Slavic languages

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The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages) are the languages of the Slavic peoples. They are a group of Indo-European languages spoken in most of Eastern Europe, much of the Balkans, parts of Central Europe, and the northern part of Asia.

Table of contents

1 Branches

2 History

3 Detailed list with SIL and ISO 639-2 codes

4 See also

Branches

Scholars divide the Slavic languages into three branches:

South Slavic, which is further split into Western and Eastern subgroups. The Western subgroup is composed of Slovenian and the group of dialects and literary languages referred to as Serbo-Croatian language (including Serbian, Bosnian and Croatian). The languages from the Western subgroup are spoken in Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Serbia and Montenegro, and adjacent regions. The Eastern subgroup consists of Bulgarian in Bulgaria and adjacent areas, and Macedonian in Republic of Macedonia, Greece and Albania.
West Slavic, which includes Czech in the Czech Republic and Slovak in Slovakia, Upper and Lower Sorbian in Germany, and Lekhitic (Polish and related dialects, Kashubian, Polabian, Obodrits).
East Slavic, including Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian.

Map of Slavic languages in eastern Europe

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 are not apparent when Slavic literary (i.e., standard) languages are compared.

There are, however, enough differences existing between the various Slavic dialects and languages to make communication between Slavs of different nationalities difficult, but not impossible. Within the individual Slavic languages, dialects may vary to a lesser degree, as in Russian, or to a much greater degree, as in Slovenian. Modern mass communication, however, has helped to minimize variation in all the Slavic languages.

History

Slavic languages descend from a dialect of Proto-Slavic, their parent language, which developed from a language that was also the ancestor of Proto-Baltic, the parent of the Baltic languages. It is believed that the "Urheimat" of the Proto-Balto-Slavic, this ancestral language, was spoken in the territories surrounding what is today known as Lithuania at some time after the Indo-European area had been separated into different dialect regions (c. 3000 BC). There are at least 289 words shared by Slavic and Baltic speakers which could have came from that hypothetical language. The process of separation of Proto-Slavic speakers from Proto-Baltic speakers occurred around 1000 BC. Proto-Baltic-Slavic earlier developed from Proto-Baltic-Germanic-Slavic, which is documented by around 164 words.

In the opinion of linguists, probably even in the 10th–12th centuries all Slavs spoke generally the same language, with very slight differences.

Some linguists maintain however, that the Slavic group of languages is different from the neighboring Baltic group (Lithuanian, Latvian, and the now-extinct Old Prussian). The Baltic language speakers once lived in a much larger area along the Baltic Sea and south. Starting by AD 600 Slavic language speakers gradually spread and took over large areas of Baltic settlements. At the same time they are recorded as taking over portions of Greece. (The first documented attempt at conquest of Baltic speakers by Slavic speakers was recorded in the year AD 997 by Adalbert of Prague.) Similarities in grammar and vocabulary are explained by this group of linguists as a result of this Slav migration into the Baltic speaking areas and the subsequent proximity of the two groups.

Detailed list with SIL and ISO 639-2 codes

The following tree for the Slavic languages is based on http://www.ethnologue.com/show_family.asp?subid=656. In ISO 639-2 the code sla is used in a general way for slavic languages not included in one of the other codes.

West Slavic languages:

Sorbian Section - also known as Wendish - ISO 639-2 code, wen
- Lower Sorbian (also known as Lusatian)- (SIL Code, WEE; ISO 639-2 code, dsb)
- Upper Sorbian - (SIL Code, WEN; ISO 639-2 code, hsb)
Lekhitic Section
- Polish - (SIL Code, PQL; ISO 639-1 code, pl; ISO 639-2 code, pol) (NOTE: The counterintuitive SIL code "PQL" is correct; "POL" is used for the Polci language of Nigeria)
- Kashubian - (SIL Code, CSB; ISO 639-2 code, sla)
- Slovincian - an extinct dialect of Kashubian
- Polabian - extinct - (SIL Code, POX; ISO 639-2 code, sla)
Czech-Slovak Section
- Czech - (SIL Code, CZC; ISO 639-1 code, cs; ISO 639-2(B) code, cze; ISO 639-2(T) code, ces)
- Knaanic or Judeo Slavic - extinct - (SIL Code, CZK; ISO 639-2 code, sla)
- Slovak - (SIL Code, SLO; ISO 639-1 code, sk; ISO 639-2(B) code, slo; ISO 639-2(T) code, slk)

South Slavic languages:

Western Section
- Slovenian - (SIL Code, SLV; ISO 639-1 code, sl; ISO 639-2 code, slv)
- Serbo-Croatian - (SIL Code, SRC; ISO 639-1 codes, bs, hr and sr; ISO 639-2 codes, bos; ISO 639-2(B) codes, scr and scc; ISO 639-2(T) codes, hrv and srp)
  - After the break-up of Yugoslavia they became officially considered as three languages, Serbian, Croatian, and Bosnian, though the differences (apart from the choice of script) are more political than dialectal. For more information see Differences in official languages in Serbia, Croatia and Bosnia.
- Romano-Serbian - (SIL Code, RSB; ISO 639-2 code, sla)
Eastern Section
- Macedonian - (SIL Code, MKJ; ISO 639-1 code, mk; ISO 639-2(B) code, mac; ISO 639-2(T) code, mkd)
- Bulgarian - (SIL Code, BLG; ISO 639-1 code, bg; ISO 639-2 code, bul)
- Old Church Slavonic - extinct (SIL Code, SLN; ISO 639-1 code, cu; ISO 639-2 code, chu)

East Slavic languages:

Belarusian (alternatively Belarusan, Belarussian, Belorussian) - (SIL Code, RUW; ISO 639-1 code, be; ISO 639-2 code, bel)
- Belarusan is the form recognized by the United States State Department, ethnologue.com and the Rosetta Project.
Ukrainian - (SIL Code, UKR; ISO 639-1 code, uk; ISO 639-2 code, ukr)
Russian - (SIL Code, RUS; ISO 639-1 code, ru; ISO 639-2 code, rus)
Rusyn - (SIL Code, RUE; ISO 639-2 code, sla)

Transitional

Church Slavonic language, derived from Old Church Slavonic by significant repacement of the vocabulary from the Old Russian language. It is still used in Russian Orthodox Church as a lithurgical language.

There is also a planned language called Slovio that is based on Slavic languages, and intended to be easily understood by people who speak at least one Slavic language.

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