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The Slavic peoples are a branch of Indo-European People s, living mainly in Europe , where they constitute roughly a third of the population. Since emerging from their original homeland (most commonly thought to be in Eastern Europe ) in the early 6th Century , they have inhabited most of eastern Central Europe , Eastern Europe and the Balkans . Many settled later in Northern Asia or emigrated to other parts of the world. Slavic settlers mixed with existing local populations and later invaders, thus modern Slavs are considered genetically diverse, though connected by speaking often closely related Slavic Languages . Their cultures and traditions show both similarities and dissimilarities, related to their individual histories. Slavic peoples are traditionally divided along linguistic lines into West Slavic (including Czechs , Poles and Slovaks ), East Slavic (including Belarusians , Russians , and Ukrainians ), and South Slavic (including Bosniaks , Bulgarians , Croats , Macedonians , Montenegrins , Serbs and Slovenians ). For a more comprehensive list, see Ethno-cultural Subdivisions . ORIGIN OF THE TERM ''SLAV'' The origin of the word '''' remains controversial. Excluding the ambiguous mention by Ptolemy of tribes ''Stavanoi'' and ''Soubenoi'', the earliest references of "Slavs" under this name are from the 6th century. The word is written variously as ''Sklabenoi'', ''Sklauenoi'', or ''Sklabinoi'' in Byzantine Greek , and as ''Sclaueni'', ''Sclauini'', or ''Sthlaueni'' in Latin . The oldest documents written in Old Church Slavonic and dating from the 9th century attest ''slověne'' to describe the Slavs around Thessalonica. Other early attestations include Old Russian ''slověně'' "an East Slavic group near Novgorod", ''Slovutich'' "Dnieper river", and Serbo-Croatian ''Slavonica'', a river. There are two alternative scholarly theories as to the origin of the ''Slavs'' ethnonym, both very tentative: according to the first theoryBernstein S. B., Очерк сравнительной грамматики славянских языков, vol. 1-2, Moscow, 1961., it derives from a hypothetically reconstructed Proto-Indo-European '''', cognate to Greek ''laós'' "population, people", which itself has no commonly accepted etymology. The second theory (forwarded by e.g. Max Vasmer ) suggests that the word originated as a river name (compare the etymology of the Volcae ), comparing it with such cognates as Latin ''cluere'' "to cleanse, purge", a root not known to have been continued in Slavic, however, and it appears in other languages with similar meanings (cf. Greek ''klyzein'' "to wash", Old English ''hlūtor'' "clean, pure", Old Norse ''hlér'' "sea", Welsh ''clir'' "clear, clean", Lithuanian ''šlúoti'' "to sweep"). '' is ''Germany''. PROTO-SLAVIC LANGUAGE See Also: Proto-Slavic language The ancestor of the Proto-Slavic Language branched off at some uncertain time in a disputed location from common Proto-Indo-European (possibly passing through a common Proto-Balto-Slavic stage). Balto-Slavic is categorized with the '' Satem '' or eastern Isogloss of the Indo-European language family, along with the Baltic and Indo-Iranian groups. In the framework of the Kurgan Hypothesis , "the Indo-Europeans who remained after the migrations became speakers of Balto-Slavic" F. Kortlandt, The spread of the Indo-Europeans , p.4. Proto-Slavic proper, defined as the last stage of the language preceding the split of the historical Slavic Languages , predates the 7th century, and was likely spoken during the 5th and 6th century. GENETIC ORIGINS See also Genetic History Of Europe and articles on particular haplogroups The modern Slavic peoples come from a wide variety of genetic backgrounds, attesting the complexity of the ethnogenetic processes in Eastern Europe Scenarios of ethnogenesis |
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