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.
Early mentions 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. 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').
Church Slavonic manuscripts 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).
Etymology The origin of the Slavic autonym *Slověninъ is disputed.
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