"The English word "slave" comes from Medieval Latin sclavus, which itself derives from Old Slavic (Slavonic) *slověninъ/*slavēnъ meaning "Slav." This connection arose because many Slavic people were captured and sold as slaves in Europe from roughly the 8th–15th centuries, so the ethnonym became a general term for an enslaved person in several European languages. The pathway: Old Slavic → Medieval Latin sclavus → Old French esclave → Middle English slav(e) (modern English "slave")."

Subgroups:

• East Slavs: Russians, Ukrainians, Belarusians.
• West Slavs: Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Silesians, and Kashubians.
• South Slavs: Serbs, Croats, Bosniaks, Slovenes, Macedonians, Bulgarians, Montenegrins.