25 JANUARY 1913, Page 32

SCLAV OR SLAV?

[TO THE EDITOR OF THE "SPECTATOR."'

SIR,—The word for Slavonic is in Russian Slavyanski, and is probably connected with the word " slovo," "the spoken word," so that the spelling Sclavonic is not the correct one. In the Latinity of the Middle Ages the two forms, &lavas and Slavus, seem to have been employed, and the German language has availed itself of these double forms to appropriate to one (Sklave) the signification of " slave," i.e., a captive Slavonian : to the other the ethnical meaning of a member of the Slavonic family.—I am, Sir, &c., H. A. S.