“But the Slavs and the Rus are one people.” This quote from Nestor is one of a number where the word for people that is used is the same as the word for tongue, i.e., iazyk. Iazyk thus means tongue and language and, previously in Eastern Slavic languages, also a people. Nestor does the same for the Slavs more generally. Interestingly, very little has been done to research whether this concept has any connection with the tribe of the Iazyges that lived by the Danube. Although Nestor does not discuss Iazyges, he does follow the view that the Slavs came from the Danube. Nearby dwelt too the Quadi who are understood to be a tribe of the Suevi and who had had long relations with the Iazyges. Now, the few Iazyges names that we have do not suggest that they spoke Slavic (they were “Sarmatians” whatever that may mean). But the concept of “tongue as people” may have been introduced into Nestor’s Slavic via the Iazyges. By the 5th/6th century accounts of the Iazyges cease.
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