Slavonic

This page forms part of an etymology course that gives an outline of the development of English. It is written in a sequence that you may want to follow. The best place to start, if you want to follow the whole course, is Etymology course, or, if you are only interested in English, Development of English. You may also arrive at any of these articles from other links. For more information about the history of English, you should of course read a good history of the language, such as Baugh (1993), Strang (1970), or Crystal (2005)

Slavonic (sometimes called Slavic) is a Language family. It is a branch of Indo-European, with three main sub-divisions. The Slavs were a people who prehistorically lived in central Eurasia, and expanded their territory. Their languages diverged following the expansion(s) and other events. Some Slavonic languages are written using a different writing system from that of most European languages: they use the Cyrillic alphabet, or a derivative of it. Others use the more usual Roman alphabet.

• The East Slavonic group is principally spoken in the territories of the former USSR. All are always written in Cyrillic.
  • Russian has the largest population of speakers, and is the most widely used by non-native speakers. It is the main language of Russia.
  • Ukrainian is the native and the official language of the Ukraine, although more Russian is actually spoken there.
  • Belorussian is the native language of Belorussia, although the most widely used official language is Russian.
• The West Slavonic group contains the following, which were mostly spoken in the countries of the former Warsaw Pact.
  • Polish, the official language of Poland, is spoken by more people than any other Slavonic language except Russian and Ukrainian. It is written in a modified form of the Roman alphabet.
  • Czech (known in English as Bohemian until the mid-nineteenth century) is the official language of the Czech Republic. It is very close to (mutually intelligible with)
  • Slovak, the official language of Slovakia, formed in 1989, on the dissolution of the Soviet Union and the break-up of the former Czechoslovakia (whose official language used to be known as Czechoslovak[ian]).
  • Sorbian, Lusatian and Wendish are dialects of the Sorbian group, spoken in a small eastern area of Germany, in parts of Saxony and Brandenburg, and also in neighbouring Poland.
• The South Slavonic group are spoken in the Balkans. There have been considerable changes in the status and acceptability of many of these, following the political changes of the past millennium, not least around the time of the end of the USSR in 1991 and the wars surrounding the break-up of the former Yugoslavia in and following 1991.
  • The western group contains Bulgarian, the language of Bulgaria, and descendant of Old Church Slavonic, the liturgical language of the Balkans till around 1000 CE, when it diversified into several local variants - still the liturgical languages of the Eastern Orthodox churches; Macedonian, the language of Macedonia (which should not be confused with the now extinct language spoken in classical times, Ancient Macedonian); and Slovene (or Slovenian), the language of Slovenia.
  • The (closely related) eastern group includes Serbian, the language of Serbia; Serbo-Croat, the standard language of the former Yugoslavia; Croat the language of Croatia; Bosnian, the language of Bosnia; and Montenegrin, the language of Montenegro. These are all in essence different dialects of the same language, now officially involved with national identities.