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Message: <blockquote data-quote="tarchon" data-source="post: 466541" data-attributes="member: 5990">The convention in American English, peculiar as it is, is that -ese nationality adjectives are seldom used as nouns when describing people."I am Chinese" but not *"I am a Chinese.""I am Japanese" but not *"I am a Japanese."The substantive (noun) forms are somewhat more common in the plural, so "Three Chinese are visiting" sounds less odd, but this still can be perceived as awkward.However, when describing things, particularly breeds of animals, they are commonly used as nouns."I have a Pekingese." (dog of that breed)"I have a Burmese." (cat of that breed/python of that species)Otherwise, these adjectives are also lacking in a corresponding noun, so constructions like "he is a Chinese person" are used.  (Special note: though once standard, "Chinaman" is now, strangely, considered derogatory.)British/Commonwealth English however is much freer with the use of these adjectives as nouns.Other classes of ethnic adjectives are:adjective -> nounROOT+ese -> noneROOT+ish -> ROOT  (Turkish/Turk)ROOT+ish/ch -> ROOT+man/woman (Irish/Irishman, French/Frenchman)ROOT+ic -> ROOT+er (Icelandic/Icelander)ROOT+an/ian -> same (Canadian/Canadian)ROOT+i -> same (Israeli/Israeli)ROOT+ite -> same (Hittite/Hittite)And a number of irregular forms include:Greek -> GreekSwiss -> Swiss or noneSoviet -> SovietSpanish -> SpaniardSimilar weird systems appear in other European languages.</blockquote>