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Indo-European The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related language languages of the Slavic peoples and a subgroup of Indo-European languages, have speakers in most of Eastern Europe, in much of the Balkans, in parts of Central Europe, and in the northern part of Asia.
Branches - Scholars divide the Slavic languages into three main branches, some of which feature sub-branches: East Slavic languagesEast Slavic, including Russian languageRussian, Ukrainian languageUkrainian, Belarusian languageBelarusian, and Rusyn languageRusyn. West Slavic languagesWest Slavic, which further subdivide into:* Czech languageCzech and Slovak languageSlovak,* Upper Sorbian languageUpper and Lower Sorbian languageLower Sorbian languageSorbian (minority languages in Germany),* Lechitic languages: Polish languagePolish, Pomeranian languagePomeranian/Kashubian languageKashubian and extinct Polabian languagePolabian. South Slavic languagesSouth Slavic, which further subdivide into:* Western subgroup composed of Slovenian languageSlovenian, Serbian languageSerbian, Croatian languageCroatian and Bosnian languageBosnian. Slavicists often group the latter three together as the Serbo-Croatian language.* Eastern subgroup composed of Bulgarian languageBulgarian and Macedonian languageMacedonian. (Some slavicists, especially those in Bulgaria and Greece, regard Macedonian as a "regional norm" of the Bulgarian language rather than as a separate language.)The oldest Slavic literary language was Old Church Slavonic, which later evolved into Church Slavonic languageChurch Slavonic.< ;td? align=center> ! Map of Slavic languages in !Europe&l t;/table>The? tripartite division of the Slavic languages does not take into account the spoken dialects of each language. Of these, certain so-called transitional dialects and hybrid dialects often bridge the gaps between different languages, showing similarities that do not stand out when comparing Slavic literary (i.e., standard) languages.Enough differences exist between the various Slavic dialects and languages to make communication between speakers of different Slavic languages difficult. Within the individual Slavic languages, dialects may vary to a lesser degree, as those of Russian, or to a much greater degree, as those of Slovenian. Modern mass media, however, has helped to minimize variation in all the Slavic languages. Note too that historical inter-Slav cultural currents, such as the influence of South Slavic Old Church Slavonic and of South Slavic scholars on Russian, have exercised some re-unifying influence.
History -
Common roots and ancestry - One can view all Slavic languages as descendants from Proto-Slavic languageProto-Slavic, their parent language. According to some historical linguistics theories, Proto-Slavic in turn developed from the Proto-Balto-Slavic languageProto-Balto-Slavic language, a common ancestor of Proto-Baltic languageProto-Baltic, the parent of the Baltic languages. According to this theory, the "Urheimat" of Proto-Balto-Slavic lay in the territories surrounding today's Lithuania at some time after the Indo-European language community had separated into different dialect regions (c. 3000 BC). Slavic and Baltic speakers share at least 289 words which could have come from that hypothetical language. According to some linguists the process of separation of Proto-Slavic speakers from Proto-Baltic speakers presumably occurred around 1000 BC. Some linguists maintain however, that the Slavic group of languages differs more radically from the neighboring Baltic group (Lithuanian languageLithuanian, Latvian languageLatvian, and the now-extinct Old Prussian languageOld Prussian). The Baltic language speakers once lived in a much larger area along the Baltic Sea and south. Starting by 600AD 600 Slavic language speakers gradually spread and took over large areas of Baltic settlements. (At the same time records note them taking over portions of Greece.) (The first documented attempt at conquest of Baltic speakers by Slavic speakers comes from Adalbert of Prague in the year 997AD 997.) This group of linguists explain Baltic/Slavic similarities in grammar and vocabulary as a result of this Slav migration into the Baltic-speaking areas and the subsequent proximity of the two groups. A minority of linguists, spurred by the idea of "geolinguistics", view the southern branch of the Slavic languages as possibly autochthonous to the Balkans.
Differentiation of Slavic languages - In the opinion of linguists, probably even in the 10th century10th–12th century12th centuries all Slavs spoke generally the same language, with recognizable regional differences. Linguistic differentiation received impetus from the dispersion of the Slavic peoples over large territory - which in Central Europe exceeded the current extent of Slavic-speaking majorities. Written documents of the 9th, 10th and 11th centuries already have some local linguistic features. For example the Freising monuments show a language which contains some phonetic and lexical elements peculiar to Slovenian dialects (e.g. rhotacism, the word ''krilatec'').
