ROBOT
Did you know that the English word "robot", nowadays used to describe automated workers, was loaned from the Slavic "robotnik", which means a slave? "Robot-nik" (a slave) or "Robot-at' " (to work) is a common stem (with spelling variations) to describe a worker/to work in many Slavic languages. It came to English in 1920 through a translation of a Czech play.
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| Whatever happens keep on working |
It is a bit more interesting, however, to observe the historic evolution of the Slavic stem itself. "Robota", which comes from Old Church Slavonic, meaning "servitude" and "rabu" - a slave have now gained a definition of a worker/work in a common sense like we understand it in English. Ironically, dismissal ("uvol'neniye") has a similar stem to "freedom" or "liberty" ("volya"). These links have been dissolved in the contemporary Russian language but are traceable linguistically.
This leads us to conclude (which is no more than our own observation) that the original Russian word for "work" must have only been applicable towards serf labour, so whenever serfs got dismissed, they received liberty. The fact that the word has expanded to define all sorts of work nowadays, including office work, leaves us with a curious question - in this day and age are we all slaves to our work like robots?
