Editing Slavic languages (section)

===Differentiation===
The [[Proto-Slavic language]] originated in the area of modern [[Ukraine]] and [[Belarus]] mostly overlapping with the northern part of [[Kurgan hypothesis|Indoeuropean]] [[Linguistic homeland|Urheimat]], which is within the boundaries of modern [[Ukraine]] and [[Southern Federal District]] of Russia.<ref>{{cite web | url=https://www.mpg.de/20666229/0725-evan-origin-of-the-indo-european-languages-150495-x | title=New insights into the origin of the Indo-European languages }}</ref>

The [[Proto-Slavic language]] existed until around AD 500. By the 7th century, it had broken apart into large dialectal zones.{{Citation needed|reason=based on what I learned in school, that Protoslavic broke down by 0 AD. i.e. 500 years earlier, than what wiki says now|date=September 2024}} There are no reliable hypotheses about the nature of the subsequent breakups of West and South Slavic. East Slavic is generally thought to converge to one [[Old East Slavic]] language of [[Kievan Rus]], which existed until at least the 12th century.

Linguistic differentiation was accelerated by the dispersion of the Slavic peoples over a large territory, which in [[Central Europe]] exceeded the current extent of Slavic-speaking majorities. Written documents of the 9th, 10th, and 11th centuries already display some local linguistic features. For example, the [[Freising manuscripts]] show a language that contains some phonetic and lexical elements peculiar to [[Slovene dialects]] (e.g. [[Rhotacism (sound change)|rhotacism]], the word ''krilatec''). The Freising manuscripts are the first [[Latin script|Latin-script]] continuous text in a Slavic language.

The migration of Slavic speakers into the Balkans in the declining centuries of the [[Byzantine Empire]] expanded the area of Slavic speech, but the pre-existing writing (notably Greek) survived in this area. The arrival of the [[Hungarians]] in [[Pannonia]] in the 9th century interposed non-Slavic speakers between South and West Slavs. [[Franks|Frankish]] conquests completed the geographical separation between these two groups, also severing the connection between Slavs in [[Moravia]] and [[Lower Austria]] ([[Moravians (ethnic group)|Moravians]]) and those in present-day [[Styria]], [[Carinthia (state)|Carinthia]], [[East Tyrol]] in [[Austria]], and in the provinces of modern [[Slovenia]], where the ancestors of the [[Slovenes]] settled during first colonization.

[[File:Slavic languages tree and map from Kushniarevich article.png|thumb|Map and tree of Slavic languages, according to Kassian and A. Dybo]]
In September 2015, Alexei Kassian and [[Anna Vladimirovna Dybo|Anna Dybo]] published,{{sfn|Kassian|Dybo|2015}} as a part of interdisciplinary study of Slavic ethnogenesis,{{sfn|Kushniarevich et al.|2015}} a lexicostatistical classification of Slavic languages. It was built using qualitative 110-word Swadesh lists that were compiled according to the standards of the Global Lexicostatistical Database project{{sfn|RSUH|2016}} and processed using modern phylogenetic algorithms.

The resulting dated tree complies with the traditional expert views on the Slavic group structure. Kassian-Dybo's tree suggests that Proto-Slavic first diverged into three branches: Eastern, Western and Southern. The Proto-Slavic break-up is dated to around 100 A.D., which correlates with the archaeological assessment of Slavic population in the early 1st millennium A.D. being spread on a large territory{{sfn|Sussex|Cubberley|2006|loc=p. 19}} and already not being monolithic.{{sfn|Sedov|1995|loc=p. 5}} Then, in the 5th and 6th centuries A.D., these three Slavic branches almost simultaneously divided into sub-branches, which corresponds to the fast spread of the Slavs through Eastern Europe and the Balkans during the second half of the 1st millennium A.D. (the so-called Slavicization of Europe).{{sfn|Sedov|1979}}{{sfn|Barford|2001}}{{sfn|Curta|2001|loc=p. 500-700}}{{sfn|Heather|2010}}

The Slovenian language was excluded from the analysis, as both Ljubljana koine and Literary Slovenian show mixed lexical features of Southern and Western Slavic languages (which could possibly indicate the Western Slavic origin of Slovenian, which for a long time was being influenced on the part of the neighboring Serbo-Croatian dialects),{{original research inline|date=January 2019}} and the quality Swadesh lists were not yet collected for Slovenian dialects. Because of scarcity or unreliability of data, the study also did not cover the so-called Old Novgordian dialect, the Polabian language and some other Slavic lects.

