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Overview of
Territory-Related Words
Or who comes from where speaking what waving which passport?

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Introduction      The Chart

Learning the English names of lesser-known countries or dependencies, and their corresponding citizens, nationality adjectives and languages, is no mean task. These word families tend to inflect somewhat inconsistently and are occasionally subject to change. Many of them are derived from languages with very different syllabaries to our own, and so it often occurs that more than one form gains acceptance in English, e.g. Azerbaijani and Azeri; Singhalese, Sinhalese and Sinhala; Turkmen, Turkmenian and Turkoman; or Tadjik and Tajik. 

When presented with more than one name option, your ultimate choice might be influenced by all kinds of factors. To name a few examples: nationalistic sentiment (Serbian vs. Serbo-Croatian); political awareness (Burma vs. Myanmar); political correctness (a Netherlander vs. a Dutchwoman); differing British and American spelling norms (Argentinian vs. Argentinean); or perhaps even your attitude to loanwords perceived as pretentious or redundant (Côte d'Ivoire vs. Ivory Coast). 

In official names the inclusion of "Democratic Republic" or "People's Republic" or "Democratic People's Republic" is a sure sign that the regime is neither democratic nor popular. In genuine democracies people do not need reminding of the self-evident.

There are something like 6,800 known languages on the planet, but barely 270 countries and dependencies. Consequently, relatively few of the language names turn out to be identical to nationality adjectives in the way one often takes for granted. The chart gives us a clear impression of just how geographically widespread English is in the world of today, be it as a first language, a second language, a lingua franca, or the language of officialdom. In other words, it's hard to overestimate the importance of learning English!

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