# Slavs (ethnonym)

The Slavic ethnonym (and autonym), Slavs, is reconstructed in Proto-Slavic as *Slověninъ, plural Slověne. The earliest written references to the Slav ethnonym are in other languages.

## Early mentions

Possibly the oldest mention of Slavs in almost historical form *Slověne is attested in Ptolemy's Geography (2nd century) as Σταυανοί (Stavanoi) and Σουοβηνοί (Souobenoi), both listed as Scythian tribes living near Alanians north of Scythia (first roughly between Volga and Ural Mountains, second between the Baltic Sea and Black Sea). Zbigniew Gołąb accepted Pavel Jozef Šafárik's opinion that Greeks inserted "τ" or "θ" for Slavic "sl-" (reconstructing Proto-Slavic *Slɔu̯ǣnæ), and "through the labialized articulation of the vowel /ɔ/ conditioned by the preceding /u̯/" in Proto-Slavic *Su̯ɔbǣnæ (*Svoběne).
Sporoi (Greek: Σπόροι) or Spori was according to Eastern Roman/Byzantine scholar Procopius (500–560) the old name of the Antes and Sclaveni, two Early Slavic branches. Procopius stated that the Sclaveni and Antes spoke the same language, but he traced their common origin back to not the Veneti (as per Jordanes) but a people that he called Sporoi. He derived the name from Greek σπείρω ("I scatter grain"), because "they populated the land with scattered settlements". He described their society as democratic, and their language as barbaric.
The Roman bureaucrat Jordanes wrote about the Slavs in his work Getica (551): "although they derive from one nation, now they are known under three names, the Veneti, Antes and Sclaveni" (ab una stirpe exorti, tria nomina ediderunt, id est Veneti, Antes, Sclaveni); that is, the West Slavs, East Slavs, and South Slavs. He stated that the Veneti were the ancestors of the Sclaveni and the Antes, the two having used to be called Veneti but are now "chiefly" (though, by implication, not exclusively) called Sclaveni and Antes. Jordanes' Veneti and Procopius' Sporoi were used for the ethnogenetic legend of the Slavs, the ancestors of the Slavs (the subsequent ethnic group name).
Thus, the Slav ethnonym at first denoted the southern group of the early Slavs. That ethnonym is attested by Procopius in Byzantine Greek as Σκλάβοι (Skláboi), Σκλαβηνοί (Sklabēnoí), Σκλαυηνοί (Sklauēnoí), Σθλαβηνοί (Sthlabēnoí), or Σκλαβῖνοι (Sklabînoi), while his contemporary Jordanes refers to the Sclaveni in Latin. In Ancient Greek there are no words with the root sl-, thus the original ethnonym was transformed into skl-, as that root was present (in sklērós, "hard").

## Church Slavonic manuscripts

In East Church Slavonic manuscripts, the ethnonym is spelt Slověne (Словѣне), such as in the Primary Chronicle, Sofia First Chronicle, Novgorod First Chronicle and Novgorod Fourth Chronicle. In the source dating to 898 included in the Primary Chronicle, the term is used both for East Slavic tribes and more often for a people (in the Kievan Rus' society, alongside Varangians, Chuds and Kriviches).

## Etymology

The origin of the Slavic autonym *Slověninъ is disputed.
* According to Roman Jakobson's opinion, modified by Oleg Trubachev (Трубачёв) and John P. Maher, the name is related to the Proto-Indo-European (PIE) root *ḱlew- seen in slovo ("word") and originally denoted "people who speak (the same language)", i.e. people who understand each other, in contrast to the Slavic word denoting "foreign people", namely němci, meaning "mumbling, murmuring people" (from Slavic *němъ "mumbling, mute"). The latter word may be the antecedent of the ethnonym for "Germans" or "Germanic peoples" in many later Slavic languages, e. g., Czech Němec, Slovak Nemec, Slovene Nemec, Belarusian, Russian and Bulgarian Немец, Serbian Немац, Croatian Nijemac, Polish Niemiec, Ukrainian Німець, etc., but another theory states that rather these words are derived from the name of the Nemetes tribe, which is derived from the Celtic root nemeto-. The word slovo ("word") and the related slava ("glory, fame, praise") and slukh ("hearing") originate from the PIE root *ḱlew- ("be spoken of, glory"), cognate with Ancient Greek κλέος (kléos "fame"), whence comes the name Pericles, Latin clueo ("be called"), as well as English loud.
* Another widely cited view is expressed by Max Vasmer, who points out that the suffix Proto-Slavic *-ěninъ, *-aninъ otherwise seems to derive nouns only from toponyms; hence Vasmer assumes that this word, too, is derived from a toponym - probably a hydronym, comparable to various Slavic river names with the same apparent root such as Russian Слуя, Polish Sława, Sławica, Serbo-Croatian Славница, further related to Ancient Greek κλύζω 'lave', κλύζωει 'flow', κλύδων 'serf', Latin cluō 'to clean', cloāca 'sewer pipe'. According to this view, the connection to *slovo 'word' would be the result of a later folk etymology. It has been suggested that the word may be derived from a place named Slovo or a river named Slova; this, according to some, is implied by the suffix -enin. The Old East Slavic Slavuta for the Dnieper River was argued by Henrich Bartek (1907–1986) to be derived from slova and also the origin of Slověne.
* Based on an uncertain identification with the ethnonym souоbēnoí, which is mentioned in Ptolemy (2nd century AD), the name has been argued to be derived from Proto-Slavic adjective svobъ ("oneself", "one's own"; derivative svoboda > sloboda also meaning "freedom", "free settlement"), which derives from Indo-European *s(w)e/obh(o)- "a person or thing apart, separate", root *swobh "his/hers", meaning "all the members of an exogamic moiety > actual or potential affines/blood relatives". It can be interpreted as "a tribe of the free, of their own people". Names of many Germanic tribes derive from the same root, which was not an exonym but endonym. Name of sabini tribe also derive from root *swobʰ-. Eventually with dissimilation of svobъ > slobъ was secondarily associated with slovo "word".
Other proposals for the etymology of *Slověninъ propounded by some scholars have much less support. B. Philip Lozinski argues that the word *slava once had the meaning of "worshipper", in this context "practicer of a common Slavic religion"; from that evolved into an ethnonym. S. B. Bernstein speculated that it derives from a reconstructed Proto-Indo-European *(s)lawos, cognate to Ancient Greek λαός (laós) "population, people", which itself has no commonly accepted etymology.
According to the widespread view known since 18th century, the English word slave, which arrived in modern language from Middle English sclave, from Old French esclave, from Late Middle High German sklave, from Medieval Latin sclāvus, from Late Latin Sclāvus, from Byzantine Greek Σκλάβος [Sklábos], Έσκλαβήνος [Ésklabḗnos] and displaced native Old English þēow, derives from Byzantine loanword from a Slavic gen self-name *Slověninŭ - Σκλάβινοι [Sklábinoi], Έσκλαβηνοί [Ésklabēnoí], that came to mean 'prisoner of war Slave', 'slave' (Σκλάβος, Έσκλαβήνος, Late Latin Sclāvus) in the 8th/9th century, because they often became captured and enslaved (see also Saqaliba). Similarly, the popular Italian-language (and international) salutation Ciao is also derived from that Slavic ethnonym. However, this version is disputed since the 19th century.
An alternative contemporary hypothesis states that Medieval Latin sclāvus via secondary form *scylāvus derives from Byzantine σκυλάω [skūláō, skyláō], σκυλεύω [skūleúō, skyleúō] - "to strip the enemy (killed in a battle)", "to make booty / extract spoils of war". This version is criticised as well.