The ethnonym and autonym Slav denotes the Slavic peoples of Eastern and Southern Europe. It has been reconstructed in Proto-Slavic as *Slověninъ (pl. *Slověne). The earliest written references to the Slav ethnonym are in other languages.
Possibly the oldest mention of Slavs in almost historical form *Slověne is attested in Ptolemy's Geography (2nd century) as Σταυανοί (Stavanoi) and Σουοβηνοί (Souobenoi), both listed as Scythian tribes living near Alanians north of Scythia (first roughly between Volga and Ural Mountains, second between the Baltic Sea and Black Sea). Zbigniew Gołąb accepted Pavel Jozef Šafárik's opinion that Greeks inserted τ or θ for Slavic *sl- (reconstructing Proto-Slavic *Slɔu̯ǣnæ), and "through the labialized articulation of the vowel /ɔ/ conditioned by the preceding /u̯/" in Proto-Slavic *Su̯ɔbǣnæ (*Svoběne).
Sporoi (Ancient Greek: Σπόροι) or Spori was according to Eastern Roman/Byzantine scholar Procopius (500–560) the old name of the Antes and Sclaveni, two Early Slavic branches. Procopius stated that the Sclaveni and Antes spoke the same language, but he traced their common origin back to not the Veneti (as per Jordanes) but a people that he called Sporoi. He derived the name from Greek σπείρω ('I scatter grain'), because "they populated the land with scattered settlements". He described their society as democratic, and their language as barbaric.
Jordanes wrote about the Slavs in his work Getica (551): "although they derive from one nation, now they are known under three names, the Veneti, Antes and Sclaveni" (Latin: ab una stirpe exorti, tria nomina ediderunt, id est Veneti, Antes, Sclaveni); in 19th century identified with the West Slavs, East Slavs, and South Slavs, a division based on the linguistic similarities between particular Slavic languages and dialects. He stated that the Veneti were the ancestors of the Sclaveni and the Antes, the two having used to be called Veneti but are now "chiefly" (though, by implication, not exclusively) called Sclaveni and Antes.[better source needed] Jordanes' Veneti and Procopius's Sporoi were used for the ethnogenetic legend of the Slavs, the ancestors of the Slavs (the subsequent ethnic group name).
Thus, the Slav ethnonym at first denoted the southern group of the early Slavs. That ethnonym is attested by Procopius in Byzantine Greek as Σκλάβοι (Skláboi), Σκλαβηνοί (Sklabēnoí), Σκλαυηνοί (Sklauēnoí), Σθλαβηνοί (Sthlabēnoí), or Σκλαβῖνοι (Sklabînoi), while his contemporary Jordanes refers to the Sclaveni in Latin. In Ancient Greek there are no words with the root sl-, thus the original ethnonym was transformed into skl-, as that root was present (in sklērós, 'hard').
In East Church Slavonic manuscripts, the ethnonym is spelled Slověne (Словѣне), such as in the Primary Chronicle, Sofia First Chronicle, Novgorod First Chronicle and Novgorod Fourth Chronicle. In the source dating to 898 included in the Primary Chronicle, the term is used both for East Slavic tribes and more often for a people (in the Kievan Rus' society, alongside Varangians, Chuds and Kriviches).
The origin of the Slavic autonym *Slověninъ is disputed.
Other 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'; 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.[full citation needed]
According to the widespread view, which has been known since the 18th century, the Byzantine Σκλάβινοι (Sklábinoi), Έσκλαβηνοί (Ésklabēnoí), borrowed from a Slavic tribe self-name *Slověne, turned into σκλάβος, εσκλαβήνος (Late Latin sclāvus) in the meaning 'prisoner of war slave', 'slave' in the 8th/9th century, because they often became captured and enslaved. However this version has been disputed since the 19th century.
An alternative contemporary hypothesis states that Medieval Latin sclāvus via secondary form *scylāvus derives from Byzantine σκυλάω (skūláō, skyláō) or σκυλεύω (skūleúō, skyleúō) with the meaning 'to strip the enemy (killed in a battle), to make booty, extract spoils of war'. This version is criticised as well.
In 1980 Ivanov and Toporov dedicated an extensive paper to ancient Slavic ethnonyms, in which they mentioned Ptolemy's Souobene (Ivanov, Toporov 1980: 14-18). The Greeks did not tolerate in their language the initial consonant cluster sl-, σλ-, and they also did not clearly distinguish the sounds l and b, λ and β. Besides, their alphabet does not even have a letter corresponding to the Latin "v", so Greek writers used the letter beta: β, for the sound "v" which they heard in words of non-Greek origin. If we know that, then we may read the name that Ptolemy wrote in the form Σουοβηνοί13 as the Sloveni. Later they transformed the Slavic name into Σκλαβηνοι, which was then adopted by the Romans in the form Sclaveni, Sclavi. This form would then solidify due to popular etymology, which associated the name Sclaveni with the Latin word sclavus, "slave", which would result, for instance, in the Italian form Schiavoni.
Jordanes left no doubt that the Antes were of Slavic origin, when he wrote: 'ab una stirpe exorti, tria nomina ediderunt, id est Veneti, Antes, Sclaveni' (although they derive from one nation, now they are known under three names, the Veneti, Antes and Sclaveni). The Veneti were the West Slavs, the Antes the East Slavs and the Sclaveni, the South or Balkan Slavs.
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