Catalonia, Macedonia, Anatolia, Ethiopia (words)

[rhbj03]

Do you see a pattern here? Is there some type linguistic reason for words of this pattern?

Are there others?

[harry chickpea]

Standard Latin/Greek suffix denoting place. "Rule Britannia, Britannia rule the waves" There are plenty of others, but some have fallen out of favor.

Much the same as "burg" or "burgh" denotes a town. Hinesburg, Pittsburgh, etc.

[cebuan]

I thought this was going to be abour pronunciation, how many syllables.


As an American, I always said AW-STRAY-lee-a, but then in Canada, I was corrected and told it is a-STRAIL-ya. Australians themselves reduce it to two syllables, STRY-a, and as a nationality, just one: STRINE.


In Ethiopia, people pronounce their country as et-YOPE-ya, sometimes with a sibilant -ti- like et-CHOPE-ya, and more than once when I heard someone say Ethiopian, my ear heard Egyptian.