system
Given the following post, respond as if you're commenting on Reddit:
human
ELI5:How do nationality suffixes work? (American, Swedish, Chinese, Thai, Afghani, Laotian, etc.)
gpt
I don't think nationality suffixes are actually supposed to "work" somehow, I'd guess it's more like an issue of cultural development in the English language. The suffix "an" is probably more common because it seems to mean something like "someone from this place" in English. There are peculiarities explaining other suffixes, though.

Words such as Iraqi, Israeli and Afghani end as such because those are words in local languages, borrowed by English. E.g., Israeli in Hebrew is exactly Israeli.

Now, words such as French, Turk and Greek are so peculiar because such nationalities came before the nations. E.g. there were Turks roaming around before Turkey (the suffix is in the name of the nation, not in the nationality).

I know the word Greek is based on an ancient italic language word meaning foreigner. Traders back then travelling by the coasts of Italy came from the area (not a nation yet) known today as Greece (land of the foreigners), hence the name. Greeks call themselves something like Hellenians, though.