# Where did the -ski come from in Slav surnames?



## EuropeanOrigin

Hello everyone, the -ski in surnames from Russia and other Slav countries looks close to the Romanian -escu coming from the Latin -iscus and has a similar meaning. Plus Lithuanian also has surnames that finish with -skis. Another thing is how Swedish people say svenska. Is there any connection or all coincidence?


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## ahvalj

There was a common Indo-European suffix -*isko-, not widespread, but nevertheless attested in many languages, though without any definite function. Its use for relative adjectives is characteristic of Germanic, Slavic and Baltic languages (plus the Romanian surnames on -escu, which are definitely not inherited from Latin). In the older literature we often find the idea that its spreading in Slavic and Baltic was stimulated by Germanic borrowings, though it is impossible to evaluate. The Lithuanian -skis are lithuanized Slavic surnames, the proper Lithuanian form is -iškas.


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## ahvalj

By the way, in English it exists as well, in the form -ish.


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## ahvalj

Also, in some Romance languages there is a similar suffix -asco- ("bergamasco") with the same meaning, but as far as I remember it is derived from the extinct Ligurian (non-IE) language and thus not related to the IE forms.

-esco in Italian "tedesco" (as well as similar suffixes in other West Romance languages) is a Germanic borrowing.


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## Awwal12

EuropeanOrigin said:


> the -ski in surnames from Russia


I have to note that these surnames are NOT typical for ethnic Russians.They are typcial for Poles, Jews of East European origin, also they happen quite often among Belarussians and sometimes among Ukrainians. Among ethnic Russians they naturally happen only occasionally (surnames like Zadonskiy, Ryazanskiy etc. do exist but are extremely rare), and in Russia such surnames usually designate either ethnic Russians of Polish/Belorussian/Jewish ancestry, or just ethnic Belarussians and Jews. For instance, former Russian oligarchs *Gusinskiy* and *Berezovskiy* are ethnic Jews; *Khodorkovskiy* has Jewish father. The Russian writer Mikhail *Dostoyevskiy* belonged to a family of Russian nobility which originated from the Great Principality of Lithuania (modern day Belarus), etc.


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## ahvalj

They were also common among priests (Преображенский, Рождественский, Воскресенский, Вознесенский) and higher nobility (Ухтомский, Бобринский, http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Рюриковичи).


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## Awwal12

ahvalj said:


> They were also common among priests (Преображенский, Рождественский, Воскресенский, Вознесенский)


Ah, yes, "seminarist surnames".  It should be also taken into consideration, of course.


> and higher nobility (Ухтомский, Бобринский, http://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Рюриковичи).


Although it is somewhat important in historical aspect, their input into modern Russian surnames is also negligible for natural reasons.


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## EuropeanOrigin

ahvalj said:


> Its use for relative adjectives is characteristic of Germanic, Slavic and Baltic languages (plus the Romanian surnames on -escu, which are definitely not inherited from Latin).


Thanks for the responses. I'm surprised that Romanian didn't inherit it from Latin -iscus because it looks so similar. Did Romanian inherit it from Slavic or Germanic instead?


			
				ahvalj said:
			
		

> In the older literature we often find the idea that its spreading in Slavic and Baltic was stimulated by Germanic borrowings, though it is impossible to evaluate.


Is the Swedish -ska in words like svenska from Russian influence possibly or do other Germanic languages also have the same -ska word endings too?


			
				ahvalj said:
			
		

> -esco in Italian "tedesco" (as well as similar suffixes in other West Romance languages) is a Germanic borrowing.


That comes from Theodiscus. Isn't only the first part a Germanic borrowing and the second -iscus a Latin ending or did Latin borrow all the -iscus endings from Germanic? If that is the case maybe Slavic -ski is a borrowing from Germanic too.

Sorry if some of the questions look repetitive, I only want to get a clear understanding, thanks for the help.


