This is not bad
this post was submitted on 29 Feb 2024
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Wait, Italian “ciao” is derived from (medieval) Latin “sclavus”/slave?
Yes, albeit indirectly - Italian borrowed it from Venetian sciao /stʃao/, that underwent the following sound changes:
Then Italian dropped the /s/ in the borrowing because, while /stʃ/ is a legal cluster in Venetian, it isn't in Italian.
The semantic shift might look weird, but it pops up also in Austro-Bavarian and German "servus!" (hello) and Polish "serwus" (hello). Wiktionary mentions that the German greeting is from Mediaeval "seruus humillimus, domine spectabilis"; or "[I am a] humble servant, o notable lord", odds are that Venetian "sciao" is the same.
Note that the purely native Italian cognate would be schiavo /skjavo/ "slave".
EDIT: Dieguito answered as I wrote this answer, but I'm keeping it for further info.
I like yours better, your answer is far more extensive with explanation of the whole word and comparison with other languages.
About the "sc" pattern [st͡ʃ]: it is very peculiar of the Venetian dialect but is not present in standard Italian: another example would be "mas'cio” (meaning "pig" or "male") from Latin "masculus" > *masclus > maschio (as in Italiano) > mas'cio.
Yes, passing through the Venetian vulgar where the "cla" cluster which evolved to modern Italian "-chia-" [ki̯a] is further palatalized to "cia" [t͡ʃa].
The original salute was meaning is "I am at your command". In that region we still today, even it it's rare / something that only elderly people do, use the form "mandi", derived from "comandi" (i.e. again "at your commands").