Slavic languages: Quick Facts

Written and fact-checked by

The Information Architects of Encyclopaedia Britannica

Facts

Also Known As	Slavonic languages

Photos

Map of Europe showing the geographic distribution of Slavic languages, color-coded by language group: East Slavic (Russian, Ukrainian, Belarusian), West Slavic (Polish, Kashubian, Czech, Slovak, Sorbian), and South Slavic (Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian, Slovene, Bulgarian, Macedonian). Striped areas indicate regions where bilingualism is common.

A family tree diagram showing the evolution of Slavic languages from Common Slavic, branching into West, South, and East Slavic groups, with further divisions into specific languages such as Polish, Czech, Russian, and Bulgarian.

Saints Cyril and Methodius

Thematic map of Eurasia showing the approximate geographic distribution of Indo-European language families, each represented by a different color. Areas include Celtic in western Europe, Germanic in northern and central Europe, Romance in southwestern Europe, Slavic in eastern Europe and Russia, and Indo-Iranian languages in South Asia. Non-Indo-European language regions and areas of common bilingualism are also indicated.

See All Images →

Topics

West Slavic languages South Slavic languages Proto-Slavic language East Slavic languages Old Church Slavonic language Carpatho-Rusyn language Old Russian Rusyn language Bosnian-Croatian-Montenegrin-Serbian language Russian language Romance languages Greek language Celtic languages Baltic languages Germanic languages Indo-Iranian languages Armenian language Albanian language Tocharian languages Indo-Hittite languages

Key People

default image

Roman Jakobson

American linguist

default image

August Leskien

German linguist

Dobrovský, detail of an oil painting by J. Tkadlík, 1821; in the Museum of Czech Literature, Prague.

Josef Dobrovský

Czech scholar

default image

Pavel Josef Šafařík

Czech philologist

default image

Nikolay Sergeyevich Trubetskoy

Russian linguist

Buddhist engravings on wall in Thailand. Hands on wall. Hompepage blog 2009, history and society, science and technology, geography and travel, explore discovery

Languages & Alphabets