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## ahvalj

EuropeanOrigin said:


> Thanks for the responses. I'm surprised that Romanian didn't inherit it from Latin -iscus because it looks so similar. Did Romanian inherit it from Slavic or Germanic instead?


But where do you find -iscus in Latin in the relative meaning? Franciscus etc. is early mediaeval and obviously a Germanic borrowing. As to the Romanian, I actually don't know: since -escu has no Latin prototype, it must be either Germanic or Slavic or even possibly Dacian, or all three. In any case, the Slavic vicinity must have supported this model.



EuropeanOrigin said:


> Is the Swedish -ska in words like svenska from Russian influence possibly or do other Germanic languages also have the same -ska word endings too?


It is not a Russian influence. It is the same Germanic suffix -isk- as the English -ish or German -(i)sch, only in form of the weak declension (German -ische): "English speech" = "englische Sprache" = "engelska språket" = Proto-Germanic something like *"angliskô sprēkijô". The Germanic sk gave sh in English and German, skh in Dutch, but remained as sk in Scandinavian (except for secondary cases) and Afrikaans.



EuropeanOrigin said:


> That comes from Theodiscus. Isn't only the first part a Germanic borrowing and the second -iscus a Latin ending or did Latin borrow all the -iscus endings from Germanic? If that is the case maybe Slavic -ski is a borrowing from Germanic too.


I really cannot recall any classical Latin word with -iscus in the relative meaning. Could you please provide some examples?

The Slavic had the chance to inherit this suffix from the Indo-European. The problem is that in other IE languages this suffix has no relative meaning, and only in three attested branches — Germanic, Slavic and Baltic — it has. That's everything we know. It is possible that Germanic influenced the use of this suffix in two other branches, or the opposite way, or it was a shared innovation, there is no information to decide. We need either ancient texts, which are absent, or the time machine, which was still in development the last time I checked.


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## ahvalj

There is another suffix common to both Germanic and Slavic (and Baltic) that is obviously a borrowing: English -er vs. Russian -ar' vs. Lithuanian -orius. Here the starting point is the Latin -ārius (itself of an unknown origin) that entered first to Germanic in numerous borrowings and later penetrated from Germanic to Slavic in words like Gothic motareis > Old Church Slavonic mytarjĭ "publican", and then, apparently pretty late, from Slavic to Lithuanian. In case of -ārius we have the evidence from the source language and the intermediate steps to clarify the picture, while in case of -isk- we can observe only the results of the process and are unable to discover its earlier stages.


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## ahvalj

Bourciez in his «Éléments de linguistique romane» calls Latin -iscus a Greek borrowing that gained popularity in the end of the Imperial period, mostly in the East, and mixed in the West with the Germanic -isk to become productive in Spain and Italy (http://books.google.ru/books?hl=ru&id=qsxLAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=isk and http://books.google.ru/books?hl=ru&id=qsxLAAAAMAAJ&focus=searchwithinvolume&q=iscus). As you can see, no native -iscus in the classical Latin.


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## EuropeanOrigin

ahvalj said:


> I really cannot recall any classical Latin word with -iscus in the relative meaning.


I first read that Romanian -escu came from Latin -iscus on some Wikipedia page about Romanian names. I am not saying it is so, I just mentioned it to see if it had any truth but your explanations make sense and look like they disprove it.


> Could you please provide some examples?


I can't think of any classical Latin examples. There are some examples from Roman Thrace, like the name Priscus and the town Drabescus. What do you think about them? And this is probably not related but just to ask, I have read that Damascus is preSemitic, could it be IndoEuropean too?


> Bourciez in his «Éléments de linguistique romane» calls Latin -iscus a Greek borrowing


Do you know any examples from Greek?


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## ahvalj

EuropeanOrigin said:


> I can't think of any classical Latin examples. There are some examples from Roman Thrace, like the name Priscus and the town Drabescus. What do you think about them?


