Re: Proto-Slavs and Slavs

From: bezrodny@...
Message: 6459
Date: 2001-03-08

--- In cybalist@..., Michal Milewski <milewski@...> wrote:
> > Slavic <morje> is native, not from Latin.
> Does it suggest that Proto-Slavs lived at the sea?

IMHO, Slavic <morje> has meaning of "lake" as well as "sea".
Ex. Old Russian "Chudskoe more" (Lake Ladoga).

> Talking about Slavic languages, I would like to know
> what is the accepted etymology of the name "Slavs".

The one I heard of is that "Slovene" (self-appellation of
various Slavic peoples/tribes living as far apart as Balkans
and Northern Russia) was derived from "Slovo" (word).
Pre-historic Slavs may have called themselves "the speaking"
as opposed to surrounding "unintelligibly speaking", "barbaric"
tribes.

One confirmation of this theory I see in Old Russian term for
foreigners "nemets" (meaning literally "not able to speak", "deaf")
which for some peculiar reason came to indicate specifically
Germans in Modern Russian.

Vitaly