The ending "ia" designates a country or nation of origin, whereas the plain "an" does not, and simply indicates it is associated with the proper noun from which it comes. Usually, of course. For example: Romania, the Land of the Romans, as opposed to "Roman", which is used for anything from lineage to a period in history to architecture and so on.

Palestra is the Latin version of a Greek word, palaestra, a verb meaning to wrestle. In the Latin usage it's for a wrestling school, where training and athletic competitions take place.

In English, palestra still means a location for wrestling or battle, so Palestran would mean "of the battlefield" whereas Palestrian would mean "the land of the battlefield." Thus, unless there is a specific background reason not to, it would be more correct to use "Palestran."

-GK, married to a linguist.


Ysharra says, "One day, I'm going to have "What?" inscribed on your tombstone, with lots of helpful punctuation."