Language Families

South Slavic

Citation Formats

General Reference

Language Atlas. "South Slavic." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://dev-language.interactiveatlas.org/language-families/south-slavic.

APA Style

Language Atlas. (n.d.). South Slavic. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://dev-language.interactiveatlas.org/language-families/south-slavic

BibTeX

@misc{languageatlas-south-slavic,
  author = {Language Atlas},
  title = {South Slavic},
  year = {2026},
  url = {https://dev-language.interactiveatlas.org/language-families/south-slavic},
  note = {Accessed August 30, 2026}
}

South Slavic groups Bulgarian, Serbo-Croatian, Slovenian and Macedonian, spoken across the Balkans.

Facts

Region

The Balkans 1

Speaker Count

30,000,000 1

Combined native speakers; mid-2020s estimate.

Proto-Language Status

Descends from Proto-Slavic, an unattested, reconstructed proto-language; overall Slavic linguistic unity and mutual intelligibility persisted into the tenth century or later before the East, West and South branches fully diverged. 2

Cross-Tradition Connections

Descends From

Slavic

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

Includes

Bulgarian

Source Encyclopaedia Britannica

Sources

1. Encyclopaedia Britannica

2. Wikipedia: Proto-Slavic Language

WikipediaIntroduction

Quote, Introduction

Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages.

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