The East Slavic languages constitute one of three regional subgroups of Slavic languages, currently spoken in Eastern Europe. It is the group with the largest numbers of speakers, far out-numbering the Western and Southern Slavic groups. Current East Slavic languages are Belarusian, Russian, Ukrainian. Rusyn is considered to be either a separate language or a dialect of Ukrainian.
The East Slavic languages descend from a common predecessor, the language of the medieval Kievan Rus' (9th to 13th centuries).
All these languages use the Cyrillic script, but with particular modifications.
Read more about East Slavic Languages: Classification, Differentiation
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