The term North Slavic languages is used in three main senses:
73-439: Historically, the term "North Slav" has been used in academia since at least the first half of the 19th century. Since then the concept continued to see use in various publications. The following uses of the term "North Slavs" or "North Slavic" are found: In terms of language, the greatest contrasts are evident between South Slavic tongues and the rest of the family. Moreover, there are many exceptions and whole dialects that break
146-559: A dialectal continuum stretching from today's southern Austria to southeast Bulgaria . On the level of dialectology , they are divided into Western South Slavic (Slovene and Serbo-Croatian dialects) and Eastern South Slavic (Bulgarian and Macedonian dialects); these represent separate migrations into the Balkans and were once separated by intervening Hungarian, Romanian, and Albanian populations; as these populations were assimilated, Eastern and Western South Slavic fused with Torlakian as
219-646: A genetic node in Slavic studies : defined by a set of phonological, morphological and lexical innovations (isoglosses) which separate it from the Western and Eastern Slavic groups. That view, however, has been challenged in recent decades (see below). Some innovations encompassing all South Slavic languages are shared with the Eastern Slavic group, but not the Western Slavic. These include: This
292-652: A North Slavic branch vis-à-vis the traditional West, East and South Slavic branches. Usually, they are part of a larger alternative history scheme and may be based on elements from Old Novgorodian or North Russian dialects , historical pidgins like Russenorsk or interference from non-Slavic languages such as the Uralic languages , the Baltic languages or the North Germanic languages . The best-known examples of constructed North Slavic languages are: Also included in
365-508: A foothold), and France ( Cathars ). Carinthia came under Germanic rule in the 10th century and came permanently under Western (Roman) Christian sphere of influence. What is today Croatia came under Eastern Roman (Byzantine) rule after the Barbarian age, and while most of the territory was Slavicized, a handful of fortified towns, with mixed population, remained under Byzantine authority and continued to use Latin. Dalmatia, now applied to
438-611: A majority of the South Slavic peoples and lands—with the exception of Bulgarians and Bulgaria—into a single state. The Pan-Slavic concept of Yugoslavia emerged in late 17th-century Croatia, at the time part of the Habsburg monarchy , and gained prominence through the 19th-century Illyrian movement . The Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes , renamed the Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929, was proclaimed on 1 December 1918, following
511-409: A primitive life and living in scattered huts, often changing their residence. Procopius said they were henotheistic , believing in the god of lightning ( Perun ), the ruler of all, to whom they sacrificed cattle. They went into battle on foot, charging straight at their enemy, armed with spears and small shields, but they did not wear armour. While archaeological evidence for a large-scale migration
584-575: A shared "Slavonic-time ancestry". The 2014 IBD analysis comparison of Western Balkan and Middle Eastern populations also found negligible gene flow between 16th and 19th century during the Islamization of the Balkans. According to a 2014 admixture analysis of Western Balkan, the South Slavs show a genetic uniformity. Bosnians and Croatians were closer to East European populations and largely overlapped with Hungarians from Central Europe. In
657-596: A television programme is usually in Cyrillic, but advertisements are usually in Latin. The division is partly based on religion – Serbia, Montenegro, Bulgaria and Macedonia (which use Cyrillic) are Orthodox countries, whereas Croatia and Slovenia (which use Latin) are Catholic . The Bosnian language , used by the Muslim Bosniaks , also uses Latin, but in the past used Bosnian Cyrillic . The Glagolitic alphabet
730-495: A transitional dialect. On the other hand, the breakup of the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires , followed by formation of nation-states in the 19th and 20th centuries, led to the development and codification of standard languages . Standard Slovene, Bulgarian, and Macedonian are based on distinct dialects. The Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian standard variants of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian are based on
803-601: A very high number of common ancestors dated to the migration period approximately 1,500 years ago with Poland and Romania-Bulgaria cluster among others in Eastern Europe. It is concluded to be caused by the Hunnic and Slavic expansion, which was a "relatively small population that expanded over a large geographic area", particularly "the expansion of the Slavic populations into regions of low population density beginning in