The word "prīscus" is Latin, and de Vaan (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7IkEzr9hyJS1ZxV2dpdnhzUEk/edit?usp=sharing page 489, paragraph 4) derives it from earlier *prīs-ko-, so the suffix was not exactly -isko-, but since anyway IE -*isko- seems to be an etymologically compound suffix, the Latin in this sole case shows something similar to the meaning and structure we are discussing (i. e. "related to what is before"). "Drabescus" looks non-Latin to me.



EuropeanOrigin said:


> And this is probably not related but just to ask, I have read that Damascus is preSemitic, could it be IndoEuropean too?


I cannot comment the etymology of "Damascus". Indeed, Wikipedia mentions its possible pre-Semitic origin. As to its IE connections, they could be only extremely speculative. In principle, three groups of Indo-Europeans were attested there in the first half of the 2nd millennium BC: the Mitanni Aryans (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mitanni_Indo-Aryan), the Anatolians, and, in the middle of the millennium, probably some of the Sea Peoples (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sea_peoples). The element dama- resembles the IE root *demh2- "to dominate, conquer", though of course nothing can be said seriously about this similarity.



EuropeanOrigin said:


> Do you know any examples from Greek?


I recall some words like "paidiskos", "kid" or "asteriskos", "little star" or "basiliskos", "little king", but not anything reminiscent the Germanic or Balto-Slavic relative meaning. Maybe somebody can shed more light.


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## ahvalj

For Romanian, the Dacian etymology of -escu is also not impossible — the Wikipedia list of reconstructed Dacian words (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_reconstructed_Dacian_words), while very short, contains nevertheless such occurrences as _Thibiscum, Tramarisca_ and _Cratiscara_: we don't know their meaning and the exact morphemic structure, but at least the element -isk- resembling the desired suffix seems to be present. So, it could be that Dacians had some words with this suffix that passed to the Dacian Latin, then the Greek influence increased the number of such words, then the Goths left some words with -isk-, and finally the Slavic sea brought an unlimited number of words with -isk- to the Balkans. Something like this.


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## jasio

According to a Polish Wikipedia (http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/-ski_(formant); the article hasn't been translated to any other language and has a reference to a historical grammar book), the "-ski" suffix coming from Old Slavic "_-ьskь-jь_" was originally possessive rather than relative, like "niebieski" meaning "belonging to the heaven/sky" (like "ptaki niebieskie" - "birds of the air" in the Bible). It was also used with names of countries, regions and settlements to denote possession or place of origin (like 'angielski' ('English') - 'belonging to or coming from England'). 

Last names with "-ski" are considered to be typically Polish, and originally were used by Polish gentry. The suffix meant the location of the main court, place of inhabitance or etc, similarly to a German "von" or English "of". According to other not translated, but documented articles in Wikipedia (http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polskie_nazwiska#Nazwiska_zako.C5.84czone_na_-ski.2C_-cki_i_-dzki, and http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/-ski_(nazwisko)), last names with this suffix date back to 13th century. Over the time the suffix was popularized among lower classes as giving the names a noble flavor. According to the article, similarly sounding suffixes in neighboring languages (the article mentions Ukrainian, Belorussian, Russian, Czech, and even Macedonian) may have two sources: Old Slavic traces of origin of the suffix, and long-lasting influence of the Polish culture starting with 14th century. Since there were well-documented contacts between Poland and Transylvania (one of Polish kings - Stefan Batory - had Transylvanian origin, although in this case it looks more like a Hungarian than Romanian culture) as well as Principality of Moldavia, a relationship between Romanian and Polish suffixes is possible, although I do not have any specific knowledge about it. 

Russia is a special case. Resettling people was a form of repression in Russia since 16th century. Following increasing Russian influence in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which ultimately led to partitioning of the country towards the end of 18th century, it was also used against Polish and Lithuanian (or rather Belorussian, using modern nomenclature) elites, partizans, opposition etc. This led to resettling more than half a million people primarily to Syberia, but also to other areas of Russian empire. Their decendants nowadays may still bear names of Polish origin, although in majority they consider themselves native Russians.


