This
map shows the regions of the world where Slovenian (also called
Slovene) is commonly spoken (red circle). Slovenian
is in the South Slavic subfamily of Slavic languages that descended
from the Balto-Slavic branches of Indo-European. Slovenian is
most closely related to modern Bulgarian,
Serbo-Croatian, and
Macedonian. It is also
closely related to East Slavic languages like Ukrainian,
Belarusian, and Russian,
and to West Slavic languages like Sorbian,
Polish, Slovak,
and Czech. The Slavic languages
are so similar that scholars think the languages did not diverge
from each other until about 800 CE. The oldest sample of South
Slavic language surviving today is a Bible written in Old Church
Slavonic (also called Old Bulgarian), which dates from the
time
of the missionaries Cyril and Methodius (about 850 CE).
| Daniel M. Short originally created this
map and the other Indo-European language charts for his website at http://www.danshort.com/.
I reproduce these images here with the author's permission, but they are
copyrighted by Daniel Short as of 2002. These charts should not be reproduced
or reused without Mr. Short's approval. You may contact him at danshort@gte.net
for more information. These images are not public domain. |