SLAVIC LANGUAGES

Distribution of the Slavic languages in Europe. also called Slavonic languages 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. The Slavic languages are most closely related to the languages of the Baltic group (Lithuanian, Latvian, and the now-extinct Old Prussian), but they share certain linguistic innovations with the other eastern Indo-European language groups (such as Indo-Iranian and Armenian) as well. From their homeland in east-central Europe (Poland or Ukraine), the Slavic languages have spread to the territory of the Balkans (Bulgarian, Macedonian, Slovene, Serbo-Croatian), central Europe (Czech and Slovak), eastern Europe (Belarusian, Ukrainian, Russian), and the northern parts of Asia (Russian). In addition, Russian is used as a second language by most inhabitants of the countries that were formerly part of the Soviet Union. Some of the Slavic languages have been used by writers of worldwide significance (e.g., Russian, Polish, Czech), and the Church Slavonic language remains in use in the services in the Eastern Orthodox church. also called Slavonic Languages, 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. The Slavic group of languages is most closely related to the languages of the Baltic group (Lithuanian, Latvian, and the now-extinct Old Prussian). Scholars divide the Slavic languages into three branches: (1) South Slavic, which is further split into Western and Eastern subgroups. The Western subgroup is composed of Slovene and Serbo-Croatian (present-day Serbian, Bosnian, and Croatian), languages spoken in Slovenia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Yugoslavia, and adjacent regions. The Eastern subgroup consists of Bulgarian in Bulgaria and adjacent areas, and Macedonian in Macedonia and the adjacent part of Greece. (2) 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). (3) East Slavic, including Russian, Ukrainian (Little Russian), and Belarusian (White Russian). 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 Slovene. Modern mass communication, however, has helped to minimize variation in all the Slavic languages. 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 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). Slavs lived north of the Carpathian Mountains until the first centuries AD, when they began to expand rapidly, first to the west and east, then southward through the Carpathians, appearing all along the Danube River in the 6th century AD. Although Slavs were divided into different groups by this time, they basically shared the same language. It was divided, like all languages, into regional dialects, but the points of divergence were insignificant. From the 9th to 11th century, Slavic states began to form. From the 10th to 12th century, Slavic dialects underwent a major change in the vowel system that yielded different results in each dialect, eventually causing the development of separate language groups that are similar to present-day divisions among the Slavic language branches. Historical events and foreign cultural influences were also responsible for breaking the connection between the South Slavic and West Slavic groups and between South and East Slavic groups. Church Slavonic, developed in the 9th century by St. Cyril and St. Methodius, was progressively modified by local dialects and provided Slavs with a written language. But during the 11th century, when the Orthodox and Roman churches separated, Church Slavonic was suppressed in the West Slavic region and in most of the western part of the South Slavic area. Today, Slavic languages in the east and southeast are written in the Cyrillic alphabet, which replaced St. Cyril's Glagolitic. In the west, Roman Catholic Slavs use the Roman alphabet. Serbo-Croatian is written in Cyrillic by Serbs and Montenegrins and in Roman by Croats. In vocabulary, ancient borrowings from Iranian and Germanic are evident in Slavic languages. The vocabulary of the individual languages reflects more recent local influences, the most important being German in the west and Turkish in the Balkans. New terminology is often created by adapting Greek and Latin terms, and inter-Slavic borrowings are widespread. The liberal use of prefixes and suffixes also has helped the vocabulary of Slavic languages to grow. Because they have retained the Proto-Slavic case system (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, locative, instrumental, vocative), Slavic languages are said to be synthetic (i.e., they express grammatical information through word endings). Modern Bulgarian and Macedonian are more analytic (i.e., they express grammatical information more through word order). Verbs are inflected (i.e., their form is changed to show grammatical relationships) for past and present tenses and show two aspectsthe perfective, expressing a completed action, and the imperfective, expressing an uncompleted action. Additional reading Bernard Comrie and Greville G. Corbett (eds.), The Slavonic Languages (1993), describes each language according to a set plan, adding historical sections. An older reference is R.G.A. De Bray, Guide to the Slavonic Languages, 3rd ed., rev. and expanded, 3 vol. (1980). Roman Jakobson, Slavic Languages, 2nd ed. (1955, reprinted 1963), is a masterful, brief structural sketch. Alexander M. Schenker, The Dawn of Slavic (1996), combines introductions to the early literature and history of the Slavs (with extracts from source texts) and a Proto-Slavic grammar. The classic introduction to Proto-Slavic (common Slavic) from the viewpoint of Indo-European is A. Meillet, Le Slave commun, 2nd ed. rev. and enlarged with A. Vaillant (1934, reprinted 1965). George Y. Shevelov, A Prehistory of Slavic (1964), treats phonology in detail. Charles E. Townsend and Laura A. Janda, Common and Comparative Slavic: Phonology and Inflection (1996); and Terence R. Carlton, Introduction to the Phonological History of the Slavic Languages (1991), are textbooks that also trace post-Common Slavic developments. Henrik Birnbaum, Common Slavic: Progress and Problems in Its Reconstruction (1975); and Henrik Birnbaum and Peter T. Merrill, Recent Advances in the Reconstruction of Common Slavic (19711982) (1985), list and comment on the extensive scholarly literature. Karel Horlek, An Introduction to the Study of the Slavonic Languages, trans. and amended by Peter Herrity, 2 vol. (1992; originally published in Czech, 2nd enlarged ed., 1962), treats many topics including the rise of standard languages; this latter subject is particularly addressed in Alexander M. Schenker, Edward Stankiewicz, and Micaela S. Iovine (eds.), The Slavic Literary Languages (1980). Hypotheses on the homeland and migrations of the pre-Slavs are discussed in the light of linguistic evidencei.e., vocabulary and namesin Zbigniew Golab, The Origins of the Slavs: A Linguist's View (1992); while Marija Gimbutas, The Slavs (1971), provides an archaeological survey and discusses religious and social vocabulary. There is no complete Slavic etymological dictionary, though several have been begune.g., O.N. Trubachev (ed.), Etimologicheskii slovar' slavianskikh iazykov (1974 ); other useful dictionaries are Max Vasmer, Russisches etymologisches Wrterbuch, 3 vol. (195058); or, for Old Church Slavonic vocabulary, Linda Sadnik and Rudolf Aitzetmller, Handwrterbuch zu den altkirchenslavischen Texten (1955, reissued 1989). Frantiek Kopecn, Zkladn veslovansk slovn zsoba (1981), lists 2,000 words that occur in every Slavic language. Slavic material has been important in the development of general linguistics; Morris Halle (ed.), Roman Jakobson: What He Taught Us (1983), illustrates structural approaches; and Steven Franks, Parameters of Slavic Morphosyntax (1994), focuses on generative methods. Vyacheslav Vsevolodovich Ivanov Wayles Browne