Who’s who in Eastern Europe – a quick guide to all the nationalities and cultures found in Eastern Europe.
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People
editAshkenazi Jews
editAshkenazi Jews, also known as Ashkenazic Jews or Ashkenazim (Hebrew: אַשְׁכֲּנָזִים, [ˌaʃkəˈnazim] sing. [ˌaʃkəˈnazi]; also יְהוּדֵי אַשְׁכֲּנָז, Yehudei Ashkenaz, "the Jews of Ashkenaz"), are descended from the medieval Jewish communities of the Rhineland. Ashkenaz is the Medieval Hebrew name for the region which later formed the country of Germany. Thus Ashkenazi Jews are literally "German Jews." The word "Ashkenazi" is pronounced with a [z] sound.
Many later migrated, largely eastward, forming communities in Germany, Hungary, Poland, Russia, Eastern Europe and elsewhere between the 10th and 19th centuries. From medieval times the lingua franca among Ashkenazi Jews was Yiddish or, to a much lesser extent, the Judæo-French language Zarphatic, the Slavic-based Knaanic (Judæo-Czech), and to some speakers of the recently extinct (since 1977) Judæo-Provençal language, Shuadit, (all three no longer spoken). The Ashkenazi Jews developed a distinct culture and liturgy influenced, to varying degrees, by interaction with surrounding peoples, predominantly Germans, Poles, Czechs, Slovaks, Kashubians, Hungarians, Ukrainians, Lithuanians, Letts, Belarusians, and Russians.
Yiddish (ייִדיש yidish or אידיש idish, literally: "Jewish") is a non-territorial Germanic language, spoken throughout the world and written with the Hebrew alphabet. It originated in the Ashkenazi culture that developed from about the 10th century in the Rhineland, and then spread to central and eastern Europe, and eventually to other continents. In the earliest surviving references to it, the language is called לשון ־ אַשכּנז (loshn-ashkenaz = "language of Ashkenaz") and טײַטש (taytsh, a variant of tiutsch, the contemporary name for the language otherwise spoken in the region of origin, now called Middle High German; compare the modern New High German or Deutsch). In common usage, the language is called מאַמע־לשון (mame-loshn = "mother tongue"), distinguishing it from biblical Hebrew and Aramaic which are collectively termed לשון־קודש (loshn-koydesh = "holy tongue"). The term Yiddish did not become the most frequently used designation in the literature of the language until the 18th century.
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Albanians (Albanian: Shqiptarët) are defined as an ethnic group, in the sense of sharing a common Albanian culture, speaking the Albanian language as a mother tongue and being of Albanian descent. Albanian popular tradition traces its historical heritage to the Illyrian people that once inhabited the western parts of the Balkan Peninsula. Scholars are divided on the matter, some supporting the Illyrian-Albanian connection.
About half of Albanians live in Albania, with the second largest group living in the now independent Serbian province of Kosovo and the Republic of Macedonia. There are also Albanian minorities and immigrant communities in a number of other countries.
Albanian language ([Gjuha shqipe] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) is an Indo-European language spoken by nearly 6 million people, primarily in Albania and Kosovo, but also in other areas of the Balkans in which there is an Albanian population, including the west of Macedonia, Montenegro, and southern Serbia. Albanian is also spoken by communities in Greece, along the eastern coast of Italy, and on the island of Sicily. Additionally, speakers of Albanian can be found elsewhere throughout the latter two countries resulting from a modern diaspora, originating from the Balkans, that also includes Scandinavia, Germany, the United Kingdom, the Low Countries, Australia, Turkey and the United States.
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Austrians (German: Österreicher) are defined as the people of the Republic of Austria and its historical predecessor states (March of Austria, Archduchy of Austria, Austrian Empire, Austria-Hungary), and to this extent share a common Austrian culture and being of Austrian descent. Common definitions also include speaking Austrian German as a mother tongue. Due to their belonging to the Holy Roman Empire till 1806, German-speaking Austrians were historically regarded as Germans, but after the founding of a German national state, (the German Empire in 1871), and after the events of World War II and Nazism, this has fallen out of fashion and is generally considered offensive.
Austrians are also often defined by their national citizenship, which had, in the course of Austrian history, varying relations to the above, for example referring to a native German-speaker of the one-time Habsburg empire, or in a wider sense to any citizen of any of the various lands of that empire that did not form the Hungarian half of Austria-Hungary. In the latter sense, the definition included speakers of up to twelve different languages. Today there are approximately 8.4 million Austrians world wide (roughly 8.2m of which are living in Austria),[1] even though ethnic identification of who is Austrian is almost impossible, as it is mainly a question of national identity and self-definition.
