From: scerir (scerir@libero.it)
Date: Sat Nov 24 2001 - 14:58:26 MST
"Ciao" first appears, in English,in Hemingway's
"A Farewell to Arms", which is set in north-east
Italy, during the WWI. And there Hemingway learned
the word.
For "sciavo" or "sciao", means, in Venetian dialect,
³servant" or "slave².
The Latin word "sclavus" became the Venetian
"sciavo", then "sciao", at last the Italian "ciao".
So when we say "ciao" we are saying something like
"your humble servant"!
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