'An'

[Bazile]

Why is it that only the citizens of countries ending in the letter  'a' are known as ,for eg- Americ 'ans' Canadi 'ans' - if you see what i mean ?

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

[jno]

they're not Canadans, though, somebody's added an I as if they were like Australia or Russia. On the other hand there are no Mexicons, only Mexicans.

[Buenchico]

With many countries we add 'ian' onto the end of the word to denote someone from there.  (e.g. Belarusian, Egyptian,  Ghanaian, Iranian).  In your examples, the 'a' is already present, so there's no need to add another one (or, indeed, to inlclude an 'i').

[Cloverjo]

On a similar note, we say that people from Iceland are Icelandic; people from Greenland are Greenlandic, but New Zealanders are not New Zealandic. 
 

Just how it turned out, I suppose. 

[Old_Geezer]

Dunno why. I guess it worked in English and was kept. Spread to be common usage. Why is any part of a language as it is ?

[William51]

 It is just the way we finish our words. Similarly i get confused with the Netherlands, or is it Holland, who are Dutch.

[Old_Geezer]

As I understand it, Holland is a province to the North of the Netherlands.

[ToraToraTora]

We have Morrocans from Morroco but not Monacans from Monaco, they are Monagasques. It's just the way language evolves. There are no hard and fast rules in English, every so called rule has at least one exception.

[vulcan42]

Those from China are not Chineans

[Khandro]

Some people say 'Argentinians', but the Argentines hate it.

(So I was told by the daughter of the British Ambassador.) 

[barry1010]

North Holland and South Holland are two provinces of the Kingdom of the Netherlands. The people are Dutch because the area used to loosely be German lowlands. 

[Ken4155]

Language is truly weird;

China - Chinese

Burma - Burmese

Taiwan - Taiwanese

Japan - Japanese

Mongolia -  Mongols or Mongolians

[Ken4155]

Closer to home;

Manchester - Mancunians

Liverpool - Liverpudlians

Lancashire - Lancastrians

Cornwall - Cornish

[Khandro]

The people of the Philippines (named after King Philip 11  of Spain) we call Filipinos*  but Filipinos refer to themselves as Pinoy, sometimes the feminine Pinay.

* The P is silent, as in bathing.  😄