Tongan

Part of speech: adjective, noun

Definitions

1. Relating to the Polynesian island nation in the South Pacific; describing the native people of that country; or pertaining to their language or culture
2. Connected with the South Pacific kingdom located in Tonga; referring to its indigenous inhabitants; or associated with their traditional language and customs
3. Associated with the island state of Tonga; denoting the ethnic group originating there; or concerning the linguistic and cultural characteristics of its population

Etymology: Tonga is the island kingdom in the South Pacific, and "Tongan" is simply the name of its people, language and culture, built by adding the suffix "-an" to the country's name. That suffix has a long pedigree: it arrived in English through Old French, where it descended from a Latin ending "-ānus" that was used to form adjectives meaning "belonging to" or "associated with" a place or person. English took up the pattern and used it for countless place-based words, so "Tongan" follows the same route as many older English adjectives such as "Roman" or "American." The suffix's ancestry runs back much further than Latin. Its earliest traceable form is a Proto-Indo-European element "*-nós," which passed through Proto-Italic into the Latin family of endings. Because the building block is so old and so widely used, "Tongan" is best understood as a transparent, recent formation: a modern place name combined with a long-established English suffix. The name "Tonga" itself is the basis of the whole word, and the adjective simply tells you what belongs to that place.

Synonyms: Tongan