Historical View of the Languages and Literature of the Slavic - Nations by Therese Albertine Louise von Jacob Robinson
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page 36 of 500 (07%)
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recent work on _Slavic Antiquities_, 1838, and in his _Slavic
Ethnography_, 1842, supposes he has found the first Slavi already three centuries B.C. in the Veneti or Wendi on the Baltic. But as every connecting link between them and the _historical_ Slavi is wanting, the fact seems of little importance.] [Footnote 4: Schaffarik in his work on _Slavic Antiquities_ attempts to prove that the Sarmatae were no Slavi, but a Perso-Median nation; remnants of which, he thinks, he has discovered in the Alanes and Osetenzes in the Caucasus.] [Footnote 5: The name of the _Slavi_ has generally been derived from _slava_, glory, and their national feelings have of course been gratified by this derivation. But the more immediate origin of the appellation, is to be sought in the word _slovo_ word, speech. The change of _o_ into _a_ occurs frequently in the Slavic languages, (thus _slava_ comes from _slovo_) but is in this case probably to be ascribed to foreigners, viz. Byzantines, Romans, and Germans. In the language of the latter, the _o_ in names and words of Slavic origin inmany instances becomes _a_. The radical syllable _slov_ is still to be found in the appellations which the majority of the Slavic nations apply to themselves or kindred nations, e.g. Slovenzi, Slovaci, Slovane, Sloveni, etc. The Russians and Servians did not exchange the _o_ for _a_ before the seventh century. See Schaffarik's _Geschichte_, p. 5. n. 6. The same writer observes, p. 287. n. 8, "It is remarkable that, while all the other Slavic nations relinquished their original _national_ names, and adopted _specific_ names, as Russians, Poles, Silesians, Czekhes, Moravians, Sorabians, Servians, Morlachians, Czernogortzi, Bulgarians; nay, when most of them imitating foreigners altered the general name _Slovene_ into _Slavene_, only those two |
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