slavic

The Slavic peoples and languages form a major branch of the Indo-European family. The term Slavic describes both a linguistic group and the communities that speak its languages. The Slavic languages are traditionally divided into three primary branches: East Slavic, West Slavic, and South Slavic, each containing several national and regional languages.

Proto-Slavic is the reconstructed ancestor language of these languages, believed to have formed in the early medieval period in parts of Central and Eastern Europe. The branches began to diverge in the early centuries of the first millennium. East Slavic includes Russian, Ukrainian, and Belarusian. West Slavic includes Polish, Czech, Slovak, and the Sorbian languages, among others. South Slavic includes Serbian, Croatian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Slovene, and Montenegrin. Writing systems vary, with Cyrillic common for East and many South Slavic languages and Latin for most West Slavic languages.

Slavic-speaking peoples have formed diverse states and cultures across Europe. Christianization occurred at different times, contributing to Orthodox, Catholic, and other religious affiliations. Medieval polities included Kievan Rus', the Bulgarian Empire, and the South Slavic kingdoms, and later the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, the Russian Empire, and others. In the modern era, Slavic nations are sovereign states or members of regional unions across Central, Eastern, and Southeastern Europe, as well as in the diaspora.

Today, Slavic languages are among Europe's most spoken, with hundreds of millions of native speakers. They are characterized by substantial regional variation in phonology, grammar, and vocabulary, yet share a recognizable core that ties them to the Slavic family.