Slavic group of languages is a major branch of the Indo-European languages, since the Slavs - is the biggest in Europe, a group of people united by a similar speech and culture.They are used more than 400 million people.
General
Slavic group of languages - a branch of the Indo-European languages, used in the majority of countries in Eastern Europe, the Balkans, Central Europe and northern Asia.It is most closely linked to the Baltic languages (Lithuanian, Latvian and extinct old Prussian).Languages belonging to the Slavic group, came from Central and Eastern Europe (Poland, Ukraine) and spread to the rest of the above mentioned territory.
Some of them were used by the authors of the global value (for example, Russian, Polish, Czech).And the Church Slavonic language is still used in service in the Orthodox Church.
Classification
There are three groups of Slavic languages South Slavic, West Slavic and East Slavic branch.
In colloquial speech, as opposed to clearly separate the literary, linguistic boundaries are not always obvious.There transitional says connecting different languages, except for the area where the South Slavs separated from the other Slavs, Romanians, Hungarians and German-speaking Austrians.But even in these isolated areas, there are some remnants of the old dialect continuity (for example, the similarity of Russian and Bulgarian).
Therefore, it should be noted that the traditional classification in the form of three separate branches should not be considered as a true model of historical development.Correctly identify it as a process, which is constantly being differentiated and reintegration dialects, leaving the Slavic group of languages is a striking uniformity of the entire territory of its distribution.For centuries different peoples crossed paths, and their mixed culture.
Differences
Yet it would be an exaggeration to expect that communication between any two speakers of different Slavic languages is possible without any linguistic difficulties.Many differences in phonetics, grammar and vocabulary can lead to misunderstandings, even in simple conversation, not to mention the difficulties in the journalistic, technical and artistic speech.For example, the Russian word "green" is recognizable to all Slavs, but "red" means "beautiful" in other languages.Suknja - a "skirt" in the Serbo-Croatian, "coat" in Slovenian, similar to the term "cloth" - "Dress" in Ukrainian.
Eastern group Slavic languages
It consists of Russian, Ukrainian and Belarusian.Russian - native for almost 160 million people, including many people in the countries of the former Soviet Union.Its main dialects: northern, southern and central group of transition.Including it belongs to the Moscow dialect, which is based on the literary language.Total in the world in Russian is spoken by about 260 million people.
addition to the "great and powerful" Eastern Slavic group of languages includes two major language.
- Ukrainian, which is divided into the northern, western, southeastern and Carpathian dialects.The literary form is based on the Kyiv-Poltava dialect.Over 37 million people speak Ukrainian in Ukraine and neighboring countries, as well as more than 350 000 people know the language in Canada and the United States.This is due to the presence of a large ethnic community of immigrants who left the country at the end of the XIX century.Carpathian dialect, also known as Carpatho sometimes regarded as a separate language.
- Belorussian - it is spoken by about seven million people in Belarus.Its main dialects: South-West, some features of which can be explained by the proximity to the Polish lands, and northern.Minsk dialect, which is the basis for the literary language, is located on the border of the two groups.
West Slavic branch
It includes Polish and other lehitskie (Kashubian and extinct option - Slowinski) and Czechoslovak Lusatian dialect.This group of Slavic language family is also quite common.More than 40 million people speak Polish, not only in Poland and other parts of Eastern Europe (particularly in Lithuania, the Czech Republic and Belarus), but also in France, the US and Canada.It is also divided into several subgroups.
Polish adverbs
Basic - a northwest, southeast, and the region of Silesia.Kashubian Pomeranian dialect is considered part of the language, which, like Poland, are lehitskim.It supports live west of Gdansk on the Baltic coast.
Extinct Slowinski voices belonged to the northern group of Kashubian dialect, which differs from the south.Another dead language, referring to lehitskim - Polabí is spoken in the 17-18 centuries.Slavs who lived near the river Elbe.
his close relatives is serboluzhitsky, which is still spoken in Lausitz in eastern Germany.There are two literary languages: Upper Sorbian (used in Bautzen and surrounding area) and Lower Sorbian (distributed in Cottbus).
Czechoslovak group languages
It includes:
- Czech, which is spoken by about 12 million people in the Czech Republic.His dialect: Bohemian, Moravia and Silesia.The literary language was formed in the XVI century in Central Bohemia Prague-based contract.
- Slovak, it is used by about 6 million people, the majority - the people of Slovakia.Literary it was formed on the basis of dialects of Central Slovakia in the middle of the XIX century.Western Slovak dialects are similar to and different from the Moravian central and east that have common features with Polish and Ukrainian languages.
South Slavic group of languages
Among the three main she is not numerous in the number of media speech.But it is an interesting group of Slavic languages, the list of which as well as their language is very extensive.
They are classified as follows:
1. Eastern subgroup.It includes:
- Bulgarian language - is spoken by more than nine million people in Bulgaria and the neighboring regions of other Balkan countries and Ukraine.There are two main groups of local dialects: Eastern and Western.The first was the basis of the literary speech in the middle of the XIX century, the second had a significant influence on it.
- Macedonian language - is spoken by about two million people in the Balkans.It was the last major representative of the branch, which received a standard literary form that took place during World War II.
2. Western subgroup:
- Serbo-Croatian language - about 20 million people are using it.The basis for the literary version was Shtokavian dialect, which is common in most parts of the Bosnian, Serbian, Croatian and Montenegrin territory.
- Slovenian language - is spoken by more than 2.2 million people in Slovenia and in the surrounding areas of Italy and Austria.It has some similarities with the dialects of the Croatian and includes many dialects with large differences between them.The Slovenian (in particular its western and north-western dialects) can be found traces of the old ties with the West Slavic languages (Czech and Slovak).
