Origin of the word Slav
What is the origin of the word Slav? The Slavs or Slavic people are obviously most of the people of Eastern Europe, the Poles, Czechs, Slovakians, Ukrainians, Russians, and Serbians etc. Their languages and cultures are very similar.
The word ‘Slav’ or ‘Slowianin’ comes from the Slavic term for word; ‘Slowo’. ‘Slowo’ means ‘word’ (sÅ‚owo in Polish letters but pronounced swovo). The Slavs identified themselves as those who could understand their word or language.  Slavic could be interpreted as “someone who understands”. The Slavs called themselves ‘Slovjeni’ or ‘Slaveni’ do to the fact that their people ‘understood’ one another.
However, for example German was and is called “niemiecki” That is those who do not understand the language, coming from the word, Nijemcima’ meaning speechless. This is similar to the Romans and Latin. People who could not understand Latin were called barbarians by the Romans because they made sounds that sounded like “bar ba” to a Latin-speaking ear. Germans are still called ‘Niemci’ or ‘the land of those who do not understand the word of the Slavs” today by the Slavic peoples.
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March 30, 2008at 1:27 pm
[...] has been in use at least since the 19th century. I use Slavic as it is easier and I am American.  The origin of the word Slav is not what you might think. Words have meaning and come from somewhere. The origin of the the [...]