Language desk
< October 11	<< Sep \| October \| Nov >>	October 13 >

Welcome to the Wikipedia Language Reference Desk Archives
The page you are currently viewing is a transcluded archive page. While you can leave answers for any questions shown below, please ask new questions on one of the current reference desk pages.

October 12

Use of "Dominikan"

Has anyone proposed "Dominikan" to mean having to do with Dominica?? (For clarification on this question; it isn't difficult to see why I'm asking it; it's odd that "Dominican" can refer to either of 2 countries; Dominica or the Dominican Republic; it would be resolved if we had chosen to use the spelling "Dominikan" to mean related to Dominica and "Dominican" for the Dominican Republic.) Georgia guy (talk) 19:04, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Who's saying it's a problem? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:17, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

How is it not a problem?? These are 2 different countries, and it's odd that the adjective "Dominican" can mean having to do with either of these. Georgia guy (talk) 19:23, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Who besides you is saying it's a problem? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 19:44, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Of course it's a problem, since if somebody says they are Dominican we don't know where they are from. I imagine customs and immigration officials have the most trouble with it. But spelling it differently isn't much of a solution, both because you would need to get universal agreement and because it doesn't work in spoken form. Them saying "I am from ..." works better. SinisterLefty (talk) 20:01, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Certainly. This is only a "problem" if someone tries to make it into one. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 20:46, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

SinisterLefty, does Wikipedia talk about any solution to the problem?? Georgia guy (talk) 21:01, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Well, check out notes f and g at List of adjectival and demonymic forms for countries and nations, which says they are pronounced differently. So your spelling diff in conjunction with that might help, but there's still the problem of making those minor diffs universally understood. SinisterLefty (talk) 21:18, 12 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Using an accent mark over the second "i" would solve the alleged problem. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 11:42, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Assuming anyone remembered which nationality got the accent mark. And that people actually noticed the accent mark and didn't just see it as the normal dot over the i. As English doesn't use accents with any great frequency, I would expect that a simple acute or grave accent over an i would not stand out to the average Anglophone. Over any other vowel, yes, but i normally has a small mark over it and the differences between a dot, an acute accent, and a grave accent might not be easily apparent to all readers at all times.--Khajidha (talk) 15:13, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's still better than inventing a non-existent spelling and then expecting everyone to remember which thing it pertains to. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:45, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It's hard to invent a spelling that already exists. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 15:40, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

The OP asked if anyone has proposed it. Where does it already exist? In English, that is - not in languages like German where the hard "c" is not used. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 15:47, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

It doesn't exist, and I never said it does. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 15:49, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

So, when you said, "It's hard to invent a spelling that already exists", what were you referring to? ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 16:22, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

"It's still better than inventing a non-existent spelling". Anything one invents is by definition non-existent, otherwise one is simply rediscovering it. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 21:14, 17 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Sorry, I'm too dense to understand what you're trying to say. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:52, 18 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

All you needed to say was "It's still better than inventing a spelling". The use of "non-existent" was tautologous. Because, as I said, one cannot invent something that already exists. -- Jack of Oz ^{[pleasantries]} 17:45, 18 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Good grief. Such a megillah over such a small thing. ←Baseball Bugs ^{What's up, Doc?} carrots→ 00:11, 19 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

Georgia_guy --

1) Unfortunately your proposal might remind some of the derogatory K ("Amerikkka" etc.)

2) If neither of the base names has a K, then it would be needlessly difficult to remember which derived adjective is supposed to have a K (i.e. it breaks the principle of related spellings for related words).

3) There's also an ambiguity with the Catholic Dominican Order (Order of Preachers) -- see disambiguation page Dominicans in the United States etc. AnonMoos (talk) 00:38, 13 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

In fact it's not unheard of for spellings of country names to differ from those of their derivatives. Norwegians write Canada and Mexico, but usually kanadier, kanadisk, meksikaner and meksikansk (search in Bokmålsordboka/Nynorskordboka). Croatians write Wales, but Velšanin and velški (search in Hrvatski jezični portal). In those cases they have adopted the international spellings for the country names, but have adapted the adjectival and demonymic forms to their own spelling rules. --Theurgist (talk) 02:02, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]

And of course, in English there's the pair Philippines vs Filipino, where the toponym is a nativized form while the demonym is a direct borrowing. --Theurgist (talk) 23:51, 14 October 2019 (UTC)[reply]