The process of interlingual transmission began during the early medieval period, and continued up to the modern times, being finalized in major international languages at the beginning of the 20th century.
The ethnonym is mentioned in the Middle Ages as Cervetiis (Servetiis), gentis (S)urbiorum, Suurbi, Sorabi, Soraborum, Sorabos, Surpe, Sorabici, Sorabiet, Sarbin, Swrbjn, Servians, Sorbi, Sirbia, Sribia, Zirbia, Zribia, Suurbelant, Surbia, Serbulia (or Sorbulia), among others.
[6] German-Sorbian scholar Schuster-Šewc listed the *srъb- / *sьrb- roots in Slavic words meaning "to sip, munch", found in Polish s(i)erbać, Russian сербать, etc., and also cognates in non-Slavic languages, such as Lithuanian suřbti, Middle German sürfen, which all derive from Indo-European onomatopoeic roots *serbh- / *sirbh- / *surbh- meaning "to sip, to breast-feed, to flow".
[2] According to Vasmer's etymological dictionary, the root *sъrbъ is most probably connected with Russian paserb (пасерб, "stepson") and Ukrainian priserbitisya (присербитися, "join in") in the meaning of "alliance".
[8][9] Oleg Trubachyov derived it from Indo-Aryan *sar- (head) and *bai- (to hit),[10] or assumed Scythian form *serv that in Old Indian sarva has a meaning of "all" which has a semantic analogy in Germanic Alemanni.
[16][17] De Administrando Imperio, written by Byzantine emperor Constantine VII in the mid-10th century, tells a version of the early history of the Serbs.
Since the late 12th century, the term Rascia (Рашка, Raška), with several variants (Rasscia, Rassia, Rasia, Raxia), was used as an exonym for Serbia in Latin sources, along with other names such as Servia, Dalmatia and Slavonia.
The term is often used in modern historiography to refer to the medieval "Serbian hinterland" or "inner Serbia", that is, the inland territories in relation to the maritime principalities at the Adriatic (the "Pomorje").
The term is attested since the late 12th century, but in historiography, the early medieval Serbian Principality is sometimes also called Raška (Rascia), erroneously (and anachronistically).
Because of a confusion of ethnicity/nationality with religious affiliation, many authors from historic times referred to and recorded Serbs by the following names: Srba, Srbislav, Srbivoje, Srbko, Srboje, Srbomir, Srborad, Srbomil, Srboljub, Srbobran.
They recognized formally the growing practice of awarding such refugee families a free grant of crown land to farm communally as their zad- ruga.
The further guarantees of religious freedom and of no feudal obligations made the Orthodox Serbs valuable allies for the monarchy in its seventeenth-century struggle ...This also explains why extremist Croat nationalism is both reflected and rooted in the attempted revision of history.