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One of three regional subgroups of Slavic languages, currently spoken in Eastern Europe; and the group with the largest numbers of speakers, far out-numbering the Western and Southern Slavic groups.

Current East Slavic languages: Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian and other related dialects.

Linguists consider each of these three languages to be separate languages in their own right. The languages are somewhat similar to one another, with transitional dialects in border regions.

All these languages use the Cyrillic alphabet, but with particular modifications.

History

In general, each of the three Eastern Slavic languages developed separately from a common East Slavic root language. When this root language became separated from the ancient Slavic tongue common to all Slavs is difficult to ascertain (500-1000 AD?). The theorized divergence of Eastern Slavic from the early common Slavic and the early patterns of local Eastern Slavic evolution into multiple languages is obscured by a widely present historical artifact: the use of Old Church Slavonic (essentially Old Macedonian-Bulgarian, from the South Slavic group of languages) as the language of learning and written communication among the Eastern Slavs after the conversion of the first Eastern Slavic State of Kyivan Rus' to Christianity.

Nonetheless, the first divergence among the Eastern Slavic languages is evident during the 12th century, during the era of Kyivan Rus'. The language of the Slavic population in the north/northeast part of Rus' developed differently than the language of the south/southwest part of Rus'. In the north, the regions of Novgorod and Suzdal, the Slavic population was surrounded, in large part, by tribes of the Finno-Ugric language group. The conversion of these tribes to Christianity using service books borrowed from Bulgaria, left a large imprint of Old Church Slavonic superimposed upon the local population, which included a relatively small percentage of native Eastern Slavs. This blending of native East Slavic elements with Old Church Slavonic gave birth to the earlyRussian language no later than the 12th century.

The Slavs of southern and south-western Rus' (the regions of Kiev, Halych, and Polotsk, et al.) did not intermingle with Finno-Ugric populations, and developed more organically from the East Slavic root language into the Middle Rusian or Old Ruthenian language, a forerunner of the modern Ukrainian and Belarusian languages. The speakers of the Early Russian language referred to this language in the 14th and 15th centuries as the "Lithuanian dialect." The divergence of East Slavic into separate northern and southern languages is perhaps best evidenced by the epic, The Tale of Igor's Campaign. This fact is confirmed by the need for translators during the negotiations for the Treaty of Pereyaslav, between the Bohdan Khmelnytsky, (Bogdan Chmielnicki), ruler of Rus'-Ukraine and the nation of Muscovy (Moscow), soon to be renamed "Russia", in the 1600s.

The Old Ruthenian language perdured in Ukraine and Belarus' during the time of the separate political states of Halych and Volynia, continuing through the successor state of Rus', Halych-Volynia, into the eras of Lithuania (Belarus', generally) and Poland (Ukraine, generally). During the time of the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, this Ruthenian/Rusian language began to diverge into separate Ukrainian and Belarusian languages (circa 1600-1760).

Thus, by 1800, the historic Eastern Slavic language had evolved into three modern languages.

Links:

• Belarusian language
• Russian language
• Ukrainian language
• Slavic languages
• Old Ruthenian language
• Old Slavonic language
• The Tale of Igor's Campaign
• Treaty of Pereyaslav