Belarusan or Belarusian
William Ryan
wfr at SAS.AC.UK
Thu Sep 13 21:19:35 UTC 2007
There is no 'correct' way in English to form adjectives from the names
of places (England/English, France/French, Norway/Norwegian,
Congo/Congolese, Liverpool/Liverpudlian, Glasgow/Glaswegian, Isle of
Man/Manx, Switzerland/Swiss, Holland/Dutch). Since Belarus is a recent
creation we shall just have to see which form wins out. At present both
are in common use in print and on the Internet. Both -an and -ian are
historically possible suffixes in English (deriving ultimately from
Latin). 'Belarusan' seems like a logical formation, but 'Belarusian' is
easier on the ear because of the earlier 'Belorussian' and the very
large number of place adjectives ending in -ian. US and British official
websites seem to use 'Belarusian' which gives it a kind of authority.
What Belorusans/Belorusians think about it is neither here nor there -
this is a question of English.
Will Ryan
nataliek at UALBERTA.CA wrote:
> Dear Fellow Slavists,
>
> I am resending this message since the first one did not seem to go
> through. If I end up sending this message twice, I apologize in advance.
>
> I need a ruling on correct usage. What is the proper way to form an
> adjective from Belarus? (And also the proper way to refer to a person
> from that country). I thought it was Belarusan. But a graduate
> student who is doing some copy editing for me and is from Belarus
> herself corrected it to Belarusian. Which is correct?
>
>
>
> Natalie Kononenko
> Kule Chair of Ukrainian Ethnography
> University of Alberta
> Modern Languages and Cultural Studies
> 200 Arts Building
> Edmonton, Alberta, Canada T6G 2E6
> Phone: 780-492-6810
> Web: http://www.arts.ualberta.ca/uvp/
>
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--
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Warburg Institute
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