> [mailto:sasxsek@yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of David Marjanovic

> We should _most definitely not_ do it the Esperanto way (described
in the
> bottom half of http://www.xibalba.demon.co.uk/jbr/ranto/s.html).
We should
> do it the Chinese way: Bulgar-land, Bulgar-man, Bulgar-language...

> completely regular and predictable.

This presumes that the whole world is made up of nations whose
people, language and culture are all in pefect alignment. In
reality, we have ethnic groups with no political entities (ex:
Kurds, though that may soon change) or that are scattered about (ex:
Gypsies) and languages that cover more than one nation, or in some
cases, only part of a nation. Some nations are named for the people
(ex: Deutschland), and some people are named after their nation
(Français). Others are not aligned at all as with China (Zhongguo)
and its people (Han), and the people of Taiwan still consider
themselves to be "Chinese" as do Chinese populations in Singapore
and other parts of Asia. If we took the "Chinese way" we'd have to
make things like "America-language" which really means nothing, but
could also mean English, Spanish, Quechua some other indigenous
language.

The answer is to make each one a proper noun. Proper nouns being
taken from native forms therefore they will be arranged in their
native fashion.


> This way you'd also avoid the question of why you took the
masculine forms
> (-in, -ski) when not only feminine (-ina, -ska) but even neuter
ones
> (*-ino, -sko) are available.
>
> (And, actually, the Slavic -in- suffix is just another
> adjective-forming suffix. It does not automatically refer to
people.)


"-in" is not there as a suffix. It's there because the whole form
was taken to form the name.