or here's where our
roads separate.  (BTW, does anybody spell the English version
"Seattellite"?)

Your "Spanish", as you know, is derived from common Mexicanisms based on
Nahuatl place names, not Spanish ones. As I recall the rules of
morphophonemic assimilation in Nahuatl (at least in its "Classical" --
i.e., 16th century -- form), the most likely result of adding /-tleco/
to a root like /siatl-/ would probably be /siatleco/ in Classical, and
perhaps /siateco/ in a more modern dialect.  If I had to vote, I'd
certainly prefer the /tl/ form, and I'd spell it "Seattleco".  Never
mind the double t. Even pedantry has its limits.

Nicaraguans call me a "Chicaguense", sometimes with, sometimes without
an umlauted u, as in /chika(g)wense/.  Well, they also call themselves
"Nicaragüenses", so I guess it's fair.

Chiapanecos who like language games keep asking me "¿y donde se
encuentra Gomayor, ó es que se dice Gogrande?"  If you're from Chica Go,
"Little Go", then where is Big Go?

> Los Angeles--Angelino (regular in Spanish; in Eng. voiced affricate is
> preserved; no gender morphology)
>
> What about others that seem to defy regular adj-forming morphology?
> Jacksonville?  Oahu?  Dallas?

Boston is to Bostonians as Oregon, Illinois is to Oregonians.  "Ites"
seem to bounce up all over the place: "Denverites" or "Salemites" are
common enough, but I have heard "Garyites", as well.  In Indiana, I was
convinced it was a joke when somebody said "Indianapolitan", but up in
Minnesota "Minneapolitans" were the ordinary residents of the
non-capital half of the Twin Cities.

For J.P. Villanueva and casual Spanish speakers, what about "De Efeño"
for a resident of Mexico City, called México, D.F. in Spanish? (I give
no guarantees on the spelling, which has less transparent alternatives.)
That's about equivalent to "Dee Seer" for a resident of the U.S.
national capital.

Since I started on Mexican place names, down in Chiapas the people from
Tuxtla Gutierrez are called "Conejos" (rabbits), not "*Tuxt(l)ecos".
(Tuxtla is the remnant of 16th century "tochtlán", "lugar de los
conejos", place of the rabbits.)  60 miles on the Pan American Highway
from Tuxtla -- and almost a mile and a half up -- takes you to San
Cristóbal de las Casas, home of the "Coletos".

That's enough variants on city adjectives to stir the pot a bit.

-- mike salovesh                    <salovesh at niu.edu>
PEACE !!!