Talk:Slavs (ethnonym)

"Slave"
The one source that isn't a Wikipedia article is an unattributed, non-spell-checked BBC webpage saying that "The slavs [sic], who inhabited a large part of Eastern Europe, were taken as slaves by the Muslims of Spain during the ninth century AD". Is that whole the depth of the knowledge of this word? How and when did the Moors get to Eastern Europe? Which of the nations had slaves taken, as by then most Slavs had already formed ethnic states? Why is there no mention of this event under Abbasid Caliphate or in related articles?

The fact that this kind of unattributed authoritarian speculation is typical of the English sources on this topic doesn't mean Wikipedia should succumb to the same error. 93.136.3.87 (talk) 10:19, 15 December 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi IP user, thanks for the heads-up. Just for clarity: the Wikipedia article does not mention Muslims of Spain, that was in the BBC source which was added a couple of weeks ago by an anonymous user, as a plain URL in the text rather than as a reference. Since the claim already has a reference there's no need for another source, especially not a source which, as you point out, is rather weak. I have removed the link, as well as the misplaced link to another Wikipedia article. The anonymous user clearly edited in good faith, but their addition did not improve the article. --bonadea contributions talk 10:51, 15 December 2020 (UTC)

Velivieras, in your edit, you wrongly corrected the word "Slav" to "slave" and returned the version from sakaliba (although the term "sakaliba" has Iranian roots and means " light-skinned"). You also removed significant references to the etymological dictionaries of Kobler and Kluge without any reason. I have no choice but to return my version. Noraskulk (talk) 11:00, 1 April 2021 (UTC).
 * The information is well sourced and your only point is apparently to delete it for reasons unknown. You can add any additional sourced information to the article, but you cannot delete sourced information without any reason.Velivieras (talk) 13:03, 1 April 2021 (UTC)
 * In the description for your edit, you wrote that you were returning the original information, but the original word was "slav", which you replaced with " slave". I also deleted the text that the word "sakaliba" comes from "slav", but this is not the case (see the article "Sakaliba"). After studying your contribution, I realized that you have already started a war of edits about the etymology of the term "slav" (as for example here). So I'll ask you to come to the consesus with me. Noraskulk (talk) 14:58, 2 April 2021 (UTC)
 * I haven`t done any edits. I just undid yours. You can add any sourced information you like, just don`t delete any.Velivieras (talk) 14:08, 3 April 2021 (UTC)
 * In the first sentence, you refer to "Online Etymology Dictionary" that is not a significant source. However, I want to return references to etymological dictionaries. Noraskulk (talk) 11:44, 5 April 2021 (UTC)

The whole idea that words Slav and slave are related is pure nonsense. Let's start with the fact that the word "slave" was first used around 1290. The slave trade of Slavs ended around 7th century CE. And that was the time Slavs started to invade both Western and Eastern Roman empires, together with Avars. After Christianization there was no such thing as Slavic slaves, since owning Christians as slaves was forbidden all across Catholic/Latin West and Byzantine/Greek/Orthodox East. The idea that English decided to name "slave" after something that happened 600 years earlier to pagan people that hardly anyone had any contact with, other than in a very distant part of the world (by ancient standards) is weird. Also, Western Slavs, the people that the Western Europeans had contact with did not call themselves "Slavs", neither in Antiquity, nor in the Middle Ages, but Veneti or later Lechites (for Polish tribes) or Bohemians and Moravians (for Czech tribes). Others, like Venti or Sorbs were Germanized after 9th century CE, right where they lived (modern eastern Germany and Austria), rather than sold into slavery.

Another issues is the fact that terms like "Baltic", "Germanic", "Hellenic", "Nordic", "Italic" or "Slavic" did not even have a modern meaning before late 1700s and early 1800s when the studies of linguistics and ethnic divisions in Europe started to crystalize, together with ethno-nationalistic movements that did not exist in Medieval Europe, where the only division that mattered was between Latin-speaking Western Christians and Greek-speaking Orthodox Christians (and also constantly invading Muslims). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.8.71.60 (talk) 03:36, 5 January 2022 (UTC)


 * The 'Etymology' subsection related to the word 'slave' has been corrected based on the discussion at the Wiktionary: Etymology scriptorium Fuzzy Barsik (talk) 03:20, 9 August 2022 (UTC)