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## vianie

jasio said:


> According to a Polish Wikipedia (http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/-ski_(formant); the article hasn't been translated to any other language and has a reference to a historical grammar book), the "-ski" suffix coming from Old Slavic "_-ьskь-jь_" was originally possessive rather than relative, like "niebieski" meaning "belonging to the heaven/sky" (like "ptaki niebieskie" - "birds of the air" in the Bible). It was also used with names of countries, regions and settlements to denote possession or place of origin (like 'angielski' ('English') - 'belonging to or coming from England').



This seems to be the cardinal factor sorting this mosaic, jasio. In Czech and Slovak, there is a Dative preposition *k *(with the *ku* and *ke* modifications of it). Once, it existed in Polish as well.


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## jasio

vianie said:


> This seems to be the cardinal factor sorting this mosaic, jasio. In Czech and Slovak, there is a Dative preposition *k *(with the *ku* and *ke* modifications of it). Once, it existed in Polish as well.



Are you suggesting a relationship between "k/ku/ke" (meaning 'to'), and perhaps "z/s" (meaning 'from') prepositions in a number of Slavic languages (including Czech, Slovak, Polish, Russian, Ukrainian etc) with a "-ski" suffix? That's interesting, especially that some prepositions are clearly related to similarly sounding prefixes.


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## vianie

If we take a look at your example with *niebieski* I see no need to implement the *z/s* into there because *niebies* can sensefully represent G pl. of *niebo*


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## EuropeanOrigin

ahvalj said:


> I recall some words like "paidiskos", "kid" or "asteriskos", "little star" or "basiliskos", "little king", but not anything reminiscent the Germanic or Balto-Slavic relative meaning. Maybe somebody can shed more light.


Do you recall the sources where you saw these examples and if they were from Roman times or before?


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## ahvalj

EuropeanOrigin said:


> Do you recall the sources where you saw these examples and if they were from Roman times or before?


From Beekes' dictionary (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7IkEzr9hyJeWVWWWcydS0wVE0/edit?usp=sharing) under resp. παῖς (p. 1142–1143), ἀστήρ (p. 156) and βασιλεύϛ (p. 203). You can judge the age from the authors for which the words are indicated, e. g. ἀστερίσκος in Theophrastus. i. e. 4–3 centuries BC. Unfortunately, the scanned text was optically recognized by some idiot in the web, so the Greek text is not searchable.


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## ahvalj

jasio said:


> According to a Polish Wikipedia (http://pl.wikipedia.org/wiki/-ski_(formant); the article hasn't been translated to any other language and has a reference to a historical grammar book), the "-ski" suffix coming from Old Slavic "_-ьskь-jь_" was originally possessive rather than relative, like "niebieski" meaning "belonging to the heaven/sky" (like "ptaki niebieskie" - "birds of the air" in the Bible).


My sources tell the opposite — in Old Church Slavonic it was exactly relative as opposed to possessive, e. g. Meillet in «Le slave commun» (the Russian text: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7IkEzr9hyJTVpnVVZEVDVBcG8/edit?usp=sharing pages 292–293) states: "the exact meaning of -ьskъ comes, as we have seen, from the opposition of the OCS пророчь, reproducing προφήτου, and пророчьскъ, reproducing προφητῶν. Thus, we have: мѫжьскъ, женьскъ, дҍтьскъ, чловҍчьскъ, небесьскъ and so on. Naturally, -ьskъ appears in derivatives from the names of places, e. g. назаретьскъ. With the ending of the Instrumental plural, we have the adverbs on -ьsky: пьсьскы, латиньскы and so on."


