Oh, Canada…
Do they just not get the message, those residents of our northern protectorate? They call their country “Canada”, but they call themselves “Canadian”. Do they not see the obvious contradiction there?
Look, there are about six dozen countries around the world whose names end with the letter ’A’.
The majority, about thirty-five of them end in “-ia” and without exception their people are referred to by words that end in “-ian”. Examples: Australia/Australian, India/Indian, Russia/Russian, Serbia/Serbian, Colombia/Colombian, Austria/Austrian… You get the picture.
Another twenty-five countries end in “-a” but not the popular “-ia”. People from those nations are all referred to by adding an ’N’ onto the end. Thus: Cuban, Jamaican, Korean, Samoan, Venezuelan, South African, and, naturally, American.
That accounts for essentially every nation in the world that ends in the letter ’A’. That’s the universal rule: if your country name ends with “-ia”, your people are “-ian”, and if your country ends in “-a” but not “-ia”, your residents are “-an”.
Oh, but not if you come from Canada, eh? They’re different, or at least backwards. They’re not “Canadan”, as by all rights they ought to be, if they understood the Queen’s English that they so proudly esteem above American English.
Oh no, they’re “Canadian”, which would only be correct if they lived in a place called “Canadia”. Canada: Canadan. Canadia: Canadian. So simple, even a Quebecois could understand! But imagine how it would sound in their national anthem: O, Canadia! Our home and native land…
Of course, two other backward nations have been even more creative than the Canucks in this regard.
The people of China are called “Chinese”. Wouldn’t it be interesting if our northern neighbors (sorry, neighbours) were “Canadese”? Kinda like a slurred pronunciation of the name of their damned birds that are a hissing, crapping plague on our parklands. Mind you, they’re not “Canadan Geese”. They’re not even “Canadian Geese”. They’re “Canada Geese”. Just like Canada Dry beverages and Canada mints and the Canada Games. Is this a third possible permutation? Perhaps we should refer to our friends as “Canada people”?
But there’s one more, still better alternative. People from Panama, in a rabid fit of panache unexpected from a tiny country not known for its creative talent, call themselves “Panamanians”. If the people of Canada had that much flair, perhaps we’d all be calling them “Canadanians”, eh?