Slavery? origins of the word "Slav" and its relation to "slave"

[JMD]

A word from a layperson who dabbles in etymology in her spare time, if I
may. :-) Slovo = a letter, word. // Perhaps this would be a useful analogy:
Nemec = a person who does not speak, is "nem (nemec)" even today (mutec =
mute); the word for "German" still used today is "Nemec" (in Slovene, for
example). My assumption: if the other person spoke a language you did not
understand, it was pretty much the same as if you were talking to someone
who is mute(dumb, speechless) - you would have to rely on sign language -
hands, not sound. Also, if you consider the Russian word "mir" (sorry, I
don't have the C. keyboard) and today's Slovenian "mir", you see amazing
connections: in Russian, this word stands for the cosmos, in Slovenian it
means "peace". So the ancients must have perceived the cosmos - the starr
sky - as a place that is peace+ful. Take another example, the name Miroslav
(Frederick, Friedrich): miro + slav = he who celebrates the peacefulness of
the cosmos with his word. The word 'celebrate' is incidentally also =
'slaviti'. :-) And the Slovene word 'svet', which means 'the world', also
means 'holy'. The world as a holy place, imagine that.

'Sciavi' or 'sclavi' must have come later. It's interesting though that I
don't seem to be able to find any old pejorative Slovenian words for the
neighbouring German or Italic peoples - all are recent (Lahi, Svabi -
pre -WW I and post- WWII). I would be interested in hearing the comments of
those who have studied etymology professionally.

Respectfully,

Mia Dintinjana
dintinjana at siol.net

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