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## ahvalj

jasio said:


> Russia is a special case. Resettling people was a form of repression in Russia since 16th century. Following increasing Russian influence in the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which ultimately led to partitioning of the country towards the end of 18th century, it was also used against Polish and Lithuanian (or rather Belorussian, using modern nomenclature) elites, partizans, opposition etc. This led to resettling more than half a million people primarily to Syberia, but also to other areas of Russian empire. Their decendants nowadays may still bear names of Polish origin, although in majority they consider themselves native Russians.


It may be hard to believe for a person with a Polish background, but a number of people with surnames on -ski and lots of sibilants moved to the non-Siberian parts of the empire by their own choice and even made some modest career (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Przhevalsky or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathilde_Kschessinska).


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## Awwal12

ahvalj said:


> It may be hard to believe for a person with a Polish background, but a number of people with surnames on -ski and lots of sibilants moved to the non-Siberian parts of the empire by their own choice and even made some modest career (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Przhevalsky or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathilde_Kschessinska).


+1
The list of nobles of both Polish and "West Russian" descent who have made great careers in Russia is really huge. In fact, before the rise of nationalism in the XIX century, the ethnic background even didn't mean much among nobility (only religion had some impact).


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## jasio

vianie said:


> If we take a look at your example with *niebieski* I see no need to implement the *z/s* into there because *niebies* can sensefully represent G pl. of *niebo*



It may be a mere coincidence, as it does not seem to be a rule. For example, we have "katowski miecz" ('_an executioner's sword_'), where "kat" (_'an executioner_') doesn't have an 's' in any grammatical case (http://pl.wiktionary.org/wiki/kat#kat_.28j.C4.99zyk_polski.29). What I did actually mean however, was that unlike "s/z", "k/ku" seems to show a wrong direction, doesn't it? So for example, in South Poland there is a city called Tarnów. A certain '_John of Tarnow_' would thus be called "Jan z Tarnowa" (not 'ku'!) or "Jan Tarnowski" in Polish. On the other hand, "Jan z Czarnolasu" ('_Jan of Blackforest_') was in fact "Jan Kochanowski" rather than "*Jan Czarnolaski", but it was only later, when the last names were already inherited. 



ahvalj said:


> My sources tell the opposite — in Old Church Slavonic it was exactly relative as opposed to possessive, e. g. Meillet in «Le slave commun» (the Russian text: https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7IkEzr9hyJTVpnVVZEVDVBcG8/edit?usp=sharing pages 292–293) states:



I don't speak OCS myself, so perhaps the authors of the sources ought to dispute the matter between themselves. 
Anyway, albeit difficult to read, as my Russian has rotten quite a bit, the book seems to be very interesting. Thank you for pointing it out to me.



ahvalj said:


> It may be hard to believe for a person with a Polish background, but a number of people with surnames on -ski and lots of sibilants moved to the non-Siberian parts of the empire by their own choice and even made some modest career (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nikolay_Przhevalsky or http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mathilde_Kschessinska).



Please, don't judge the book by the cover.  My own grandma was born in Петроград, and as far as I am aware, her family hadn't been forced to move there. Actually, it's quite normal for aristocracy to gravitate towards the throne, and for a regular gentry to follow them, isn't it? Although they may be torn between loyalty to their previous masters and the new ones, sometimes for generations. 

Anyway, if you dig into Przhevalsky's familiy history, you'll find out that it was quite complex, and his possible nationality - according to modern standards - is disputable despite his Polish-sounding last name. But it was quite common considering the period and area where his family lived. Actually, a Polish article on Wikipedia provides somewhat more information about it then Russian or English. As Awwal12 wrote:



Awwal12 said:


> In fact, before the rise of  nationalism in the XIX century, the ethnic background even didn't mean  much among nobility (only religion had some impact).



  And not only among nobility, I would add. The terms, like "kozak/казак", "szlachta/шляхта", and even "Ruś/Русь" or "litewski/литовский" are totally misleading when you try to map them into modern nationalities. But it would be totally OT to discuss it here, wouldn't it?



