Origin of the word Slav

[Katerina P. King]

I am posting this for a historian friend. I remember studying this question
in various introductory courses a long time ago, but is there a short
answer?
Thanks,
Katya King

I write in the hopes that a member of this list group will be able to
clarify for me the relationship between the words for "Slav" in English
and in the Slavic languages themselves

>>From the New Shorter Oxford English Dictionary, I learn that the English
word "Slav" derives from the medieval Latin sclavus, meaning
"captive." Under the entry "slave," the dictionary gives the same medieval
Latin term, and explains that it is "identical with the ethnic name
Sclavus [Slav], the Slav peoples having been reduced to a servile state by
conquest during the ninth century."

Slavic-language words for "Slav" [Slovan, etc.], meanwhile, seem to have
an etymology rooted in the word for "word" [slovo]. Slavs, to themselves,
were people who could speak intelligibly -- as opposed to Germans [Nemci
-- with "mute" the root here].

Now for my questions. Is the above information correct? Would I be right
in concluding that the resemblance between the English-language word for
"Slav" and the Slavic-language words for "Slav" is purely coincidental,
and not the result of any borrowing?
--
Katerina P. King, Ph.D.
Mount Holyoke College

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