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#1732771989997876-830: A view mirrored by linguist Tomasz Kamusella. Tracing back to the Greek East and Latin West split in Late Antiquity, there are cultural divisions within the North Slavonic language family with regard to writing systems and religions: the West Slavic languages mostly use versions of the Latin script and have or historically had a Catholic-majority population, while the East Slavic languages are usually written in
949-631: Is i or sometimes e (rarely as (i)je ), or mixed ( Ekavian–Ikavian ). Many dialects of Chakavian preserved significant number of Dalmatian words, but also have many loanwords from Venetian , Italian , Greek and other Mediterranean languages. Example: Ča je, je, tako je vavik bilo, ča će bit, će bit, a nekako će već bit! This dialect is spoken primarily in the federal state of Burgenland in Austria and nearby areas in Vienna, Slovakia , and Hungary by descendants of Croats who migrated there during
1022-529: Is "dated to 500-900 CE or a bit later with over 40-50% among Bulgarians, Romanians, and Hungarians". The 2015 IBD analysis found that the South Slavs have lower proximity to Greeks than with East and West Slavs and that there's an "even patterns of IBD sharing among East-West Slavs–'inter-Slavic' populations ( Hungarians , Romanians and Gagauz )–and South Slavs, i.e. across an area of assumed historic movements of people including Slavs". The slight peak of shared IBD segments between South and East-West Slavs suggests
1095-539: Is considered transitional between the Western and Eastern groups of South Slavic languages. Torlakian is thought to fit together with Bulgarian and Macedonian into the Balkan sprachbund , an area of linguistic convergence caused by long-term contact rather than genetic relation. Because of this some researchers tend to classify it as Southeast Slavic . Each of these primary and secondary dialectal units breaks down into subdialects and accentological isoglosses by region. In
1168-483: Is illustrated in the following table: Several isoglosses have been identified which are thought to represent exclusive common innovations in the South Slavic language group. They are prevalently phonological in character, whereas morphological and syntactical isoglosses are much fewer in number. Sussex & Cubberly (2006 :43–44) list the following phonological isoglosses: Most of these are not exclusive in character, however, and are shared with some languages of
1241-470: Is lacking, most present-day historians claim that Slavs invaded and settled the Balkans in the 6th and 7th centuries. According to this dominant narrative, up until the late 560s their main activity southward across the Danube was raiding, though with limited Slavic settlement mainly through Byzantine colonies of foederati . The Danube and Sava frontier was overwhelmed by large-scale Slavic settlement in
1314-591: The Bessarabian Bulgarians in Ukraine ), share a number of characteristics that set them apart from other Slavic languages : Bulgarian and Macedonian share some of their unusual characteristics with other languages in the Balkans, notably Greek and Albanian (see Balkan sprachbund ). Torlakian dialects are spoken in southeastern Serbia , northern North Macedonia , western Bulgaria , southeastern Kosovo , and pockets of western Romania ; it
1387-539: The Cyrillic script and have or historically had an Orthodox-majority population. A similar east-west split exists for people speaking South Slavic languages in the Balkans, although the Latin script is spreading in countries where Serbo-Croatian is frequently spoken and the majority population is Orthodox, such as Montenegro. The North Slavic and South Slavic-speaking territories are thus both generally geographically divided between Eastern and Western Christianity , and
1460-568: The Glagolitic script and the first Slavic written language, Old Church Slavonic , which they used to translate Biblical works. At the time, the West and South Slavs still spoke a similar language. The script used, Glagolitic , was capable of representing all Slavic sounds, however, it was gradually replaced in Bulgaria in the 9th century, in Russia by the 11th century Glagolitic survived into
1533-721: The History by Theophylact Simocatta ( c. 630 ). DAI mentions the beginnings of the Croatian, Serbian and Bulgarian states from the early 7th to the mid-10th century. MSD and Theophylact Simocatta mention the Slavic tribes in Thessaly and Macedonia at the beginning of the 7th century. The 9th-century Royal Frankish Annals (RFA) also mention Slavic tribes in contact with the Franks . By 700 AD, Slavs had settled in most of Central and Southeast Europe, from Austria even down to
