"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"!
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b30 : Sat May 11 2002 - 17:44:21 MDT