Mjollnir

[Tyra]

No, no, that's not what I meant! The Slavs didn't invent the word slave. Slav can stand for "glory" and whatever else, but the word "slave" derives it's origins from the word Slav, whatever it originally meant. The people were already called Slavs, but the word slav was created after them. Get it?

 

[Tyra]

Here's quote from an online etymological dictionary. Might explain it better than I can, no?
"Slav
1387, Sclave, from M.L. Sclavus (c.800), from Byzantine Gk. Sklabos (c.580), from O.Slav. Sloveninu "a Slav," probably related to slovo "word, speech," which suggests the name originally meant member of a speech community (cf. O.C.S. Nemici "Germans," related to nemu "dumb"). Identical with the -slav in personal names (e.g. Rus. Miroslav, lit. "peaceful fame;" Mstislav, lit. "vengeful fame;" Jaroslav, lit. "famed for fury;" Czech Bohuslav, lit. "God's glory;" and cf. Wenceslas). Spelled Slave c.1788-1866, infl. by Fr. and Ger. Slave. Adj. Slavic is attested from 1813; earlier Slavonic (c.1645), from Slavonia, a region of Croatia.
slave (n.)
c.1290, "person who is the property of another," from O.Fr. esclave, from M.L. Sclavus "slave" (cf. It. schiavo, Fr. esclave, Sp. esclavo), originally "Slav" (see Slav), so called because of the many Slavs sold into slavery by conquering peoples.
"This sense development arose in the consequence of the wars waged by Otto the Great and his successors against the Slavs, a great number of whom they took captive and sold into slavery." [Klein] "

 

[TheLastWithPaganBlood]

So, basically, the Slavs said: "What's with these people living West of us? The noises they make, that's not speaking. But the tribes living around us, we can speak and understand eachother, so let's name ourselves "the ones who can speak"!" Or something. Anywas............

 

[Feraliminal Lycanthropizer]

No, no, that's not what I meant! The Slavs didn't invent the word slave. Slav can stand for "glory" and whatever else, but the word "slave" derives it's origins from the word Slav, whatever it originally meant. The people were already called Slavs, but the word slav was created after them. Get it?

I didnt know it meant "glory", but I knew "slave" was established from the word slav (not the meaning). rephrasing the original question: what event in time were they being sold into slavery and to found the word "slave"?

 

[Tomasz]

So, basically, the Slavs said: "What's with these people living West of us? The noises they make, that's not speaking. But the tribes living around us, we can speak and understand eachother, so let's name ourselves "the ones who can speak"!" Or something. Anywas............

according to the following link

http://members.tripod.com/~Groznijat/fadlan/lozinski.html

I can apply for Iranian citizenship

 

[Tyra]

According to the above quote, it would have been during Otto I's reign (mid-900's)that the term was coined, but that sounds really early to be in use in the English language to me... In English, there were a few other terms used at the time, such as thrall, but then that's just in English. Slave and Slav is the same word in Swedish (slav), but at the time of Otto, the term träl, (=thrall) would have been used. Dunno.

 

[Feraliminal Lycanthropizer]

alright i stopped being lazy and actually took two seconds to look it up. it seems you all were pretty right. A

for all of you.



http://www.bartleby.com/61/62/S0466200.html


Noun: 1. One bound in servitude as the property of a person or household. 2. One who is abjectly subservient to a specified person or influence: “I was still the slave of education and prejudice” (Edward Gibbon). 3. One who works extremely hard. 4. A machine or component controlled by another machine or component.


Intransitive verb: Inflected forms: slaved, slav·ing, slaves
1. To work very hard or doggedly; toil. 2. To trade in or transport slaves


Etymology: Middle English sclave, from Old French esclave, from Medieval Latin scl vus, from Scl vus, Slav (from the widespread enslavement of captured Slavs in the early Middle Ages). See Slav.


Word History: The derivation of the word slave encapsulates a bit of European history and explains why the two words slaves and Slavs are so similar; they are, in fact, historically identical. The word slave first appears in English around 1290, spelled sclave. The spelling is based on Old French esclave from Medieval Latin sclavus, “Slav, slave,” first recorded around 800. Sclavus comes from Byzantine Greek sklabos (pronounced skläv s) “Slav,” which appears around 580. Sklavos approximates the Slavs' own name for themselves, the Slov nci, surviving in English Slovene and Slovenian. The spelling of English slave, closer to its original Slavic form, first appears in English in 1538. Slavs became slaves around the beginning of the ninth century when the Holy Roman Empire tried to stabilize a German-Slav frontier. By the 12th century stabilization had given way to wars of expansion and extermination that did not end until the Poles crushed the Teutonic Knights at Grunwald in 1410. •As far as the Slavs' own self-designation goes, its meaning is, understandably, better than “slave”; it comes from the Indo-European root *kleu–, whose basic meaning is “to hear” and occurs in many derivatives meaning “renown, fame.” The Slavs are thus “the famous people.” Slavic names ending in –slav incorporate the same word, such as Czech Bohu-slav, “God's fame,” Russian Msti-slav, “vengeful fame,” and Polish Stani-slaw, “famous for withstanding (enemies).”