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#17327719899971606-638: The Slavic languages . There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans . These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches ( West and East ) by a belt of German , Hungarian and Romanian speakers. The first South Slavic language to be written (also the first attested Slavic language) was the variety of the Eastern South Slavic spoken in Thessaloniki , now called Old Church Slavonic , in
1679-494: The same dialect ( Shtokavian ). Thus, in most cases national and ethnic borders do not coincide with dialectal boundaries. Note : Due to the differing political status of languages/dialects and different historical contexts, the classifications are arbitrary to some degree. The dialects that form the eastern group of South Slavic, spoken mostly in Bulgaria and Macedonia and adjacent areas in neighbouring countries (such as
1752-554: The 10th and 11th centuries the Old Church Slavonic led to the creation of various regional forms like Serbo-Croatian and Slovenian . Economic, religious and political centres of Ohrid and Preslav contributed to the important literary production in the Bulgarian Empire . The Bogomil sect, derived from Manichaeism, was deemed heretical, but managed to spread from Bulgaria to Bosnia (where it gained
1825-908: The 16th century in Croatia, used by Benedictines and Franciscans, but lost importance during the Counter-Reformation when Latin replaced it on the Dalmatian coast. Cyril and Methodius' disciples found refuge in already Christian Bulgaria , where the Old Church Slavonic became the ecclesiastical language. Early Cyrillic alphabet was developed during the 9th century AD at the Preslav Literary School in Bulgaria . The earliest Slavic literary works were composed in Bulgaria , Duklja and Dalmatia. The religious works were almost exclusively translations, from Latin (Croatia, Slovenia) and especially Greek (Bulgaria, Serbia). In
1898-458: The 16th century. This dialect (or family of dialects) differs from standard Croatian, since it has been heavily influenced by German and Hungarian. It has properties of all three major dialectal groups in Croatia, since the migrants did not all come from the same area, but the linguistic standard is based on the Chakavian dialect. Kajkavian is mostly spoken in northern and northwest Croatia near
1971-443: The 2015 analysis, Bosnians and Croatians formed a western South Slavic cluster together with Slovenians, in opposition to an eastern cluster formed by Macedonians and Bulgarians, with Serbians in between the two. The western cluster has an inclination toward Hungarians, Czechs, and Slovaks, while the eastern ones lean toward Romanians and, to some extent, to Greeks. The modeled ancestral genetic component of Balto-Slavs among South Slavs
2044-564: The 7th century and remains qualitatively different from the "Slavic culture" found north of the Danube . In the mid-6th century, the Byzantines re-asserted their control of the Danube frontier, thereby reducing the economic value of Slavic raiding. This growing economic isolation, combined with external threats from the Avars and Byzantines, led to political and military mobilisation. Meanwhile,
2117-510: The Avar envoys slain. By the 580s, as the Slav communities on the Danube became larger and more organized, and as the Avars exerted their influence, raids became larger and resulted in permanent settlement. Most scholars consider the period of 581–584 as the beginning of large-scale Slavic settlement in the Balkans. F. Curta points out that evidence of substantial Slavic presence does not appear before
2190-634: The Balkans however diminished by the early 7th century and they were finally defeated and disappeared as a power at the turn of the 9th century by Bulgaria and the Frankish Empire . The first South Slavic polity and regional power was Bulgaria , a state formed in 681 as a union between the much numerous Slavic tribes and the bulgars of Khan Asparuh . The scattered Slavs in Greece, the Sklavinia , were Hellenized. Romance-speakers lived within
2263-635: The Byzantine Empire was stretched, defending its rich Asian provinces from Arabs, Persians and others. This meant that even numerically small, disorganised early Slavic raids were capable of causing much disruption, but could not capture the larger, fortified cities. The first Slavic raid south of the Danube was recorded by Procopius, who mentions an attack of the Antes, "who dwell close to the Sclaveni", probably in 518. Sclaveni are first mentioned in
North Slavic languages - Misplaced Pages Continue
2336-549: The Eastern and Western Slavic language groups (in particular, Central Slovakian dialects). On that basis, Matasović (2008) argues that South Slavic exists strictly as a geographical grouping, not forming a true genetic clade ; in other words, there was never a proto-South Slavic language or a period in which all South Slavic dialects exhibited an exclusive set of extensive phonological, morphological or lexical changes (isoglosses) peculiar to them. Furthermore, Matasović argues, there
