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

[William Ryan]

Thank goodness Rolf Fieguth refers us to Vasmer, both for nemets and for
slave (s.v. slavianin). I am surprised how often the linguistic
discussions in this group are conducted with no reference to the
established literature. Vasmer appears to dismiss nemetes as
phonetically impossible. The existence of nemets in so many Slav
languages surely indicates a Common
Slavonic origin (i.e. before Germans in the modern sense were a
recognized ethnic entity) and the use of the word in Russian at least
indicates that the exclusive meaning of German is fairly modern. I
recall one 17th century Russian text (sorry, reference escapes me) which
declares that America was discovered by 'nemtsy s Portugalii' and
another which says that Romans were nemtsy who
lived in Rome. This kind of linguistic us-and-them usage is not
uncommon. Barbarians were people who the Greeks thought could only
babble incomprehensibly; 'friagi' (Franks), was a term in Russian also
widely applied to people who were not Frankish but simply dwellers in
western Europe; and the word Welsh, which the English applied to the
inhabitants of Wales, is in fact a word of Germanic origin meaning
'foreign'. 

Will Ryan
Warburg Institute


Rolf Fieguth wrote:
> 
> Probably the most competent commentary is to find in Max Vasmer, Russisches
> etymologisches WЖrterbuch, Russian Version Maks Fasmer, Etimologicheskij
> slovar russkogo jazyka, t. III, "slavjanin". "Slave" is reported there to be
> originally a Modern Greek formation "sklavos" (slave) derived from
> "sklavinos" (Slav). Rolf Fieguth
> 
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W. F. Ryan, MA, DPhil, FBA, FSA
Warburg Institute (School of Advanced Study, University of London) 
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Institute Webpage  fttp://www.sas.ac.uk/warburg/
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