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Slavic languages
The Slavic languages (also called Slavonic languages), a group of closely related 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.
BranchesScholars traditionally divide Slavic languages on the basis of geographical distribution into three main branches, some of which feature sub-branches:
Some linguists speculate that a North Slavic branch has existed as well. The Old Novgorod dialect may have reflected some idiosyncrasies of this group. On the other hand, the term "North Slavic" is also used sometimes to combine the West and East Slavic languages into one group, in opposition to the South Slavic languages, due to traits the West and East Slavic branches share with each other that they do not with the South Slavic languages. The most obvious differences between the West and East Slavic branches are in orthography of standard languages; West Slavic languages are written in the Latin alphabet, and have had more Western European influence due to their speakers being historically Roman Catholic, whereas the East Slavic languages are written in the Cyrillic alphabet and with Eastern Orthodox or Uniate speakers, have had more Greek influence. 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. For example, Slovak (West Slavic) and Ukrainian (East Slavic) are bridged by eastern Slovak dialects, Rusyn, and western Ukrainian dialects. Polish has similar transitionality with both western Ukrainian and Belorussian dialects. Although the Slavic languages split from a common proto-language later than any other group of the Indo-European language family, 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. HistoryCommon roots and ancestryAll Slavic languages are descendants of Proto-Slavic, their parent language. Mainstream historical linguists holds that Proto-Slavic in turn developed from the Proto-Balto-Slavic language, also a common ancestor of 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. The process of separation of Proto-Slavic speakers from Baltic speakers presumably occurred around 1000 BCE; according to Starostin's "recalibrated glottochronology" method, the split of Common Slavic group from Balto-Slavic dialect continuum occurred in 1250 BCE, which would make it the last major IE branch to split. Some Baltists maintain fringe view that the Slavic group of languages differs so radically from the neighboring Baltic group (Lithuanian, Latvian, and the now-extinct Old Prussian), that they could not have shared a parent language after the breakup of the Proto-Indo-European continuum about five millennia ago. Substantial advances in Balto-Slavic accentology that occurred in the last 3 decades make this view however very hard to maintain nowadays, especially when one takes into account the fact that there was most likely no "Proto-Baltic" language, and that West Baltic and East Baltic differ from each other as much as each of them to Proto-Slavic. Evolution
Ba?ka tablet, 11th century, Krk, Croatia 
14th-century Novgorodian children were literate enough to send each other letters written on birch bark More recent foreign influences follow the same general pattern in Slavic languages as elsewhere, and are governed by the political relationships of the Slavs. In the 17th century, bourgeois Russian (delovoi jazyk) absorbed German words through direct contacts between Russians and communities of German settlers in Russia. In the era of Peter the Great, close contacts with France invited countless loan words and calques from French, a significant fraction of which not only survived, but replaced older Slavonic loans. In the 19th century, Russian influenced most literary Slavic languages by one means or another. Croatian writers borrowed Czech words liberally, whereas Czech writers, scrambling to revive their dying language, had in turn borrowed many words (cf. vzduch, air) from Russian. Russian words were imported en masse to Bulgarian, to replace Turkish and Greek loans, so that many Bulgarian words now carry a Russian phonetic footnote (i.e., have a phonetic structure unusual for Bulgarian language or, indeed, for South Slavic languages in general). DifferentiationThe Proto-Slavic language existed approximately to the middle of the first millennium AD. By the 7th century, it had broken apart into large dialectal zones. There are no reliable hypotheses about the nature of the subsequent breakup of West and South Slavic. East Slavic is generally thought to converge to one Old Russian language, which existed until at least the 12th century. It is now believed that South Slavs came to the Balkans in two streams, and that between them was a large non-Slavic population of Romance-speaking Vlachs from the remnants of the old Roman Empire. 