2409-526: The Hungarian and Slovene borders—chiefly around the towns of Zagreb , Varaždin, Čakovec, Koprivnica, Petrinja, Delnice and so on. Its reflex of yat is primarily /e/ , rarely diphthongal ije ). This differs from that of the Ekavian accent; many Kajkavian dialects distinguish a closed e —nearly ae (from yat )—and an open e (from the original e ). It lacks several palatals (ć, lj, nj, dž) found in
2482-554: The Ottoman period. Slovene is South Slavic but has many features shared with West Slavic languages. The Prekmurje Slovene and Kajkavian are especially close, and there is no sharp delineation between them. In southeastern Serbia, dialects enter a transitional zone with Bulgarian and Macedonian, with features of both groups, and are commonly called Torlakian . The Eastern South Slavic languages are Bulgarian and Macedonian. Bulgarian has retained more archaic Slavic features in relation to
2555-762: The Peloponnese of Greece, and from the Adriatic to the Black Sea, with the exception of the coastal areas and certain mountainous regions of the Greek peninsula. The Avars , who arrived in Europe in the late 550s and had a great impact in the Balkans, had from their base in the Carpathian plain, west of main Slavic settlements, asserted control over Slavic tribes with whom they besieged Roman cities. Their influence in
2628-642: The Republic of Venice which held it until the 18th century. Hungary governed Croatia through a duke, and the coastal towns through a ban . A feudal class emerged in the Croatian hinterland in the late 13th century, among whom were the Kurjaković , Kačić and most notably the Šubić . Dalmatian fortified towns meanwhile maintained autonomy, with a Roman patrician class and Slavic lower class, first under Hungary and then Venice after centuries of struggle. Ibn al-Faqih described two kinds of South Slavic people,
2701-670: The Sclaveni continued to raid the Balkans. In 558 the Avars arrived at the Black Sea steppe, and defeated the Antes between the Dnieper and Dniester. The Avars subsequently allied themselves with the Sclaveni, although there was an episode in which the Sclavene Daurentius ( fl. 577–579 ), the first Slavic chieftain recorded by name, dismissed Avar suzerainty and retorted that "Others do not conquer our land, we conquer theirs [...] so it shall always be for us", and had
2774-598: The Shtokavian dialect, and has some loanwords from the nearby Slovene dialects and German (chiefly in towns). Example: Kak je, tak je; tak je navek bilo, kak bu tak bu, a bu vre nekak kak bu! Slovene is mainly spoken in Slovenia . Spoken Slovene has numerous dialects, but there is no consensus on how many; estimates range from 7 to 50. The lowest estimate refers to the language's seven commonly recognized dialect groups, without subdividing any of them. Some of
2847-768: The Southern branch is split into the widely accepted groups of the Southwest languages ( Serbo-Croatian and Slovene ) and the Southeast tongues ( Bulgarian and Macedonian ). This model is argued as being more appropriate and linguistically accurate than the triple dissection of east, west and south. Geographer O.T. Ford also writes of the Slavs being "conventionally" divided into three sub-branches (West, East, South), but "in reality" divided only by geographic isolation into two bands that form two dialect continua: North and South –
2920-642: The Western dialects in the following ways: Apart from these three main areas there are several smaller, significant differences: Languages to the west of Serbia use the Latin script , whereas those to the east and south use Cyrillic . Serbian officially uses the Cyrillic script, though commonly Latin and Cyrillic are used equally. Most newspapers are written in Cyrillic and most magazines are in Latin; books written by Serbian authors are written in Cyrillic, whereas books translated from foreign authors are usually in Latin, other than languages that already use Cyrillic, most notably Russian. On television, writing as part of
2993-428: The central ones ( Edessa , Kilkis ) as either Macedonian or transitional between Macedonian and Bulgarian. Balkan Slavic languages are part of a " Balkan sprachbund " with areal features shared with other non-Slavic languages in the Balkans. According to the 2013 autosomal IBD survey "of recent genealogical ancestry over the past 3,000 years at a continental scale", the speakers of Serbo-Croatian language share
North Slavic languages - Misplaced Pages Continue
3066-589: The codification of several distinct standards: Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian and Montenegrin. These Serbo-Croatian standards are all based on the Shtokavian dialect group. Other dialect groups, which have lower intelligibility with Shtokavian, are Chakavian in Dalmatia and Kajkavian in Croatia proper . The dominance of Shtokavian across Serbo-Croatian speaking lands is due to historical westward migration during
