Alternative proposals for the etymology of *Slověninъ propounded by some scholars have much less support. Lozinski argues that the word *slava once had the meaning of worshipper, in this context meaning "practicer of a common Slavic religion," and from that evolved into an ethnonym. S.B. Bernstein speculates that it derives from a reconstructed Proto-Indo-European *(s)lawos, cognate to Ancient Greek λαός laós "population, people," which itself has no commonly accepted etymology. Meanwhile, others have pointed out that the suffix -enin indicates a man from a certain place, which in this case should be a place called Slova or Slava, possibly a river name. The Old East Slavic Slavuta for the Dnieper River was argued by Henrich Bartek (1907–1986) to be derived from slova and also the origin of Slovene.
పునర్నిర్మించబడిన ప్రోటో-ఇండో-యూరోపియన్ * (లు) లావోస్ నుండి స్లావా ఉద్భవించిందని ఎవరు ఊహిస్తారు?
S.B. Bernstein