The above Kassian-Dybo's research did not take into account the findings by Russian linguist [[Andrey Zaliznyak]] who stated that, until the 14th or 15th century, major language differences were not between the regions occupied by modern Belarus, Russia and Ukraine,{{sfn|Zaliznyak|2012|loc=section 111: "…ростовско-суздальско-рязанская языковая зона от киевско-черниговской ничем существенным в древности не отличалась. Различия возникли позднее, они датируются сравнительно недавним, по лингвистическим меркам, временем, начиная с XIV–XV вв […the Rostov-Suzdal-Ryazan language area did not significantly differ from the Kiev-Chernigov one. Distinctions emerged later, in a relatively recent, by linguistic standards, time, starting from the 14th-15th centuries]"}} but rather between the north-west (around modern Velikiy Novgorod and Pskov) and the center (around modern [[Kyiv]], [[Suzdal]], [[Rostov, Yaroslavl Oblast|Rostov]], [[Moscow]] as well as Belarus) of the East Slavic territories.{{sfn|Zaliznyak|2012|loc=section 88: "Северо-запад — это была территория Новгорода и Пскова, а остальная часть, которую можно назвать центральной, или центрально-восточной, или центрально-восточно-южной, включала одновременно территорию будущей Украины, значительную часть территории будущей Великороссии и территории Белоруссии … Существовал древненовгородский диалект в северо-западной части и некоторая более нам известная классическая форма древнерусского языка, объединявшая в равной степени Киев, Суздаль, Ростов, будущую Москву и территорию Белоруссии [The territory of Novgorod and Pskov was in the north-west, while the remaining part, which could either be called central, or central-eastern, or central-eastern-southern, comprised the territory of the future Ukraine, a substantial part of the future Great Russia, and the territory of Belarus … The Old Novgorodian dialect existed in the north-western part, while a somewhat more well-known classical variety of the Old Russian language united equally Kiev, Suzdal, Rostov, the future Moscow and the territory of Belarus]"}} The [[Old Novgorodian dialect]] of that time differed from the central East Slavic dialects as well as from all other Slavic languages much more than in later centuries.{{sfn|Zaliznyak|2012|loc=section 82: "…черты новгородского диалекта, отличавшие его от других диалектов Древней Руси, ярче всего выражены не в позднее время, когда, казалось бы, они могли уже постепенно развиться, а в самый древний период […features of the Novgorodian dialect, which made it different from the other dialects of the Old Rus', were most pronounced not in later times, when they seemingly could have evolved, but in the oldest period]"}}{{sfn|Zaliznyak|2012|loc=section 92: "…северо-западная группа восточных славян представляет собой ветвь, которую следует считать отдельной уже на уровне праславянства […north-western group of the East Slavs is a branch that should be regarded as separate already in the Proto-Slavic period]"}} According to Zaliznyak, the Russian language developed as a convergence of that dialect and the central ones,{{sfn|Zaliznyak|2012|loc=section 94: "…великорусская территория оказалась состоящей из двух частей, примерно одинаковых по значимости: северо-западная (новгородско-псковская) и центрально-восточная (Ростов, Суздаль, Владимир, Москва, Рязань) […the Great Russian territory happened to include two parts of approximately equal importance: the north-western one (Novgorod-Pskov) and the central-eastern-southern one (Rostov, Suzdal, Vladimir, Moscow, Ryazan)]"}} whereas Ukrainian and Belarusian were continuation of development of the central dialects of East Slavs.{{sfn|Zaliznyak|2012|loc=section 94: "…нынешняя Украина и Белоруссия — наследники центрально-восточно-южной зоны восточного славянства, более сходной в языковом отношении с западным и южным славянством […today's Ukraine and Belarus are successors of the central-eastern-southern area of the East Slavs, more linguistically similar to the West and South Slavs]"}}

Also Russian linguist Sergey Nikolaev, analysing historical development of Slavic dialects' accent system, concluded that a number of other tribes in Kievan Rus came from different Slavic branches and spoke distant Slavic dialects.{{sfn|Dybo|Zamyatina|Nikolaev|1990}}{{Page needed|date=December 2022}}

Zaliznyak and Nikolaev's points mean that there was a convergence stage before the divergence or simultaneously, which was not taken into consideration by Kassian-Dybo's research.

Ukrainian linguists ([[Stepan Smal-Stotsky]], [[Ivan Ohienko]], [[George Shevelov]], Yevhen Tymchenko, Vsevolod Hantsov, [[Olena Kurylo]]) deny the existence of a common Old East Slavic language at any time in the past.{{sfn|Nimchuk|2001}} According to them, the dialects of East Slavic tribes evolved gradually from the common Proto-Slavic language without any intermediate stages.{{sfn|Shevelov|1979}}