Giorgos Kokkonis (2017: 135-152), researching "this unknown chapter of creative conversations between multiple ethnocultural groups, which are still largely unexplored" and attempting "a first approach to the penetration of Romanian folk music traditions in the Greek corresponding ones, based on the discographical sources," refers to the sirba, the chora and their relation to the chasapiko and the serviko:
"During the late Ottoman period, the terms hora and sirba in the Romanian language seem to have transformed in Greek to chasapiko and serviko, in Hebrew (Yiddish) to bulgar and freylekhs, in Turkish to kasap and, hora, longa and sirto. Chasapiko and kasap are keywords for understanding this development. In the written sources, hora and sirba seem to be dances identified with the guild of butchers of Constantinople (Istanbul) and the commercial connections of cattle transportation from Moldavia and Wallachia to Constantinople (Istanbul), which date back to the 16th century. [...] There are many dances called chora, sirba, serviko, chasapiko, chasaposerviko, sirto chasapiko, sirto politiko, etc., forming a large group with common rhythmic characteristics, even though they spread in an expanded musical/dance geographical area. It appears from this material that the chora, identified with the sirba, has various local variations. [...]
In the urban song of the 20th century, as reflected in these sources [discography], the chora-sirba duo is gradually entirely transformed, defining a new shape, where the slow-fast alternation is either limited as a final shift to vocal or instrumental compositions or takes the form of the chasapiko-chasaposerviko, with the slow part including old slow-paced choras and the fast part fast-paced choras, but also sirbas.
[...]The word sirba is mentioned very early in the recordings of Greek interest, that is, from the first decade of the 20th century. [...] The conjugated use of the terms sirba-chasapiko was established in the following decades. [...]
When found on the label of the record, it is worth noting that the latter word was no longer written in parentheses, but with a hyphen next to the former: 'Serba – Hasapeko', indicating either an identification or a musical shift. [...]
As is well known, the word 'sirba' is the Romanian word sârbă, whose pronunciation in Greek sounds like 'si' rather than 'se'. The corruption to 'serba', however, was consolidated and gradually led to the incorrect correlation of the sirba with Serbia, consolidating the common words of serviko, chasaposerviko and servikaki.
In conclusion, the term chasapiko, which was identified in discography with Constantinople (Istanbul), seems to have emerged as an aggregation of two words, that is, chora and sirba. Although this did not happen in a systematic, accurate and consistent way, its genesis must be understood as a process of musical transformation and de-linking from territory, which is evidenced by the adjectives 'Romanian' and 'Vlach'. And even though the subsequent use of the word chasapiko and its evolution into chasaposerviko was finally imposed in the field of discography, its nature is the result of a geographically expanded area with multicultural components."