Separation of South and West Slavs - The movement of Slavic-speakers into the Balkans in the declining centuries of the Byzantine empire expanded the area of Slavic speech, but pre-existing languages (notably Greek) survived in this area. The arrival of the Hungarians in Pannonia in the 9th century interposed non-Slavic speakers between South and West Slavs. FranksFrankish conquests completed the geographical separation between these two groups, severing the connection between Slavs in Lower Austria (Moravians) from those in present-day Styria (state)Styria, Carinthia (state)Carinthia and East Tyrol, ancestors of present-day Slovenians.
Slavic-speaking populations under foreign rule - Political situations have also affected the use and scope of the Slavic languages. In the course of their history, many Slavic-speaking communities came under foreign rule for longer or shorter periods. Poland underwent partition, German language German-speaking empires appeared to absorb the Czech peopleCzechs for many centuries, and the Ottoman EmpireOttomans in their hey-day dominated the Balkan Slavs. Even the RussiaRussians had to submit to the Tatar yoke after the Mongol invasion of Russia.The largest geographical extent of Slavic population, which in the Middle Ages included the majority of the present-day GermanyGerman lands of Brandenburg and Pomerania, diminished in the course of the German ''Drang nach Osten''.Ottoman EmpireTurkish incursions suppressed the regional hegemonies of Bulgarian and Serbian speakers; Poland suffered decline, partition and extinction as a separate national state in the 18th century. Until the 20th century, certain speech-groups (such as speakers of Slovenian) lacked the resources to establish their own distinctive independent nation-states. Other communities (speakers of Sorbian or of Kashubian, for example) remain as minorities in the current system of nation-states. Some speech-communities have long stood under the influence of others -- even other Slavs: speakers of Ukrainian and Belarusian came under Polish and/or Russian rule; German-speaking overlords have long dominated the Sorbian-speakers. In the case of Czech- and Slovak-speakers, originally kindred languages diverged when the former came under German rule, the latter under Hungarian. The same division marks the now well-established border between the Slovenian and Croatian language areas, even if some bordering dialects of the two languages indicate an almost smooth transition.Despite their frequent lack of political power, speakers of Slavic languages demonstrated resilience, sometimes culturally taking over foreign political rulers, as in Bulgaria, where Bulgar overlords became Slavicized. Similarly, in the Republic of Dubrovnik Croatian languageCroatian became an official language in parallel to Dalmatian languageRagusan Dalmatian and Latin. Even under the Ottoman Empire, south-eastern Europe, except for Greece proper and Albanian, Romanian and Hungarian areas, remained Slavic speaking.
Modern developments - dubious In the 19th century Pan-Slavism combined with nationalism to foster linguistic and literary expansion and revival: often under the aegis of the Russian tsars. The arrival of Communism Communist regimes in the 20th century fostered the separate lingustic development of Ukrainian, Belarusian and Macedonian, for example, but the years from 1945 to 1990 saw the vast majority of Slavic speakers grouped in the institutions of the Warsaw Pact under Soviet Russian domination. The following trend to political independence and the break-up of the old unified polities (Soviet Union, Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia) has encouraged a greater diversity of Slavic linguistic paths.
Slavic influence on neighboring languages - The Romanian languageRomanian and Hungarian languages witness the influence of the neighboring Slavic nations, especially in the vocabulary pertaining to crafts and trade; the major cultural innovations at times when few long-range cultural contacts took place.Despite a comparable extent of historical proximity, German languageGerman shows no significant Slavic influence, one notable exception being the word for "border", ''Grenze'', from the Slavic ''*granĭca''.
