Slaves and Slavs

daft

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A question for those in the know, not those biased by other's opinions.
Is there any truth to the thesis that the word Slave originated in part from the tribe name Slav(Slavs, Slavic)?
 
Yes, but like this:

The English word Slav is derived from the Middle English word sclave, which was borrowed from Medieval Latin sclavus or slavus,[42] itself a borrowing and Byzantine Greek σκλάβος sklábos "slave," which was in turn apparently derived from a misunderstanding of the Slavic autonym (denoting a speaker of their own languages).
 
Ethnonym Slavs means either "speakers of the language" (from Slavic "slovo" - word), or "famous people" and "glorious people" (from Slavic "slava" - fame, glory; which is related to Sanskrit word "sravah" - meaning: famous, celebrated, glorious activities, greatly respected, etc.).

Sanskrit sravah: http://sanskritdictionary.org/sravah

Word slaves comes from ethnonym Slavs, not the other way around.

The origin of this is either because Slavs were very often (more often than others) being enslaved during that period when the word emerged, or because of Slavic exceptional treatment of their own slaves (Slavs lived in democracy and they did not keep their captives & war prisoners in perpetual slavery, but were offering their slaves to become free men and to be peacefully absorbed into Slavic societies - which was very uncommon for other peoples of the time):

Strategikon of Maurice:

"(...) The Slavs do not keep captives in perpetual slavery like other peoples, but demarcate for them a limited period of time, after which they give them choice - they can return home after purchasing their freedom, or stay among them as free people and friends. (...)"

Procopius of Caesarea:

"(...) For these peoples, the Slavs, are not ruled by one man, but they have lived since the ancient times under a democracy, and because of this both the profitable and the troublesome of their affairs are always dealt with among them as common. (...)"
 
Useful to note that the latin term (it is latin, it doesn't sound greek at all; there are no original greek terms with 3 consonants in succession) Sclavus (and sclavos, a loan-word to Greek) was around far before the slavs appeared in the borders of the Roman Empire(s). Sclavus liberatus (freed slave) was a common category of ex-slaves in the Roman Empire of old (pre Constantine).
 
Ethnonym Slavs means either "speakers of the language" (from Slavic "slovo" - word), or "famous people" and "glorious people" (from Slavic "slava" - fame, glory; which is related to Sanskrit word "sravah" - meaning: famous, celebrated, glorious activities, greatly respected, etc.).

Sanskrit sravah: http://sanskritdictionary.org/sravah

Word slaves comes from ethnonym Slavs, not the other way around.

The origin of this is either because Slavs were very often (more often than others) being enslaved during that period when the word emerged, or because of Slavic exceptional treatment of their own slaves (Slavs lived in democracy and they did not keep their captives & war prisoners in perpetual slavery, but were offering their slaves to become free men and to be peacefully absorbed into Slavic societies - which was very uncommon for other peoples of the time):

Strategikon of Maurice:

"(...) The Slavs do not keep captives in perpetual slavery like other peoples, but demarcate for them a limited period of time, after which they give them choice - they can return home after purchasing their freedom, or stay among them as free people and friends. (...)"

Procopius of Caesarea:

"(...) For these peoples, the Slavs, are not ruled by one man, but they have lived since the ancient times under a democracy, and because of this both the profitable and the troublesome of their affairs are always dealt with among them as common. (...)"

Are you sure this isn't a false cognate?
 
Useful to note that the latin term (it is latin, it doesn't sound greek at all; there are no original greek terms with 3 consonants in succession) Sclavus (and sclavos, a loan-word to Greek) was around far before the slavs appeared in the borders of the Roman Empire(s). Sclavus liberatus (freed slave) was a common category of ex-slaves in the Roman Empire of old (pre Constantine).

Google says that it was "servus liberatus" and that sclavus was not in use before the Middle Ages:

https://www.google.pl/search?q=Scla...hannel=sb&gfe_rd=cr&ei=-DorVIPAEOGg8wfSmoDoCw

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/4266587/Portillo-the-arcane-scholar.html

A FORTHCOMING BBC documentary on the Tories contains testimony to Michael Portillo's arcane scholarship.

It reports that after his leadership defeat, Portillo sent a text message in Latin to a friend: "Sclavus liberatus felix est." The BBC translates that as "the freed slave is happy". It omits to mention that sclavus is an obscure medieval form of the word. Schoolboy Latin has servus.

Google > Kyriakos or Kyriakos > Google?
 
Sclavus is certainly not usual in Classical Latin; it's a late-Latin loneword from Greek, though the Greek term is itself a corruption of the Slavs' own name for themselves. Interestingly it appears to have become σκλαβος from σλαβηνος - in other words, the consonant cluster developed in Greek-speaking hands. I'm not sure I can think of any other Greek word with three consecutive consonants.
 
Sclavus is certainly not usual in Classical Latin; it's a late-Latin loneword from Greek, though the Greek term is itself a corruption of the Slavs' own name for themselves. Interestingly it appears to have become σκλαβος from σλαβηνος - in other words, the consonant cluster developed in Greek-speaking hands. I'm not sure I can think of any other Greek word with three consecutive consonants.

