Slavic languages are spoken by an estimated 276 million people mostly in Eastern Europe and Asia (Siberia). All Slavic languages are believed to have descended from a common ancestor called Proto-Slavic, which, in turn, is thought to have split off from Proto-Indo-European possibly as early as 2,000 B.C. Proto-Slavic was probably the common language of all Slavs as late as the 8th or 9th century A.D., but by the 10th century A.D. the various Slavic varieties had begun to emerge as separate languages.
Slavic languages are usually divided into three groups which, in turn, encompass smaller dialect groups. The table below shows the estimated number of speakers and where these languages are spoken. There are enough differences between these languages to make communication between them difficult and sometimes impossible.
South Slavic |
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Bulgarian | 9 million |
Bulgaria |
Serbian | 11.1 million | Serbia and Montenegro |
Croatian | 6.2 million | Croatia |
Bosnian | 4 million | Bosnia and Herzegovina |
Slovenian | 2 million | Slovenia |
Macedonian | 1.5 million | Macedonia |
West Slavic |
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Czech | 11.5 million |
Czech Republic |
Slovak | 5 million | Slovakia |
Polish | 42.7 million | Poland |
Sorbian | 70,000 | Germany |
East Slavic |
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Belarusan | 9 million | Belarus |
Russian | 145 million | Russia |
Ukrainian | 39.5 million | Ukraine |
National or official languages |
Country |
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Belarus |
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Bulgarian , Turkish |
Bulgaria |
Bosnia and Hercegovina |
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Croatian, Italian |
Croatia |
Czech Republic |
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Macedonia |
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Poland |
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Russia |
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Serbia and Montenegro |
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Slovakia |
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Slovenian, Hungarian, Italian |
Slovenia |
Ukraine |
The sound systems of Slavic languages are characterized by both similarities and differences. Similarities
Differences
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All Slavic languages have highly developed inflectional systems.
Noun phrase
Verb phrase
Word order |
The vocabulary of the Slavic languages is Indo-European in origin with a great deal of loanwords from Old Church Slavonic, Greek, Latin, French, German, English, and neighboring languages. The sources of borrowing vary somewhat from language to language, depending on history and geographical location, e.g., Balkan languages such as Bulgarian, Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Macedonian have a large number of Turkish words due to having been conquered by Ottoman Turks.
Below are some common words in 7 Slavic languages, representing the three different branches. |
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Writing
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Brief history of the Cyrillic alphabet In 861 AD, Prince Rostislav of the Slavic-speaking Moravians (located in present-day Czech Republic) sent a message to the Byzantine Emperor in Constantinople: "We don't understand Latin or Greek. Please send us someone to teach us in our language." The reason Rostislav appealed to the Byzantine Church is because it taught each nation in its own language, while the Church of Rome, at the time, used only Latin. The Emperor sent two Greek brothers, Cyril and Methodius, who knew both Slavic and Greek. The two brothers created two alphabets to translate the Bible and the liturgy. One of the alphabets, Glagolitic, soon fell into disuse and vanished. The other one came to be known as Cyrillic. It is based on the Greek alphabet with some letters borrowed from Coptic and Hebrew in cases when the Greek alphabet did not have letters to represent Slavic sounds. Today, the Cyrillic alphabet is used by over 200 million people, representing more than 100 languages. We will further explore the Cyrillic alphabet in the context of the Slavic languages described on this website. |
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Brief history of Old Church Slavonic
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Click here to find out where Slavic languages are taught in the United States. Additional resources for the study of Slavic languages Click on the name of the language to learn more about it on this website
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How difficult is it to learn Slavic Languages? All Slavic languages belong to Category II in terms of difficulty for speakers of English. |