On Sunday, April 19, 2020 at 1:20:10 PM UTC-5, Tomasz Rola wrote: > > On Sun, Apr 19, 2020 at 05:13:42AM -0700, Lawrence Crowell wrote: > > >> > > > > > > I really appreciate having access to your command of history. One > > > other thing while we're on the subject of European history. What > > > exactly is a "Slav"? I once looked it up on Wiki and the > > > definition or concept seemed unintelligible; vague at best. AG > > > > > > > A part of my heritage is Slavic. It really is more a language > > distinction. Anyone who has Slavic heritage just means someone in > > their family tree spoke Russian, Ukranian, Polish, Czech, Slovak, > > Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian or Slovenian etc. It is not really a > > race, It is much the same distinction as Germanic, which can include > > Anglo-Saxons as much as what might be called the German-Saxons. > > A nice and short explanation about word root "slav-" is being given > here: > > https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavs_(ethnonym)#Etymology > > It boils down to come from "slovo" which in English means "a word". >
If you read on the connection between Slav and slave is made. The Vikings did capture people of the Rus and trade them as slaves. > > By my understanding, another explanation may be by connecting to > "slava", which means "fame", more or less. There is a number of names > in Polish containing "-slav" ending: > > Mscislav = famous avenger > Stanislav = stand up and say about him > Vodzislav = famous leader > Miroslav = famous around the world > Sviatoslav = as Miroslav > > etc etc. If you are not famous, go away :-). > > > Slavs have been considered less civilized than the rest of Europe, > > Wrt barbarism, depends on point of view... > > Vikings were widely known barbarians, but it takes a lot of guts and > curiosity to sit into a boat, sail for days in open ocean and come to > North America via the less traveled route. I mean, without even > knowing there was some America out there. Someone has got to be > first. > > Perhaps they did not like "worldly" people's court intrigues so much. > When the Vikings reigned supreme the western world was pretty much in disarray. The Europeans who took the hardest blows from Vikings were the Merovingian Franks of 500 to 700 CE. The Franks were not at any high point of great culture or civilization either. The Vikings established one long lasting kingdom in Normandy, which had a future big impact on Britain. The Vikings were a pretty rough group, and if you were a Frank living in a village that got taken by the Vikings, chances you would not live to see the next day. The Vikings also put an end to a fledgling literary renaissance in Ireland. > > > and define the more tattered eastern European region. It is the case > > that war and violence have been more severe in this region. Poland, > > part of my heritage, was treated largely the way a baby treats a > > diaper by Russia and Germany. > > Well, Poland has a strange location. Anybody invading westward will > have to ride through Poland. And anybody invading eastward will have > to ride through... you guessed it, Poland. > > Maybe we should start selling tickets or something. > > > The first Slavic nation to reach some > > par with the rest of Europe was Bohemia, now Czechia. Then maybe > > next was Poland. Remember that Copernicus was Polish and Kepler > > Czechian. Even prior to that the Emperor of the Holy Roman Empire > > Also, Johannes Hevelius spent his life in Gdansk (sometimes called > Danzig, I guess the dual name was not a big deal until XIX century), at > that time belonging to Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth. > > [...] > > BTW, Hungary is not Slavic, it is Uralic. That language, a language > > "invented by the Devil," is more related to Finnish, Turkish and > > even Mongolian. > > [ https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martians_(scientists) > <https://www.google.com/url?q=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FThe_Martians_(scientists)&sa=D&sntz=1&usg=AFQjCNFMEgGgM74_HAm1qKmVS6u6re1Zfg> > > ] > > -- > Regards, > Tomasz Rola > I know Russian, though I have not used it in over 20 years, but Russian is easy to understand compared to Hungarian. People think German is hard, but it really is about as hard as Russian, and both are somewhat more difficult than French. To be honest my knowledge of languages has lead me to consider Spanish the most sensible language in the world. I spent some time in Budapest, and the language was difficult to work around, and I hardly remember any fragments of it. The difficulty is that to make a statement you have to mentally frame the whole thing completely before uttering. English is word/time ordered and with Russian you can order things as you want with declensions, but Hungarian is terribly tough. Your name sounds Hungarian. I found it curious how common the name Atilla was. The other tough language is Polish, which is a really deformed variant of Slavic language. I never figured it out. LC > > -- > ** A C programmer asked whether computer had Buddha's nature. ** > ** As the answer, master did "rm -rif" on the programmer's home ** > ** directory. And then the C programmer became enlightened... ** > ** ** > ** Tomasz Rola mailto:tomas...@bigfoot.com <javascript:> > ** > -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Everything List" group. To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to everything-list+unsubscr...@googlegroups.com. To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/everything-list/26ad4193-a45f-483a-ae15-f685025f2c84%40googlegroups.com.
