West Slavic
| West Slavic | |
|---|---|
| Geographic distribution |
Central and Eastern Europe |
| Linguistic classification |
Indo-European
|
| Subdivisions | |
| ISO 639-5 | |
| Glottolog | west2792 |
Countries where a West Slavic language is the national language
|
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The West Slavic languages are a subdivision of the Slavic language group that includes Czech, Polish, Slovak, Silesian, Kashubian, Lower Sorbian and Upper Sorbian. West Slavic is usually divided into three subgroups, Czecho-Slovak, Lechitic and Sorbian, as follows:
Some distinctive features of the West Slavic languages, as from when they split from the East Slavic and South Slavic branches around the 3rd to 6th centuries AD, are as follows:
The West Slavic languages are all written using Latin script, in contrast to the Cyrillic-using East Slavic branch, and the South Slavic which uses both.
The early Slavic expansion reached Central Europe in c. the 7th century, and the West Slavic dialects diverged from Common Slavic over the following centuries. West Slavic polities of the 9th century include the Principality of Nitra and Great Moravia. The West Slavic tribes settled on the eastern fringes of the Carolingian Empire, along the Limes Saxoniae. The Obotrites were given territories by Charlemagne in exchange for their support in his war against the Saxons.
In the high medieval period, the West Slavic tribes were again pushed to the east by the incipient German Ostsiedlung, decisively so following the Wendish Crusade in the 11th century. The Sorbs and other Polabian Slavs like Obodrites and Veleti came under the domination of the Holy Roman Empire and were strongly Germanized.
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