Subsaharan Suffixes

I recently noticed in a story in the New York Times about efforts to prevent migrants from crossing the Sahara to reach Europe that the adjective used in connection with the country involved was “Nigerien.” For a moment I thought shouldn’t that be “Nigerian”?

But then I realized the story was about Niger, where the official national language is French, so the French suffix -ien makes perfect sense; whereas the official national language of Nigeria is English, so the -ian suffix is correct.

Plus—that way you can tell them apart, right?

Good to know.