Detailed list with ISO 639 and SIL codes - The following tree for the Slavic languages derives from the Ethnologue report for Slavic languagesethnologue.com. It includes the SIL codeSIL, ISO 639-1 and ISO 639-2 codes where available. ISO 639-2 uses the code sla in a general way for Slavic languages not included in one of the other codes.East Slavic languages: Belarusian languageBelarusian (alternatively Belarusan, Belarussian, Belorussian) - (SIL code: bel; ISO 639-1 code: be; ISO 639-2 code: bel)* The United States State Department, Ethnologue and the Rosetta Project recognize the form Belarusan. Ukrainian languageUkrainian - (SIL code: ukr; ISO 639-1 code: uk; ISO 639-2 code: ukr) Russian languageRussian - (SIL code: rus; ISO 639-1 code: ru; ISO 639-2 code, rus) Rusyn languageRusyn - (SIL code: rue; ISO 639-2 code: sla)West Slavic languages:Sorbian languagesSorbian section (also known as WendsWendish) - ISO 639-2 code: wen*Lower Sorbian languageLower Sorbian (also known as ''Lusatian)'' - (SIL code: dsb; ISO 639-2 code: dsb)*Upper Sorbian languageUpper Sorbian - (SIL code: hsb; ISO 639-2 code: hsb)Lechitic languagesLechitic section * Polish languagePolish - (SIL code: pol; ISO 639-1 code, pl; ISO 639-2 code, pol)* Pomeranian languagePomeranian** Kashubian languageKashubian - (SIL code: csb; ISO 639-2 code: csb)** Slovincian languageSlovincian - extinct* Polabian languagePolabian - extinct - (SIL code: pox; ISO 639-2 code: sla)Czech-Slovak section* Czech languageCzech - (SIL code: ces; ISO 639-1 code: cs; ISO 639-2(B) code, cze; ISO 639-2(T) code: ces)* Knaanic languageKnaanic or Judeo Slavic - extinct - (SIL code: czk; ISO 639-2 code: sla)* Slovak languageSlovak - (SIL code: slk; ISO 639-1 code: sk; ISO 639-2(B) code: slo; ISO 639-2(T) code: slk)South Slavic languages:Western Section* Slovenian languageSlovenian - (SIL code: slv; ISO 639-1 code: sl; ISO 639-2 code: slv)* Croatian languageCroatian (SIL code: hrv; ISO 639-1 code: hr; ISO 639-2/3 code: hrv)* Bosnian languageBosnian (SIL code: bos; ISO 639-1 code: bs; ISO 639-2/3 code: bos)* Serbian languageSerbian (SIL code: srp; ISO 639-1 code: sr; ISO 639-2/3 code: srp)Eastern Section* Macedonian languageMacedonian - (SIL code: mkd; ISO 639-1 code: mk; ISO 639-2(B) code: mac; ISO 639-2(T) code: mkd)* Bulgarian languageBulgarian - (SIL code: bul; ISO 639-1 code: bg; ISO 639-2 code: bul)* Old Church Slavonic - extinct (SIL code: chu; ISO 639-1 code: cu; ISO 639-2 code: chu)Note that Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian previously formed a unitary Serbo-Croatian languageSerbo-Croatian (SIL 14th ed. code: ''SRC''; ISO 639-1 code: ''sh''; ISO 639-2(B) codes: ''scr'' and ''scc''). See also: Differences in official languages in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia.Para- and supranational languagesChurch Slavonic language, derived from Old Church Slavonic, but with significant replacement of the original vocabulary by forms from the Old Russian language and other regional forms. The Russian Orthodox Church and Serbian Orthodox Church continue to use Church Slavonic as a liturgical language. While not used in modern times, the text of a Church Slavonic mass survives in the Czech Republic, which is best known through Janacek's musical setting of it (the ''Glagolitic Mass'').A planned language called Slovio also exists: constructed on the basis of Slavic languages, and intended to facilitate intercommunication between people each of whom already speak at least one Slavic language.
See also - Slavistics Language families and languages
External links - continuitas.com - continuity and Slavic ethnogenesisethnologue.com - Ethnologue report on Slavic languagesmiejipang.homestead.com - Let's try Slavic languages!uni-bonn.de - Bilingual lists of Slavic false friendsCategory:Slavic languages*af:Slawiesaz:Slavyan qrupubg:Славянски !езициbe:Славянск я? мовыbs:Slavenski jezicica:Llengües eslavescs:Slovanské jazykyda:Slaviske sprogde:Slawische Sprachenet:Slaavi keeledel:Σλαβικές γλώσσεςals:Slawische Sprachenes:Lenguas eslavaseo:Slava lingvarofa:زبانهای اسلاویfr:Langues !slavesko:슬라브어파hr:Sla venski? jeziciid:Bahasa Slaviais:Slavnesk tungumálit:Lingue slavehe:שפות סלאביותkw:Yethow Slavekla:Lingua Slovacicalt:Slavų kalbosli:Slavische taolemk:Словенски јазициnl:Slavische !talenja:スラヴ語派nn:Slav iske? språkpl:Języki słowiańskiept:Línguas eslavasro:Limbile slaveru:Славянские языкиsk:Slovanské jazykysl:Slovanski jezikisr:Словенски језициfi:Slaavilaiset kieletsv:Slaviska språktl:Mga wikang Slavonicvi:Nhóm ngôn ngữ gốc Slavuk:Слов'янські !мовиzh:斯拉夫语族
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