--- In cybalist@..., Michal Milewski <milewski@...> wrote:
> Talking about Slavic
> languages, I would like to know what is the accepted etymology of the name
> "Slavs".
There's no plausible etymology of Proto-Slavic sg. *slove^ninU:slov'aninU, pl. *slove^ne^:slov'ane^.
The etymologies I'm aware of are:
1. (Jakobson et al.) <*slovo 'word' > 'who speak our tong'.
Pros:
- analogy with Alb. shkipetar 'the Albanians': shkiponj 'I understand'
- analogy with Old Russian klic^I 'a call' : klic^ane^ 'hunters, scaring away game by shouting'
- the famous opposition (Old Russian and some other Slavic languages) slove^ne^:ne^mIci 'foreigners, lit. "the dumb"' (> 'Germans')
Contras:
-suffix -e^n-:-'an- is used mostly to form "de-toponymals".
2.(Vasmer, Rozwadowski, Budimir, Lehr-Spl/awin'ski, Otre,bski) From some toponym, most probably hydronym *Slov-.
Pros.
- Old Russian Slovutic^I 'epithet of Dniepr' (most likely connected to *slovo, 'I am said', *slava 'glory'),
- Old Russian Sluja, Polish Sl/awa, Sl/awica, Serb. Slavnica etc 'hydronyms' (most likely connected to Old Greek klu'zo:, Lat. cluo: 'I wash', Lat. cloa:ca)
- Lith. S^lave.'nai 'toponym; a village on a river S^lave.~' - a nearly direct (except intonation) parallel to *slove^ne^ (I've visited the village and observed the river, which is very small and indeed resembles a cloacette) .
Contras.
- the toponym is not located
- Otre,bski's Lithuanian analogy is not a direct one: Lith. acute (-e.'n-) doesn't fit with Slavic circumflex (-e^~n-).
3. (Mikkola, Bernschtein) < PIE *sleh2uos 'people', cf. Old Greek la:o's 'people'
4. (Bauduin de Courtenay) From hypocoristics of Slavic names in -slavU '-glory'.
5. (Masing) < 'silent' < Goth. slawan 'be silent, dumb'
6. (Mikkola) related to Irish slu'ag 'a crowd, an army'
7. (Bru"ckner) < *slov- 'slow, lazy' :) , cf. POlish sl/owien' 'flax which matures slowly', Old English sla'w. slAE'w.
8. (Otre,ski) related to *sloboda < *svoboda 'freedom;community', Goth. silba '-self'.