Between identity and otherness. Stereotypical forms of ethnonyms

We aim to investigate ethnic names from an interdisciplinary perspective embracing not only an onomastic viewpoint, but also an ethnological, anthropological and sociological one. Generally speaking, ethnonyms as group names are derived from toponyms, but their referents are the people who inhabit a specific geographical area and who have a particular cultural identity. Still, the identity of a group just like that of a person is validated only by referring it to a different one. Therefore, in addition to the official name (‘the endonym’), the others, who speak a different language and have a different culture and mindset, as a result of their way of perceiving the world, will employ an exonym, a word of their own creation which usually has nothing to do with the geographical area, but rather with the habits and customs of the inhabitants. Sometimes these onymic formulas may even become offensive and function as stereotypes which generalise and preserve not pertinent character traits, but collateral ones, in relation to the referent (the Scot = scrooge; the Brit = snob; the German = organised and precise; the Japanese = punctual; the Italian = associated with the Mafia; the Norwegian = cold and introverted). This phenomenon is found especially in multicultural environments where the convergence point of two cultures becomes a source of alterity also affecting the level of onomastics. We define by linguistic means the peculiarities of some peoples, i.e. the Italians, Americans, Romanians and Germans.