Earliest evidence of spoken Slavic language

WIKIPEDIA SAYS:
The Slavic autonym *Slověninъ is usually considered a derivation from slovo "word", originally denoting "people who speak (the same language)", i. e. people who understand each other, in contrast to the Slavic word denoting "foreign people", namely němci, meaning "mumbling, murmuring people" (from Slavic *němъ "mumbling, mute"). The latter word may be the derivation of words to denote "Germans" or "Germanic peoples" in many later Slavic languages: e. g., Czech Němec, Slovak Nemec, Slovene Nemec, Belarusian, Russian and Bulgarian Немец, Serbo-Croatian Немац and Nijemac, Polish Niemiec, Ukrainian Німець, etc., but another theory states that rather these words are derived from the name of the Nemetes tribe, which is derived from the Celtic root nemeto-.

The word slovo ("word") and the related slava ("glory, fame") and slukh ("hearing") originate from the Proto-Indo-European root *ḱlew- ("be spoken of, glory"), cognate with Ancient Greek κλέος (kléos "fame"), whence comes the name Pericles, Latin clueo ("be called"), and English loud.

Alternative proposals for the etymology of *Slověninъ propounded by some scholars have much less support. B. Philip Lozinski argues that the word *slava once had the meaning of "worshipper", in this context "practicer of a common Slavic religion", and from that evolved into an ethnonym. S. B. Bernstein speculated that it derives from a reconstructed Proto-Indo-European *(s)lawos, cognate to Ancient Greek λαός (laós) "population, people", which itself has no commonly accepted etymology. Meanwhile, others theorize that Slavyane (Russian: Славяне) is of toponymic origin, from a place named Slovo or a river named Slova; this, according to some, is implied by the suffix -enin. The Old East Slavic Slavuta for the Dnieper River was argued by Henrich Bartek (1907–1986) to be derived from slova and also the origin of Slověne.[20]

The English term slave derives from the ethnonym Slav. In medieval wars many Slavs were captured and enslaved, which led to the word slav becoming synonym to "enslaved person"In plus, the English word Slav derives from the Middle English word sclave, which was borrowed from Medieval Latin sclavus or slavus, itself a borrowing and Byzantine Greek σκλάβος sklábos "slave," which was in turn apparently derived from a misunderstanding of the Slavic autonym (denoting a speaker of their own languages). The Byzantine term Sklavinoi was loaned into Arabic as Saqaliba (صقالبة; sing. Saqlabi, صقلبي) by medieval Arab historiographers. However, the origin of this word is disputed.

Etymology is a perilous sport as we know. Look above. But I would rather put a prudent penny on the "glory" and "language" explanations. The meaning 'slave' seems being come after, as a result and not as a cause.
Affirming Slav current ethnicity is based ONLY on a religious language - of a very limited area of South-East Europe - which would have prospered and imposed itself over numerous pops seems very weird to me. The phonetic tendancies which acted to differentiate it from other close IE languages seems being stronger among West- and East-Slavic languages rather than among South-Slavic ones. And the destructions which seem linked to colonization moves concerned rather the southern parts of their "domaine" indicating to me an origin from elsewhere (they were at some stage compared to sedentist Scythians, which could indicate a more northeastern position compared to Southern Balkans).
I 'm sure of nothing but I see rather their etnogenesis as something involving Proto-Balto-Slavic and maybe kind of Thracian, involving N-E Y-R1a subclades and more southern Y-I2a1b subclades.
&: the explanation by your pressing (printing) concept appears a bit farfetched to me (no offense).
 
As I see the Slavic languages interest a lot of people I mention here a paper about European language continuity so dear to Alinei, where Slavic holds a glorious place in the IE genesis, paper based too on a very surprising view (to me) about the human Y-haplo's tree and wanderings.
I avow I was stroken at first, obliged to water my face and then to take a solid glassful of whisky. (old people become fragile).
Based on Russian and Chinese works apparently.

International Journal of Social Science Studies Vol. 6, No. 1; January 2018 ISSN 2324-8033 E-ISSN 2324-8041 Published by Redfame Publishing URL: http://ijsss.redfame.com 18

Continuity of European Languages from the Point of View of DNA Genealogy

Anton Perdih

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Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia (retired) Correspondence: Anton Perdih, Faculty of Chemistry and Chemical Technology, University of Ljubljana, Slovenia. Received: October 30, 2017 Accepted: November 20, 2017 Available online: November 23, 2017 doi:10.11114/ijsss.v6i1.2809 URL: https://doi.org/10.11114/ijsss.v6i1.2809


 

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