3139-421: The contact zones. The diminished pre-Slavic inhabitants, also including Romanized native peoples, fled from the barbarian invasions and sought refuge inside fortified cities and islands, whilst others fled to remote mountains and forests and adopted a transhumant lifestyle. The Romance-speakers within the fortified Dalmatian city-states managed to retain their culture and language for a long time. Meanwhile,
3212-573: The context of the military policy on the Danube frontier of Byzantine Emperor Justinian I (r. 527–565). Throughout the 6th century, Slavs raided and plundered deep into the Balkans, from Dalmatia to Greece and Thrace, and were also at times recruited as Byzantine mercenaries, fighting the Ostrogoths . Justinian seems to have used the strategy of ' divide and conquer ', and the Sclaveni and Antes are mentioned as fighting each other. The Antes are last mentioned as anti-Byzantine belligerents in 545, and
3285-575: The distribution, variance and frequency of the Y-DNA haplogroups R1a and I2 and their subclades R-M558, R-M458 and I-CTS10228 among South Slavs are in correlation with the spreading of Slavic languages during the medieval Slavic expansion from Eastern Europe, most probably from the territory of present-day Ukraine and Southeastern Poland . [REDACTED] Media related to South Slavs at Wikimedia Commons South Slavic languages The South Slavic languages are one of three branches of
3358-634: The division of East and West Slavic languages. According to this view, it makes more sense to divide the Slavs into two main linguistic groups: the North Slavs and the South Slavs , which can then be further categorised as the Northwest tongues ( Czech , Kashubian , Polish , Silesian , Slovak , and Sorbian ) and the Northeast ones ( Belarusian , Russian , Rusyn , and Ukrainian ) – whereas
3431-604: The eastern Alps and the Balkan Peninsula . Geographically separated from the West Slavs and East Slavs by Austria , Hungary , Romania , and the Black Sea , the South Slavs today include Bosniaks , Bulgarians , Croats , Macedonians , Montenegrins , Serbs and Slovenes . In the 20th century, the country of Yugoslavia (from Serbo-Croatian , literally meaning "South Slavia" or "South Slavdom") united
3504-503: The ethnic (and dialectal) picture of some areas—especially in Bosnia and Herzegovina, but also in central Croatia and Serbia (Vojvodina in particular). In some areas, it is unclear whether location or ethnicity is the dominant factor in the dialect of the speaker. Because of this the speech patterns of some communities and regions are in a state of flux, and it is difficult to determine which dialects will die out entirely. Further research over
3577-725: The first millennium AD, with its precise location debated by archaeologists, ethnographers and historians. None of the proposed homelands reaches the Volga River in the east, over the Dinaric Alps in the southwest or the Balkan Mountains in the south, or past Bohemia in the west. Traditionally, scholars place it in the marshes of Ukraine, or alternatively between the Bug and the Dnieper ; however, according to F. Curta,
3650-433: The first of swarthy complexion and dark hair, living near the Adriatic coast, and the other as light, living in the hinterland. Through Islamization, communities of Slavic Muslims emerged, which survive until today in Bosnia, south Serbia, North Macedonia, and Bulgaria. While Pan-Slavism has its origins in the 17th-century Slavic Catholic clergymen in the Republic of Venice and Republic of Ragusa, it crystallized only in
3723-514: The fortified Dalmatian city-states . Traditional historiography, based on DAI, holds that the migration of Serbs and Croats to the Balkans was part of a second Slavic wave, placed during Heraclius' reign. Inhabiting the territory between the Franks in the north and Byzantium in the south, the Slavs were exposed to competing influences. In 863 to Christianized Great Moravia were sent two Byzantine brothers monks Saints Cyril and Methodius , Slavs from Thessaloniki on missionary work. They created
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#17327719899973796-399: The great majority of all Eastern Orthodox believers in the world are found in the eastern parts of both the North Slavic and South Slavic areas, while a minority are Eastern-rite Catholics . "North Slavic" has been used as a name for several 20th- and 21st-century constructed languages forming a fictional North Slavic branch of the Slavic languages . Their main inspiration is the lack of
