Does "ски"(ski) mean something on it's own or is it just a coincidence? Russian is Русский, Bulgarian is Български, Serbian is Srpski, Polish is Polski etc. Ukrainian is Українська.
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2The same reason why Danish is "Dansk", Norwegian is "Norsk" and Swedish is "Svenska" in those respective languages. – Anixx Apr 28 '22 at 22:37
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This suffix comes from Proto-Slavic *-ьskъ, cognate with English "-ish", and is used in a similar way: to turn a noun into an adjective. For example, Russian герой geroj "hero" > геройский gerojskij "heroic", дети deti "child" > детский detskij "childish".
Рус-ский, thus, is an adjective from Русь: "Rus-ish". And similarly in other Slavic languages, though the exact form of the suffix varies.
Draconis
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This adjective would apply to whatever the word for "language" was, in context. – jlawler Apr 27 '22 at 21:22
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Proto-Indo-European suffix -iskos, which means "Characteristic of, typical of, pertaining to", is inherited by Balto-Slavic, Germanic and Hellenic. The Proto-Balto-Slavic one is -iškas, while the Proto-Slavic one is -ьskъ.
Fatyanovo2022
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The link to the article about the suffix: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Reconstruction:Proto-Indo-European/-iskos – Anixx Apr 28 '22 at 22:34
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These is also late Latin
-iscus(now present in Ital.-esco, Rom.-esc, Fr.-esqueetc) said to come from Proto-West Germanic -isk, from Proto-Germanic -iskaz, from Proto-Indo-European *-iskos (suffix), although its presence in Romanian may prove a rather common-Latin base. – cipricus Jan 16 '23 at 23:16