-an
-an is a suffix, commonly used in various Indo-European languages. In English, the -an suffix denotes an action or an adjective suggesting about, thereby forming an agent noun. As such, many demonyms end in this suffix. The root of such agent nouns sometimes comes from the Latin suffix -ia, with the -ia suffix denoting a feminine ending for adjectives.[1]
The suffix -an is also a
In morphology, the suffix -an is classified as an agentive suffix. An agentive suffix is used to create new nouns that refer to a person or thing that performs an action or is associated with a particular action. When the suffix -an is added to a verb, it creates a noun that represents the agent or doer of the action.
The suffix is also widely used on many countries in the world, and commonly -stan. The countries following ending with this suffix are Afghanistan, Azerbaijan, Bhutan, Iran, Japan, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Oman, Pakistan, South Sudan, Sudan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
See also
- -abad
- -stan
References
- ^ Connors, Kathleen. "Studies in feminine agentives in selected European languages." Romance Philology 24.4 (1971): 573-598.
- ISBN 9783110801989 – via Google Books.