Emirati

[Ben Zimmer]

On Fri, Mar 18, 2011 at 7:19 PM, Jonathan Lighter
<wuxxmupp2000 at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> According to John King of CNN, this is what you call a citizen of the United
> Arab Emirates.
>
> Wikipedia agrees.
>
> In this case the "-i" "suffix of appurtenance" gets tacked onto a
> perfectly normal English word.
>
> Because Emiratis are Arabs. So it sounds better than, I don't know,
> *Emiratians?

We talked about this in 2008. I wrote then:

==begin==

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0803B&L=ADS-L&P=R1224

I believe the Arabic term for someone from the Emirates is
<imaaraati>, which is <imaara(t)> 'emirate' + the <-i> "nisba" suffix.
So you could view "emirati" as an imprecise transliteration of that on
the model of "emirate". Or perhaps it originated as more of an expat
mishearing/misparsing.

Earliest I find from a quick check of the databases is from 1990:

-----
1990 _Toronto Star_ 20 Aug. A11 (Factiva) Like many Emiratis, they
follow news of the gulf conflict constantly, tuning into local radio
stations and to the BBC World Service on short-wave radio every hour.
-----

http://listserv.linguistlist.org/cgi-bin/wa?A2=ind0803B&L=ADS-L&P=2295

AFAIK it's native Arabic, formed regularly from the root <?mr>, which
gives sing. <imaara(t)>, pl. <imaraat> [where (t) is the fem. ending
"ta' marbuta"], and then it becomes a demonym by application of the
nisba suffix <-i>. I think the similarity to the Latinate "-ate" of
"emirate" is purely coincidental. No need to posit a reanalysis -- cf.
"sultanate", "caliphate", "palatinate", etc.

==end==

--bgz

--
Ben Zimmer
http://benzimmer.com/

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