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 Slovene dialects (e.g. rhotacism, the word krilatec). 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 writing (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, thus severing the connection between Slavs in White Croatia (Chrobatia, present-day Poland) and White Serbia (Pomeria, present-day Germany) from southern Slavs - Croats and Serbs. Frankish conquests completed the geographical separation between these two groups, also severing the connection between Slavs in Moravia and Lower Austria (Moravians) from those in present-day Styria, Carinthia, East Tyrol in Austria and in the provinces of modern Slovenia, where the ancestors of Slovenes settled during first colonisation. Common features
Influence on neighbouring languagesMost languages of the former Soviet Union, Russia and neighboring countries (for example, Mongolian) are significantly influenced by Russian, especially in vocabulary. In the west, the Romanian 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, the Germanic languages show no significant Slavic influence. For instance, Max Vasmer has observed that there are no Slavic loans into Common Germanic. The only Germanic language that shows significant Slavic influence is Yiddish. There are isolated Slavic loans into other Germanic languages. For example the word for "border", in modern German Grenze, Dutch grens was loaned from the Common Slavic *granica. English derives quark (a kind of cheese, not the subatomic particle) from the German Quark, which in turn is derived from the Slavic tvarog, which means "curd". Swedish also has torg (market place) from Old Russian t?rg?,[1] tolk (interpreter) from Old Slavic tl?k?,[2] and prĺm (barge) from West Slavonic pram?.[3] The Czech word Robot is now found in most languages worldwide, and the word pistol, also from Czech, and is found in many Indo-European languages. A well known Slavic word in almost all European languages is vodka, a borrowing from Russian ????? (vodka). Lit. "little water", from common Slavic voda , (water, cognate to English word) with the diminutive ending -ka.[4][5] Owing to medieval fur trade with Northern Russia, Pan-European loans from Russian include such familiar words as sable[6] and hamster.[7] The English word vampire was borrowed (perhaps via French vampire) from German Vampir, in turn derived from Serbian vampir, continuing Proto-Slavic *pyr?.[8] (although Polish scholar K. Stachowski has argued that the origin of the word is early Old Polish *v?p?r?[9]). Detailed list with ISO 639 and SIL codes
Slavic languages
Para- and supranational languages
See alsoReferences
FootnotesExternal links
af:Slawiese tale als:Slawische Sprachen ar:???? ?????? ast:Llingües eslaves av:????????? ???I?? az:Slavyan qrupu bn:???????? ???????? be:?????????? ???? be-x-old:?????????? ???? bs:Slavenski jezici br:Yezhoů slavek bg:????????? ????? ca:Llengües eslaves cs:Slovanské jazyky da:Slaviske sprog de:Slawische Sprachen dsb:S?owja?ske r?cy et:Slaavi keeled el:???????? ??????? es:Lenguas eslavas eo:Slava lingvaro eu:Eslaviar hizkuntzak fa:???????? ?????? fr:Langues slaves gl:Linguas eslavas ko:????? hsb:S?owjanske r??e hr:Slavenski jezici id:Bahasa Slavik is:Slavnesk tungumál it:Lingue slave he:???? ??????? ka:??????? ????? csb:S?owia?sczé jăzëczi kw:Yethow Slavek sw:Lugha za Kislavoni ku:Zimanęn slavî la:Linguae Slavicae lv:Sl?vu valodas lt:Slav? kalbos li:Slavische taole hu:Szláv nyelvek mk:????????? ?????? myv:????????? ?????? nl:Slavische talen ja:????? no:Slaviske sprĺk nn:Slaviske sprĺk nrm:Langue Slave oc:Lengas eslavas pms:Lenghe slave pl:J?zyki s?owia?skie pt:Línguas eslavas crh:Slavân tilleri ro:Limbile slave rmy:Slavikane chhiba ru:?????????? ????? simple:Slavic languages sk:Slovanské jazyky cu:??????????? ?????? sl:Slovanski jeziki sr:????????? ?????? fi:Slaavilaiset kielet szl:Suowja?ske godki sv:Slaviska sprĺk tl:Mga wikang Slavonic ta:??????? ??????? th:??????????????? vi:Nhóm ngôn ng? g?c Slav tg:???????? ??????? tr:Slav dilleri udm:?????? ?????? uk:????'?????? ???? vls:Slaviesche toaln yi:???????? ?????? bat-smg:Slavu kalbas zh:????? Source: Wikipedia | The above article is available under the GNU FDL. | Edit this article
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