Slavic peoples
From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Slavs are the people who live in Eastern and central Europe. They include Russians, Poles, Czechs, Serbs, Ukrainians, Belarusians, Bulgarians, Slovaks, and Croatians. Hungarians, and Romanians live near the Slavic nations, but they are not Slavs themselves. However, there are more Slavic peoples then any other ethnic group in Europe. Russians make up the most slavs, followed by Poles, and Ukrainians. Russians, Belarusians, and Ukrainians are East Slavic. Poles, Czechs, and Slovaks are West Slavic. Croatians, Serbians, and Bulgarians are South Slavic. There are no north slavs. Russia is now the most powerful Slavic country, but in the 10th century the Czechs were more powerful, and between the 16th and 17th century Poland was the strongest nation in the area. The Slavic languages are closely related. In fact the Serbian, Bosnian, and Croat languages are considered separate by the Bosnian and Croatian governments, but some linguists say they are one language called Serbo-Croatian. Slavic languages are spoken natively by 400 million people, and as second or third languages by many more people in countries as far apart as Germany and China.
