有網友談到英文描述不同民族時分別采用“ -an ”和“ -ese ”為後綴，有褒貶之別（見內）。本人雖然也算科班出身，卻孤陋寡聞，從沒見過英文字典或書刊提起 -ese 有什麽鄙視的涵意。
在 The Linguist List (http://linguist.emich.edu) 中有個特別的服務是 Ask a Linguist (http://linguist.emich.edu/~ask-ling/) 。那裏有一群專業的語言學家解答與語言相關的疑惑。這個 -ese 的問題就有人問過，回答說並非如此： 其中人類學家 Joseph F Foster 說： 不， -ese 並不表示“源自亞洲的”之義。它是從拉丁文字根 -ensis 來的，原義是“源自” -- 如 Japan-ensis ——源自日本的。 即使是歐洲的一些語言也有用到這個字根，例如 Portuguese ( 葡萄牙語 ) 。 -ese 是後來從拉丁文借入英語中的，而 -ish 則是日耳曼語族固有的，並從原始日耳曼語一路傳到英語。 這也就是為什麽 -ish 是用在早年盎格魯撒克遜人曾接觸到的語言及民族，如 Danish, English, Frank-iss>French 等。 並有助於理解為何 -ese 的形式往往是指稱離英國更遠地區的語言。 —————————————————— 由此可見，本質上 -ese 這個拉丁字根在英語中常用來稱呼亞洲人 / 語，這隻是一種語言曆史發展的偶然。若說它原來就有鄙視之義，實在太過牽強附會。難道英國人比較鄙視 Portuguese ，而平等對待 Spanish 嗎？若是如此，何曾見葡萄牙人向英國人抗議，並要求英語「正名」呢？ 同理，朝鮮（高麗）一詞在英語中是 Korean ，同樣不能說明英美人認為高麗人比中國人、日本人和越南人優秀。 由於曆史的原因，中國人的確落後了。但是我們不應該就此自卑而過於敏感。如果為了一個已經約定俗成的單詞浮想聯翩喪失了自信，還談什麽自強不息呢？ 做一個有心胸開闊的人，才能做有自信的中國人！ -------------------------------------------------- ------------ * To: Charles James , Ask A Linguist
* Subject: Re: Classification of language.
* From: Joseph F Foster
* Date: Mon, 27 Nov 2000 12:11:00 -0500
* Delivered-To: ask-ling@linguistlist.org
* In-Reply-To: <20001127163832.21080.qmail@linguistlist.org> I have often wondered why languages of Asian countries are described as being 'Ese' ie Japanese, Chinese, Taiwanese, Cantonese. Does the use of the suffix 'Ese' signify that it is of an Asian origin. European and other languages are described in other ways without any obvious similarities. French, German, Italian or English have no similarity in terms of their classification. Why is this so? No, -ese does not signify of Asian origin. It is from Latin -ensis and originally mean 'of origin' -- Japan-ensis 'of Japan origin'. It's even used with some European languages -- Portuguese. It is later borrowed into English while the -ish suffix is native Germanic and comes down to English from the original *Protogermanic language. It was therefore used for languages and peoples whom the Angles and Saxons came in contact with. Danish, English, Frank-iss ， French, &c. That's partialy why the -ese forms are mostly farther afield. Joseph F Foster, Ph D Assoc. Professor of Anthropology Director, Undergraduate Studies U of Cincinnati, OH, USA 45221-0380 -------------------------------------------------- - The suffix -ese is neither racist nor insulting. But it *has*become productive in English to indicate with mild humour something that is incomprehensible, based on its presence in "Chinese," "Japanese." There are many examples, but the only one that comes to mind now is "Stengelese." I think of "bureaucratese" first. "X-ese" as a noun here = "language of X".
The suffix "-ese" is apparently the English reflex of Latin genitive ending "-ensis", which is still used as a sort of default genitive in modern Latin. So for example the organism Nocardia beijingensis is the Nocardia "of Beijing", while Legionella pittsburghensis refers to the Legionella "of Pittsburgh", while Pseudomonas wisconsinensis is named after Wisconsin, etc. Similarly a University of Wisconsin seal might read "Universitatis Wisconsinensis Sigillum" = "Seal of the University of Wisconsin". So the long-term etymology does not support the "derogatory" thesis. Why is "-ese" more frequent in application to East Asia? There are "Portuguese", "Viennese", "Faroese", etc., in Europe, but there are many more "-eses" in Asia ("Shanghainese", "Pekinese", "Siamese", "Sundanese", "Singhalese", etc., etc.): is it because East Asians (along with persons from Vienna or the Faroes perhaps?) are/were despised? I would say no, it is because places far from the Roman Empire had no names in Latin and therefore no natural genitive endings, so they tend to take the 'default' ending "-ensis", thus "-ese" (with some obvious exceptions where a name looks like it could conform to another Latin paradigm, e.g., "Korea"/"Korean"). Scotland was known to Rome, so a bacterium named after Scotland for example is Actinobacillus scotiae (NOT "scotlandensis" or whatever) using the established genitive ending for Scotia = Scotland.
Neither Japan nor Wisconsin (nor Congo) was known to Rome, so their names lack declensions from classical Latin. [No doubt my perception is absurdly oversimplified, and perhaps I'm completely in error on some of my examples. The place-names in many cases actually came through French and other Romance languages, I believe. -- Doug Wilson 附：部分以 -an ， -ese 結尾的單字： Genevese
Genovese
Kanarese
Maltese
Portuguese
Tyrolese
Afghan 阿富汗
African
Albanian 阿爾巴尼亞
Amazonian
Arabian
Bermudan
Chilean
Colombian
Cuban
Egyptian
Ethiopian
Ghanaian 加納
Haitian 海蒂
Indian
Indonesian
Iranian
Jamaican
Kenyan
Korean
Libyan
Malaysian
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