(no subject)

[upthera44.livejournal.com]

Why is it that the word for 'a Russian' or 'Russians' is русский/русские, whereas virtually all if not all other nationalities have a noun form in Russian and do not employ the adjective as a noun (e.g., украинец, китаец, американец)? Is there any historical or linguistic explanation for this?

Comments

[alex-mashin.livejournal.com]

There are many speculations but no satisfactory explanation.

[la-dy-ashley.livejournal.com]

русский is still considered a noun, never mind the form.

[kegarawashii.livejournal.com]

it actually is a substantivized adjective.

[la-dy-ashley.livejournal.com]

there are different opinions on the point, actually. But anyway, it´s not just an adjective.

[kegarawashii.livejournal.com]

The Rus' people used to call themselves Rus', which is a collective noun and also not that wide-spread.
One political philosopher alleges that in Russian mentality the central notion is the motherland, not the people. Thus the name in the form of adjective, which somehow demonstrates the annex position of Russians towards Russia.
However, this is only a hypothesis, with no convincing arguments.

[sovok.livejournal.com]

whatever the explanation (it's not science, so there is no unique truth here), nothing is unusial in it

in English there are Englishmen, probably Frenchmen, and the rest are -ans, -eses, -ishes, whoever but not -men

peoples usually tend to separate themselves somehow in their own languages

and there is a form "россиянин" somehat similar to "British" for instance

[archaicos.livejournal.com]

I'm unaware of an explanation, but it's pretty normal as there are other words that can be used as either adjective or noun. For example:
рабочий - a worker, working
слепой - a blind man, blind
And don't forget that the same happens in other languages:
Russian/French/etc - a/the Russian, Russian
blind - blind, a/the blind
So, don't panic, it's OK :)

[triogen.livejournal.com]

I daresay, русец sounds a bit odd.

[oryx_and_crake]

On the other hand, there are росс, русич and россиянин.

[upthera44.livejournal.com]

Thanks for all the good responses. It seems that English also uses 'substantivized adjectives' for nearly all words for people of different nationalities. The words "Americans" "Canadians" "Mexicans" "Russians" are probably all examples of this. In English this appears to be a fairly consistent pattern, but in Russian русский is either the only nationality or one of the very few that looks like an adjective rather than a noun with an 'ец' or 'ка'ending, which is what got me curious.

[ex-roumor.livejournal.com]

француз, туркмен, узбек, казах, монгол, швед, англичанин, поляк, чех, югослав,
and many more...

[upthera44.livejournal.com]

You're right, ignore the "with an 'ец' or 'ка'ending" part, but keep the rest. These are still noun forms from what I can tell.

[sid0rina.livejournal.com]

By the way, popular russian humourist Zadornov has a joke on this question. And he always uses this to show russian originality and diversity from other nationalities.

[gadionysh.livejournal.com]

A historical explanation is connected with the genesis of the Russian nation as such.
When the nobles from Kiev Rus envaded the savage nothern territories, with the wild people that have nothing to do with the Slavs, those people were called русские with connotation "belonging or homage to those from Rus".
And the right question to the adjective is "чьи?"
Compare "чьи земли? - королевские" "чьи вассалы? - русские"
"whoes land - the king's" "whoes vassals? - russian"