The South Slavic languages comprise one of three branches of the Slavic languages. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches (West and East) by a belt of German, Hungarian and Romanian speakers. The first South Slavic language to be written (the first Slavic language) was the dialect spoken in Thessalonica, now called Old Church Slavonic, in the ninth century AD. It is retained as a liturgical language in some South Slavic Orthodox churches in the form of various local Church Slavonic traditions.
Read more about South Slavic Languages: Classification, Writing Systems
Famous quotes containing the words south and/or languages:
“In the far South the sun of autumn is passing
Like Walt Whitman walking along a ruddy shore.
He is singing and chanting the things that are part of him,
The worlds that were and will be, death and day.
Nothing is final, he chants. No man shall see the end.
His beard is of fire and his staff is a leaping flame.”
—Wallace Stevens (1879–1955)
“No doubt, to a man of sense, travel offers advantages. As many languages as he has, as many friends, as many arts and trades, so many times is he a man. A foreign country is a point of comparison, wherefrom to judge his own.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)