Awwal12 said:


> +1
> The list of nobles of both Polish and "West Russian" descent who have made great careers in Russia is really huge.



I don't think though that they outnumbered those who were sent involuntarily, so let's make it 1:1.  

Anyway, to conclude, there was a number of reasons why people of Polish descent and last names inhabitated Russia and gave their last names to now Russian families, including the fact that they made a part of a population on lands conquerred by Russia, they were relatively better educated and thus more mobile, many of them decided to make their carreers in Russian army, administration and economy, and a vast number was resettled by force. For various reasons we (Poles) tend to remember the latter more, indeed.  It's interesting though, why so many Jewish families in Russia selected Polish-sounding last names that in Russia you seem to percieve '-ski' as a Polish/Jewish suffix. Some of them might have been indeed adopted by Polish gentry families, but perhaps the others might have simply seen these names as more honorable - I don't know.


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## ahvalj

jasio said:


> It's interesting though, why so many Jewish families in Russia selected Polish-sounding last names that in Russia you seem to percieve '-ski' as a Polish/Jewish suffix. Some of them might have been indeed adopted by Polish gentry families, but perhaps the others might have simply seen these names as more honorable - I don't know.


Actually, -ovich/-evich was as frequent among Jews, so I guess the main reason was that the Jewish life was mostly centered around what is now Belarus, and the Jews adopted the surname patterns widespread there. So, surnames like "Zhydenko" will be probably perceived as purely Ukrainian, whereas the absolutely Slavic "Mogilevich" — as 100% Jewish. "Berezovskiy" for a Russian ear will sound suspicious, even without the reputation of its most famous bearer.


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## jasio

ahvalj said:


> Actually, -ovich/-evich was as frequent among Jews



...which for a Polish ear sounds Ruthenian, unlike -ic, which should sound Polish (królewic = son of a king (nowadays królewicz), dziedzic - owner of inherited property, etc), but in fact it sounds Jewish (like Joskovitz). 



ahvalj said:


> So, surnames like "Zhydenko" will be probably  perceived as purely Ukrainian



Suffix sounds Ukrainian, indeed.



ahvalj said:


> whereas the absolutely Slavic  "Mogilevich" — as 100% Jewish



In Poland it would depend on actual pronunciation... we would locate 'Mogilevich' as Rutenian or Russian towards the North (Belarus, Russia), while Mohylevich (actually with the same spelling in grazhdanka) - towards the South, in Ukraine. No relationship to the Jews though, in absence of other information. 



ahvalj said:


> "Berezovskiy" for a Russian ear will  sound suspicious, even without the reputation of its most famous  bearer.



For us it sounds pure Russian, but not because of the suffix, but rather because of the stem (in Polish it would have been Brzozowski, which is in fact not uncommon). And yes, if the bearer had a Polish passport, it would sound suspicious too, although only a bit because Rutenian sounding names are not that rare. 



ahvalj said:


> the Jews adopted the surname patterns widespread there


And that may be the simplest explanation.


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## ahvalj

One more example: Abramov — sounds Russian here, Abramenko — Ukrainian, Abramovich — Jewish, despite all three suffixes being Slavic. Don't know if Abramovskiy exists. So, indeed, the north-western models on -vich and -ski, pretty innocent themselves, are associated with Jews for a Russian layman. The surname with these suffixes should have a specifically Polish (with sibilants, sorry) or church-related root to be perceived as non-Jewish. I recall a story when a neonazi Marcinkiewicz with a Polish/Belarusian surname had to prove his camerades that he had no Jewish affiliation. Well, these were lyrical digressions related to the contemporary fate of the -sk- suffix in Slavic. The topic question, however, was about its etymology...


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## Awwal12

ahvalj said:


> Don't know if Abramovskiy exists.