3869-438: The group of fictional North Slavic languages are five interrelated language projects (Seversk, Slavëni, Slavisk, Lydnevi , Mrezian) created around 2001 by Libor Sztemon, although they lack a fictional background and an explanation what exactly qualifies them as North Slavic. South Slavs South Slavs are Slavic people who speak South Slavic languages and inhabit a contiguous region of Southeast Europe comprising
3942-407: The homeland of the southern Slavs mentioned by 6th-century writers was just north of the Lower Danube . Little is known about the Slavs before the 5th century, when they began to spread out in all directions. Jordanes ( fl. 6th century CE ), Procopius ( c. 500 - c. 565 ) and other late Roman authors provide the probable earliest references to southern Slavs in
4015-434: The itinerant form of agriculture (lacking crop rotation ) may have encouraged micro-regional mobility. Seventh-century archaeological sites show earlier hamlet-collections evolving into larger communities with differentiated zones for public feasts, craftmanship, etc. It has been suggested that the Sclaveni were the ancestors of the Serbo-Croatian group while the Antes were those of the Bulgarian Slavs , with much mixture in
4088-459: The late 6th and early 7th century. What is today central Serbia was an important geo-strategical Byzantine province, through which the Via Militaris crossed. This area was frequently intruded upon by barbarians in the 5th and 6th centuries. From the Danube, the Slavs commenced raiding the Byzantine Empire on an annual basis from the 520s, spreading destruction, taking loot and herds of cattle, seizing prisoners and capturing fortresses. Often,
4161-477: The mid-19th century amidst rise of nationalism in the Ottoman and Habsburg empires. The South Slavic languages , one of three branches of the Slavic languages family (the other being West Slavic and East Slavic ), form a dialect continuum . It comprises, from west to east, the official languages of Slovenia , Croatia , Bosnia and Herzegovina , Montenegro , Serbia , North Macedonia , and Bulgaria . The South Slavic languages are geographically divided from
4234-464: The narrow strip with Byzantine towns, came under the Patriarchate of Constantinople, while the Croatian state remained pagan until Christianization during the reign of Charlemagne , after which religious allegiance was to Rome. Croats threw off Frankish rule in the 9th century and took over the Byzantine Dalmatian towns, after which Hungarian conquest led to Hungarian suzerainty, although retaining an army and institutions. Croatia lost much of Dalmatia to
4307-502: The next few decades will be necessary to determine the changes made in the dialectical distribution of this language group. The eastern Herzegovinian dialect is the basis of the Bosnian, Croatian, Montenegrin, and Serbian standard variants of the pluricentric Serbo-Croatian. Chakavian is spoken in the western, central, and southern parts of Croatia—mainly in Istria , the Kvarner Gulf, Dalmatia and inland Croatia (Gacka and Pokupje, for example). The Chakavian reflex of proto-Slavic yat
4380-476: The ninth century. It is retained as a liturgical language in Slavic Orthodox churches in the form of various local Church Slavonic traditions. The South Slavic languages constitute a dialect continuum . Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, and Montenegrin constitute a single dialect within this continuum. The Slavic languages are part of the Balto-Slavic group , which belongs to the Indo-European language family. The South Slavic languages have been considered
4453-405: The numerous Slavs mixed with and assimilated the descendants of the indigenous population. Subsequent information about Slavs' interaction with the Greeks and early Slavic states comes from the 10th-century text De Administrando Imperio (DAI) written by Byzantine Emperor Constantine VII Porphyrogenitus , from the 7th-century compilations of the Miracles of Saint Demetrius (MSD) and from
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#17327719899974526-540: The other languages. Bulgarian has two main yat splits. Macedonian was codified in Communist Yugoslavia in 1945. The northern and eastern Macedonian dialects are regarded as transitional to Serbian and Bulgarian, respectively. Furthermore, in Greece there is a notable Slavic-speaking population in Greek Macedonia and Western Thrace . Slavic dialects in western Greek Macedonia ( Kastoria , Florina ) are usually classified as Macedonian , those in eastern Greek Macedonia ( Serres , Drama ) and Western Thrace as Bulgarian and
4599-563: The past (and currently, in isolated areas), it was not uncommon for individual villages to have their own words and phrases. However, during the 20th century the local dialects have been influenced by Štokavian standards through mass media and public education and much "local speech" has been lost (primarily in areas with larger populations). With the breakup of Yugoslavia , a rise in national awareness has caused individuals to modify their speech according to newly established standard-language guidelines. The wars have caused large migrations, changing