Only latin- loan terms, such as strabos (as in Strabo, the famous geographer/astronomer etc), which is of obvious latin origin and means 'of problematic eyesight', while in Greek the original term also survives (myops, as in myopic etc). ;)

I think that sklavos would still sound peculiar to Greek speakers, but maybe the lower classes would be less able to tell readily between the latin loan terms like strabos and so on, and therefore sklavos might expand in a mostly Greek population environment as well. But your mentioned "slavenos" would be far more Greek-sounding as an exonym :)
 
That's why it seems odd. It makes sense that it would be a word used primarily by elites rather than ordinary people, who might have had as much grounding in Latin as they did in Greek: it might not, therefore, have sounded so odd to them. It was definitely σκλαβος in Greek before it was sclavus in Latin.
 
Isn't Strategos a Greek word with three consonants in a row?
 
Stratos and Strategos also sounds very latin, though (the Stratos part does, the other is clearly from the verb Hegoumai, which means to Lead). Maybe the original term was another, although Strategos dominated at least since Byzantine times (eg the Strategikon, or even that cool general called Strategopoulos ;) ).
Some latin-loan terms were notably used in the army structure of that period, eg Βάνδον (Bandon) from the latin Bandum, which afaik means 'emblem/flag', and was the name of the smallest division in the Byzantine army (i suppose because it was the smallest one still able to operate on its own? it had a couple of hundred soldiers).
 
Actually, looking at the dictionary reveals a lot of native Greek words which begin with the στρ- cluster: στρατος, στροφη, στρεφω and so on, all attested before meaningful Greek contact with Latin. I suggest that the consonant cluster rule doesn't apply, at least when the third consonant is a liquid.
 
^Damn it :( Can we attribute them to shadowy barbaric elements still? Cause it is very cool to just hold it as an absolute position that our perfectly refined language has no use for 3 consonants in a row :\

But maybe the str cluster is unique in that.

(and nice note on the flowing nature of r, indeed, a subcategory of consonants).
 
It's important to keep in mind that modern Greek is not classical Greek, just like modern Italian is not classical Italian. People think that Alexander in Civ5 is pronouncing his Greek totally wrong - until you look up how Greek was pronounced. Then it turns out he's pronouncing it like an Athenian would (now maybe it doesn't make sense for him to be speaking in an Athenian dialect, but that's a separate issue). The biggest thing is when he says Theon. The theta, to a modern Greek ears (and from my expectation) is with a th-sound. But he says it with an aspirated T (like Tayon). Turns out that's actually correct.

Likewise, modern Italian is not Latin. You will never see three consonants in a row in modern Italian. Any L would turn into an I. So modern Italian would have converted sclavus as sciavus. Actually, technically speaking, they did more than that. As common, the -us became an o. Then the s and v were dropped entirely. Once they did that, the Venetian diplomat's greeting of "I am your slave" became Ciao.
 
True, although apart from circa 1000/900 BC stuff or older (ie Homer), most ancient Greek texts are not having terms which would be as alien to a modern speaker of the language. The syntax is a bit different, but the real issue are great changes in grammar...

(then again if you have very simply written- likely also on purpose- stuff like the first decades AD gospels, then anyone can follow them cause they are very basic. Also i can follow Byzantine texts i read, although there are some terms there that are either not of evident meaning, or they mean something quite different than the same term now).

Most presocratic quotes are largely intelligible in modern Greek too, with some words that fell into disuse. But they are very laconic anyway.
 
True, although apart from circa 1000/900 BC stuff or older (ie Homer), most ancient Greek texts are not having terms which would be as alien to a modern speaker of the language. The syntax is a bit different, but the real issue are great changes in grammar...

And pronunciation, as Louis was saying. θ and φ are barely distinguishable from π and τ, β is the sound in 'ball' rather than 'value', μπ is always two separate sounds, vowels are all pronounced distinctly (η is a long, flat sound rather than a sharp one; αι is the initial vowel of 'ice', ει the initial sound of 'acorn') - and so on.
 
I don't doubt that the language has eroded (and likely moreso in recent times, since the last change was in the 1960s with a dreadful - and thankfully self-overturned largely, by now- push to 'modernise' the language) to some degree, including vowel pronounciations and simplifying how many tonic elements one is now aware of (just one, while we had at least 3 in the previous generation, eg my parents).

But it still is not in utter disrepair. I find current Greek (that i use, anyway, but i use simple terms and it seems they create a good impression) to be a very useful and refined language, at least potentially if one is a bit refined in how he writes/speaks/thinks. The etymologies are still mostly evident or not very hidden (some secondary parts are, such as why some terms form different consonants in some hybrids, while the same root other terms do not, etc).
 
And pronunciation, as Louis was saying. θ and φ are barely distinguishable from π and τ, β is the sound in 'ball' rather than 'value', μπ is always two separate sounds, vowels are all pronounced distinctly (η is a long, flat sound rather than a sharp one; αι is the initial vowel of 'ice', ει the initial sound of 'acorn') - and so on.

Thanks for more specific example. That being said, to be charitable to Kyriakos, we're talking about pronunciation and the issue is spelling. I know a lot about Italian so I can explain how Latin words have evolved into Italian with substantial changes to both spelling and pronunciation. I don't know enough about Greek to say the same. It may well be Scl and Str consonant clusters are uncommon in both Ancient and Modern Greek. On the other hand, it may also be that it's just uncommon in modern Greek. I don't know the answer since I don't know enough Greek.
 
Modern Greek has a lot of latin loan-terms, while pre-Rome Greek obviously would have none at all ;)

For example the most usual term for (typically one-floor and not set in an apartment building) house is 'Spiti', which is entirely from a latin term, while the Greek "Oikos" is used more formally (and in all hybrid terms, eg economy/oikonomia and so on).
 
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