If it does, it has to be an exclusively Russian surname then.  Virtually all -skiy surnames are of toponymic origin (Tartakovskiy <- Tartakov, Khodorkovskiy <- Khodorkov or Khodorkovtsy, Dzerzhinskiy <- Dzerzhinovo, etc.), and I have managed to find any settlements beginning in "Abramov-" in Russia only.
Also that would be Abrámovskiy, not Abramóvskiy (what one could expect for a surname of Polish origin).


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## jasio

Awwal12 said:


> If it does, it has to be an exclusively Russian surname then.



Why so? Russian suffix "-ский", Ukrainian "-ський", Belarussian "-скі", Lithuanian "-skis" and Polish "-ski" only slightly differ in pronunciation, which is adapted to phonotactics and melody of respective languages. Since you already mentioned Dzierżyński, please compare articles on Feliks Dzierżyński in Belorussian, Polish, Russian, and Ukrainian wikipedias with respect to the name spelling - a good example, guaranteed to be in any given language version.  Anyway, sometime, somewhere I have read an interesting note that in Central and Eastern Europe one must not judge about nationality just by surname alone - the languages are too close one to the other.



Awwal12 said:


> Also that would be Abrámovskiy, not Abramóvskiy (what one could expect for a surname of Polish origin).



I'm not a Russian specialist, but why so? Polish accent is almost exclusively paroxytonic, so in Polish you would accent Abr*a*mów (i bolded the accented vowell rather than placing an accent sign over it, since in Polish "ó" denotes a vowell nowadays pronounced as "u" rather than an accented "o"), but Abram*o*wski. Why in your opinion the accented syllable should change when changing the language? It would be somewhat unnatural, wouldn't it?

BTW - the last name "Abramovskiy" does exist, although I do not know, how it is accented: http://www.ufolog.ru/names/order/Абрамовский.


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## ahvalj

The forms on -ski with penultimate stress are associated with the Polish-Belarusian area and are likely to be perceived as Jewish nowadays; those with a stress further to the beginning of the word sound as rather belonging to the nobility, like Ukhtomskiy, Romodanovskiy or Romanovskiy. I, too, have found Abramovskiy in the web, but I am sure the stress there follows the common north-western pattern. I think it is all rather recent: untill the WWI and the fall of the Pale of settlement, most Russians had very little contact with Jews, while during the WWI and especially in the early Soviet decades many millions of Jews came from the Belarusian west to the proper Russian cities and brought with them more surnames on -ski and -vich than any local could dream to be exposed to before. That's actually the same story as with the German-sounding surnames: when one sees them in the pre-revolutionary context, a German ethnicity mostly comes to mind, while in the Soviet and post-Soviet reality, only Jewish.


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## Awwal12

jasio said:


> I'm not a Russian specialist, but why so? Polish accent is almost exclusively paroxytonic, so in Polish you would accent Abr*a*mów (i bolded the accented vowell rather than placing an accent sign over it, since in Polish "ó" denotes a vowell nowadays pronounced as "u" rather than an accented "o"), but Abram*o*wski. Why in your opinion the accented syllable should change when changing the language? It would be somewhat unnatural, wouldn't it?


Changing not the language, but the very origin of the surname, I've meant.  You have absolutely correctly noted that in Polish it would be Abram*o*wski, and this surname would be brought to Russia from Poland or Belarus with exactly the same stress (Abramóvskiy), creating a perfect "Jewish" surname. However, the Russian language is NOT paroxytonic. If a Russian village would be called after some man with the name Abrám, it would become Abrámovo, and a man originating from the village would be quite naturally called Abrámovskiy, and no way Abramóvskiy.

Same, say, for Berezovskiy: the Jewish or Polish surname is Berezóvskiy, while the native Russian surname would be Beryózovskiy (from Beryózovo - or, probably, from some town of Beryózov, ultimately from Beryóza; note also the typical Russian /e/ -> /'o/ shift).


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