4672-478: The rest of the Slavic languages by areas where Germanic (Austria), Hungarian and Romanian languages prevail. South Slavic standard languages are: West: Serbo-Croatian ( pluricentric ) ( Serbian , Croatian , Bosnian , Montenegrin ) Slovene East: Bulgarian Macedonian The Serbo-Croatian varieties have strong structural unity and are regarded by most linguists as constituting one language. Today, language secessionism has led to
4745-551: The second half of the 6th century. Procopius described the Sclaveni and Antes as two barbarian peoples with the same institutions and customs since ancient times, not ruled by a single leader but living under democracy, while Pseudo-Maurice called them a numerous people, undisciplined, unorganized and leaderless, who did not allow enslavement and conquest, and resistant to hardship, bearing all weathers. They were portrayed by Procopius as unusually tall and strong, of dark skin and "reddish" hair (neither blond nor black ), leading
4818-486: The seven groups are more heterogeneous than others, and the higher estimates reflect the varying criteria that have been used to differentiate dialects and subdialects. Slovenian dialects can be so different from each other that a speaker of one dialect may have a very difficult time understanding a speaker of another, particularly if their dialects belong to different groups. Some dialects spoken in southern Slovenia transition into Chakavian or Kajkavian Serbo-Croatian , while
4891-410: The sixth century" and that it is "highly coincident with the modern distribution of Slavic languages". According to Kushniarevich et al. 2015, the Hellenthal et al. 2014 IBD analysis also found "multi-directional admixture events among East Europeans (both Slavic and non-Slavic), dated to around 1,000–1,600 YBP" which coincides with "the proposed time-frame for the Slavic expansion". The Slavic influence
4964-456: The transition from eastern dialects to Kajkavian is general, with cases of essentially the same linguistic variety spoken on both sides of the border (this is particularly true for the upper course of the Kupa and Sutla rivers). The table below compares grammatical and phonological innovations. The similarity of Kajkavian and Slovene is apparent. In broad terms, the Eastern dialects of South Slavic (Bulgarian and Macedonian) differ most from
5037-729: The unification of the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs with the kingdoms of Serbia and Montenegro . With the breakup of Yugoslavia in the early 1990s, several independent sovereign states were formed. The term " Yugoslavs " was and sometimes is still used as a synonym for "South Slavs", but it usually excludes Bulgarians since Bulgaria never formed part of the former Yugoslavia. The South Slavs are known in Serbian, Macedonian, and Montenegrin as Južni Sloveni ( Cyrillic : Јужни Словени ); in Bulgarian as Yuzhni Slavyani ( Cyrillic : Южни славяни ); in Croatian and Bosnian as Južni Slaveni ; and in Slovene as Južni Slovani . The Slavic root *jug- means 'south'. The Slavic ethnonym itself
5110-435: Was between 55 and 70%. In the 2018 analysis of Slovenian population, the Slovenian population clustered with Croatians, Hungarians and was close to Czech. The 2006 Y-DNA study results "suggest that the Slavic expansion started from the territory of present-day Ukraine, thus supporting the hypothesis that places the earliest known homeland of Slavs in the basin of the middle Dnieper ". According to genetic studies until 2020,
5183-400: Was never a period of cultural or political unity in which Proto-South-Slavic could have existed during which Common South Slavic innovations could have occurred. Several South-Slavic-only lexical and morphological patterns which have been proposed have been postulated to represent common Slavic archaisms , or are shared with some Slovakian or Ukrainian dialects. The South Slavic dialects form
5256-498: Was then used by the Habsburg monarchy and France , and notably adopted by the 19th-century Croatian Illyrian movement . Eventually, the idea of Yugoslavism appeared, aimed at uniting all South Slav-populated territories into a common state. From this idea emerged Yugoslavia —which, however, did not include Bulgaria . The Proto-Slavic homeland is the postulated area of Slavic settlement in Central and Eastern Europe during
5329-498: Was used by 6th-century writers to describe the southern group of Early Slavs (the Sclaveni ); West Slavs were called Veneti and East Slavs Antes . The South Slavs are also called Balkan Slavs . Another name popular in the early modern period was Illyrians , using the name of a pre-Slavic Balkan people, a name first adopted by Dalmatian intellectuals in the late 15th century to refer to South Slavic lands and population. It
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