I am a chinese. I am a caucasian. I am an asian. I am a spaniard. I am a vulcan/vulcanee?
Is there such things?
By the way this question is in using adjectives as noun in general and not bound to nationality.
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I wouldn't say it's okay to turn any adjective into a noun. Those words you've mentioned happen to be used as both an adjective and a noun. For example, you'll find the different definitions of the word "chinese" here.– Nikhil AnandJun 11, 2020 at 14:15
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I'd say it is usually acceptable to use adjectives as nouns. With people you would typically say "a Chinaman" or "a Chink" (by analogy with "a Frenchman" or "a Frank" I guess), although like "a Jap" (by analogy with "a Brit") these are often considered faintly or even patently offensive for reasons that are not always clear (but probably, like "a Paki", they either are used more often in practice as an ethnic slur rather than a specifier of national origin or, like "a Kraut", have acquired connotations of being a specific national slur).– SteveJun 11, 2020 at 16:45
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1 Answer
It depends, as some adjectives are used as nouns to describe specific type of people. We say "the sick" when describing sick people. Other examples are "the unemployed", "the rich and famous", etc. (Source: http://myenglishgrammar.com/)
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Just because you can talk about the rich or the famous in the plural to mean the people who are that adjective doesn't mean that you can also say that you are a rich or that you are a famous. And, in fact, you cannot say those things, because they are ungrammatical.– tchrist ♦Jun 13, 2020 at 1:43