*** Welcome to piglix ***

Slavic people


Slavs are the largest Indo-European ethno-linguistic group in Europe. They are native to Central Europe, Eastern Europe, Southeastern Europe, Northeastern Europe, North Asia and Central Asia. Slavs speak Slavic languages of the Balto-Slavic language group. From the early 6th century they spread to inhabit most of Central, Eastern and Southeastern Europe.

States with Slavic languages comprise over 50% of the territory of Europe, therefore it is the largest ethno-linguistic group in Europe by land area. Present-day Slavic people are classified into West Slavs (chiefly Czechs, Poles and Slovaks), East Slavs (chiefly Belarusians, Russians, and Ukrainians), and South Slavs (chiefly Bosniaks, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs, Slovenes and Bulgarians).

There are an estimated 360 million Slavs worldwide.

The Slavic autonym is reconstructed in Proto-Slavic as *Slověninъ, plural *Slověne. The oldest documents written in Old Church Slavonic and dating from the 9th century attest the autonym as Slověne (Словѣне). The oldest mention of the Slavic ethnonym is the 6th century AD Procopius, writing in Byzantine GreekSklaboi (Σκλάβοι), Sklabēnoi (Σκλαβηνοί), Sklauenoi (Σκλαυηνοί), Sthlabenoi (Σθλαβηνοί), or Sklabinoi (Σκλαβῖνοι), while his contemporary Jordanes refers to the Sclaveni in Latin.


...
Wikipedia

...