The most popular Italian greeting, ciao, which can be used both as “hello” and “goodbye,” has spread around the world in a few centuries, typically with the Italian immigrants. Of course, it is popular in all the countries bordering Italy. Former Yugoslavia was one of them. The greeting thus spread all the way to Serbia. Its meaning is most amazing, though. To begin with, it comes from Venice. And from its golden period at that. In Veneto, the Venetian dialect, it was sciàvo or sciào vostro. That is, “I am your slave.” In Italian it became schiavo vostro. The origin of the key word is in Latin, where sclavus is the word for “slave.” It was a most polite salutation among the nobility similar to servus in the Austro-Hungarian world, which translates into “I am your servant.” Returning to Venice, sciàvo or sciào was the term most commonly used for the Slavs along the Adriatic coast, mostly in today’s Slovenia and Croatia, but also for those beyond. Having arrived in the Balkans between the Sixth and Eighth Centuries, the Slavs were used as common slaves since Roman times, but Venetians used them as chained rowers on their galleys until their republic’s demise at the end of the Eighteenth Century. At any rate, the paradox of the greeting is that everyone around me uses it most gladly nowadays. And few of them realize what they are actually saying. Me included, of course. “I am your slave,” we all wave at each other happily. Most happy slaves, indeed!