Slavic

The traditional view is that the Balto-Slavic languages split into two branches, Baltic and Slavic, with each branch developing as a single common language (Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic) for some time afterwards.

According to this theory, the dialects of East Slavic tribes evolved gradually from the common Proto-Slavic language without any intermediate stages during the 6th through 9th centuries.

Agricultural words are about 50% r-Turkic and 50% Slavic; pastoral terms are more r-Turkic, less Ugric and less Slavic.

All artifacts presented as evidence of pre-Glagolitic Slavic inscriptions have later been identified as texts in known scripts and in known non-Slavic languages, or as fakes.

Also, Slovene and Slovak are the two modern Slavic languages whose names for themselves literally mean "Slavic" (slověnьskъ in old Slavonic ).

Although also spoken in neighbouring lands, the Germanic languages show less significant Slavic influence, partly because Slavic migrations were mostly headed south rather than west.

Cyrillic eventually spread throughout most of the Slavic world to become the standard alphabet in the Eastern Orthodox Slavic countries.

Except for Polish they differ from East and South Slavic languages by their initial-syllable stress, and Czech is distinguished from other West Slavic languages by a more-restricted distinction between "hard" and "soft" consonants (see Phonology below).

History collapsible main seeAlso Common roots and ancestry Area of Balto-Slavic dialectic continuum (purple) with proposed material cultures correlating to speakers Balto-Slavic in Bronze Age (white).

Instead, the language is often called simply "Slavic" or "Slavomacedonian", with "Macedonian Slavic" often being used in English.

Linguistic history main seeAlso The following is a summary of the main changes from Proto-Indo-European (PIE) leading up to the Common Slavic (CS) period immediately following the Proto-Slavic language (PS).

Pan-Slavic and Austro-Slavic ideas also gained importance.

Phonology main Grammar main Macedonian grammar is markedly analytic in comparison with other Slavic languages, having lost the common Slavic case system.

Relations with non-Slavic peoples Assimilation West Slav tribes in 9th/10th century Throughout their history, Slavs came into contact with non-Slavic groups.

See Dual number: Slavic languages for a discussion of number phrases in Russian and other Slavic languages.

Slavic languages Bulgarian Unlike other Slavic languages except Macedonian, Bulgarian has lost case marking on nouns.

Slavic languages main The Slavic languages make a clear distinction between perfective and imperfective aspects; it was in relation to these languages that the modern concept of aspect originally developed.

Slavic languages The Slavic languages mostly continue the Proto-Indo-European system of three genders, masculine, feminine and neuter.

Slavic world main Slavic countries are noted for having masculine and feminine versions for many (but not all) of their names.

The Baltic languages show a close relationship with the Slavic languages, and are grouped with them in a Balto-Slavic family by most scholars.