C'mon, Slavs!

Have you ever wondered where the famous Italian form of greeting and farewell “ciao” came from? This word shows how amazing the documented histories of words can be. There is no need for any amateur linguistics here! Let’s not build up the intrigue and say right away that the Italian ciao comes from the word “Slavs”.

The self-name of the Slavs became known to the Byzantines no later than the 6th century. In their language it looks like Σκλάβος, in medieval Latin it is borrowed as sclavus . And in Latin it takes on another meaning - “slave”. The fact is that in this era many slaves of Slavic origin actually came to European countries. And these slaves were not only mined during wars. Slaves were one of the main exports of Kievan Rus. In The Tale of Bygone Years, Olga promises gifts to the Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII: “servants, honey and skra” (Old Russian skora ‘fur, skin’). Prince Svyatoslav says that “fast and wax, honey and servants” are delivered to the Danube from Rus'. In the 9th–10th centuries, slaves from Eastern Europe were supplied en masse to both the West and the Arab Caliphate. In Cordoba, under Caliph Abd ar-Rahman III (10th century), in the course of three censuses, 3750, 6087 and 13,750 Slavic slaves were counted, respectively [1].

The Latin sclavus meaning "slave" found its way into many European languages: Italian schiavo , Catalan esclau , Galician escravo , Middle French sclave , French esclave , Occitan esclau , Portuguese escravo , Romanian sclav , Spanish esclavo , Breton sklav , Dutch slave , English slaaf , Middle High German sklafe, sklave , German Sklave , Danish slave , Norwegian slave and others.

A caveat should be made here. Occasionally there is a statement that the name Slavs means “slaves”. This is not true. It is not “Slav” that comes from “slave,” but words meaning “slave” that come from “Slav.” The opposite version was seriously considered only in the 18th century.

In the Venetian dialect, the Latin sclavus became sciavo or s-ciao . Then the polite expression s-ciao vostro appeared among the Venetians - something like the Russian “your humble servant.” In Goldoni's comedies it is used without any shade of familiarity. The arrogant gentleman Ripafratta in “The Innkeeper” says: Amici, vi sono schiavo (“Friends, my respect” in the Russian translation by A. K. Dzhivelegov). In the 19th century, this expression penetrates into Lombardy and spreads further and further, so that the lexicographer Niccolo Tommaseo in his Dictionary of the Italian Language (1861) notes with some regret that even in Tuscany some began to use the formula vi sono schiavo . As is typical of frequently used expressions, it is shortened, turning into the word ciao (it is believed that the birthplace of this form was Lombardy) and at the same time gradually losing its ceremonial connotation. During the 20th century, the word became firmly established in the Italian language, eventually becoming the most popular form of friendly greeting and farewell.

The formation of a word with the meaning “slave” from the name of a foreign people is not uncommon. For example, the Old English wealh comes from its Celtic neighbors (the name Wales goes back to the same root). Here is a small collection of slave names, derived from ethnonyms, in languages ​​from Chinese to Swahili [ 2 ].

Turning the word "slave" into a greeting is also not unique. 'slave' , borrowed from Latin, was used as a greeting and farewell In Austria-Hungary, the word servus as a short form of the expression servus humillimus 'most humble servant'. In this function it penetrated into other languages ​​of the Austro-Hungarian Empire: Hungarian, Romanian, Croatian, Slovak, Czech.

Maxim Russo,
linguist, editor of the science department of Polit.ru

1. Nazarenko A.V. Ancient Rus' on international routes. - M., 2001. P. 94.
2. datsemshift.ru/shift1188