Slavic languages facts for kids

Quick facts for kids Slavic
Ethnicity:	Slavs
Geographic distribution:	Throughout Central Europe, Eastern Europe and Russia
Linguistic classification:	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Slavic
Proto-language:	Proto-Slavic
Subdivisions:	East Slavic South Slavic West Slavic
ISO 639-2 and 639-5:	sla
Countries where an East Slavic language is the national language      Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language      Countries where a South Slavic language is the national language

The Slavic languages are a large group of languages. They are part of the even bigger Indo-European language family. People speak Slavic languages in many parts of Central Europe, Eastern Europe, the Balkans, and northern Asia.

These languages are spoken by Slavs, a large group of people who share a similar culture and history. There are many different Slavic languages, but they all come from a common ancestor language. This ancient language is called Proto-Slavic.

Exploring Slavic Languages

Slavic languages are divided into three main groups. These groups are East Slavic, West Slavic, and South Slavic. Each group has its own unique features. However, they also share many similarities.

East Slavic Languages

The East Slavic languages are mostly spoken in Eastern Europe. These languages usually use the Cyrillic alphabet for writing. This alphabet looks different from the one we use in English.

• Ukrainian
• Belarusian
• Russian
• Rusyn

West Slavic Languages

West Slavic languages are spoken in Central Europe. Unlike East Slavic languages, these languages are usually written using the Roman alphabet. This is the same alphabet used for English.

• Czech-Slovak languages
  • Czech
  • Knaanic
  • Slovak
  • Pannonian Rusyn
• Lechitic languages
  • Polish
    • Silesian
  • Pomeranian
    • Kashubian
    • Slovincian
  • Polabian
• Sorbian
  • Upper Sorbian
  • Lower Sorbian

South Slavic Languages

South Slavic languages are spoken in the Balkan region of Europe. This group also has different branches.

• Eastern
  • Bulgarian
  • Macedonian
• Western
  • Serbian
    • Montenegrin
  • Bosnian
  • Croatian
    • Burgenland Croatian
    • Molise Croatian
    • Bunjevac Croatian
  • Slovenian

Pan-Slavic Languages

A Pan-Slavic language is a special kind of language. It is created to be understood by speakers of all Slavic languages. It helps people from different Slavic countries communicate easily.

• Interslavic

Images for kids

• 

  Ethnographic Map of Slavic and Baltic Languages

• 

  Area of Balto-Slavic dialectic continuum (purple) with proposed material cultures correlating to speakers Balto-Slavic in Bronze Age (white). Red dots = archaic Slavic hydronyms

• 

  Baška tablet, 11th century, Krk, Croatia.

• 

  14th-century Novgorodian children were literate enough to send each other letters written on birch bark.

• 

  10th–11th century Codex Zographensis, canonical monument of Old Church Slavonic

• 

  Map and tree of Slavic languages, according to Kassian and A. Dybo

• 

  Linguistic maps of Slavic languages

• 

  Map of all areas where the Russian language is the language spoken by the majority of the population.

See also

In Spanish: Lenguas eslavas para niños