Etymology

-i

Today it means: Used to form adjectives, nouns, demonyms (describing people of a particular city, region or country) or genonyms (describing people of a particular tribe, clan or family) and the language spoken by these people. Full definition →

Urdu ـی (-ī) ← Arabic ـِيّ (-iyy)influ. ← Classical Persian ـِی (-ī)influ.
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-i · suffix1

  1. Arabicـِيّ (-iyy)
  2. Hebrew־י (-i)
  3. Middle Persianyḥ (īh)
  4. Middle Persianig
  5. Persianـی (-ī)
  6. Proto-Indo-Iranian*i-
  7. Classical Persianـِی (-ī)influ.
  8. Arabicـِيّ (-iyy)influ.
  9. Urduـی (-ī)
  10. English today-i

A conflation of the following suffixes: * For Semitic-speaking places, from the Arabic ـِيّ (-iyy) (nisba suffix) and from Hebrew ־י (-i), both sharing a common Semitic root. * For Indo-Iranian-speaking places, from Persian ـی (-ī) (cognate with the following and also conflated with the above) and Hindustani Hindi -ई (-ī) / Urdu ـی (-ī), from Proto-Indo-Iranian *-ikas, therefore a doublet of the homophonous suffix -y In English, productive since the 19th century.

-i · suffix2

  1. Latin · borrowed from-ī
  2. English today-i

From Latin -ī (nominative plural).

-i · suffix3

  1. Latin · derived from-ī
  2. Italian · borrowed from-i
  3. English today-i

From Italian -i (masculine plural), from Latin -ī (see etymology 2).

-i · suffix4

Variant of -ie or -y.

Etymology from Wiktionary, CC BY-SA 4.0.