Austrian German is a variety of the German language spoken in Austria. There is no unitary Austrian language, but a variety of High German dialects are spoken. Besides the Germanic languages discussed here, minority languages such as Slovenian, Croatian, and Hungarian are spoken in parts of the country.
Ordinarily, the latter dialects are considered to belong either to the Central Austro-Bavarian or Southern Austro-Bavarian subgroups, with the latter encompassing the languages of the Tyrol, Carinthia, and Styria and the former including the dialects of Vienna, Upper Austria, and Lower Austria. The dialect spoken in Vorarlberg is more closely related to Swiss German than it is to other Austrian dialects, so Austrians from outside Vorarlberg can have difficulties understanding it.
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Belarus (Belarusian and Russian: Беларусь, transliteration: Byelarus’, Turkish: Beyaz Rusya (namely, White Russia)) that borders Russia to the north and east, Ukraine to the south, Poland to the west, and Lithuania and Latvia to the north. Its capital is Minsk; other major cities include Brest, Grodno, Gomel, Mogilev, Vitebsk and Bobruisk. A third of the country is forested, and agriculture and manufacturing are its strongest economic sectors.
Until the 20th century, the Belarusians lacked the opportunity to form their national policy, as the lands of modern-day Belarus belonged to several countries, including the Duchy of Polatsk, the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, and the Russian Empire. After the short-lived Belarusian People's Republic (1918–19), Belarus became a constituent republic of the Soviet Union, the Byelorussian SSR.
The Belarusian language (беларуская мова, BGN/PCGN: byelaruskaya mova, Scientific: bielaruskaja mova) is the language of the Belarusian people and is spoken in Belarus and abroad, chiefly in Russia, Ukraine, Poland.[2] It also used to be called "Belorussian". It belongs to the group of the East Slavonic languages, and shares many grammatical and lexical features with other members of the group. Its predecessor was the Old Belarusian language (up to the 19th cent., conventionally).
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Bosnians (Bosnian, Serbian, and Croatian: Bosanci / Босанци; sing. Bosanac / Босанац) are people who live in, or come from, Bosnia and Herzegovina. By the modern state definition a Bosnian can be anyone who holds a citizenship in the state including members of the constituent ethnic groups of Bosnia and Herzegovina: Bosniaks, Serbs and Croats. Additionally, ethnic minorities such as Jews, Roma, Albanians, Montenegrins, and others may consider Bosnian to be attached to their ethnicity (eg. Bosnian Albanian). Some individuals choose to identify soley as Bosnian at a national level. These are not confined to Bosnia and Herzegovina, as over 8,000 Slavic Muslims or migrants from Bosnia and Herzegovina in Slovenia declare Bosnian ethnicity.
In addition, there is a sizable population in Bosnia and Herzegovina who believe that Bosnians are a nation holding a distinct collective cultural identity. By this usage, a Bosnian would be an individual who belonged to this culture. They assert that this collective identity is capable of diminishing or overcoming existing political and ethnic divisions [3].
Bosnian language (Latin script: bosanski jezik) is a South Slavic language native to the Bosniak people and Ethnic Bosnians. The language is notably spoken in the areas of Bosnia, the Bosniak-dominated region of Sandžak (in Serbia and Montenegro) and elsewhere. It is one of the standard versions of the Central-South Slavic diasystem which covers the region that was once known as Serbo-Croat from the 19th century until the early 1990s. It should be noted, however, that the Serbian, Croatian, and Bosniak languages are all mutally understandable.
The Bosnian alphabet is based on the Latin alphabet. The Cyrillic alphabet is accepted (chiefly to accommodate for its usage in Bosnia in the past, especially in former Yugoslavia), but seldom used in today's practice. The name Bosnian language is the commonly accepted name among Bosniak linguists.
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Bulgaria (Bulgarian: България, Balgariya ), officially the Republic of Bulgaria, a state in Southeastern Europe, borders five other countries; Romania to the north (mostly along the Danube), Serbia and the Republic of Macedonia to the west, and Greece and Turkey to the south. The Black Sea defines the extent of the country to the east.
Bulgarian (български език, is an Indo-European language, a member of the Slavic branch.Bulgarian demonstrates several linguistic innovations that set it apart from other Slavic languages, such as the elimination of case declension, the development of a suffixed definite article (see Balkan linguistic union), the lack of a verb infinitive, and the retention and further development of the proto-Slavic verb system. Various verb forms exist to express unwitnessed, retold, and doubtful action. As of 2007 there are more than 10 million people around the world who speak Bulgarian fluently.
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Croats (Croatian: Hrvati) are a South Slavic people mostly living in Croatia, Bosnia and Herzegovina and nearby countries. There are around 4.6 million Croats living in the Balkan region, and an estimated 9 million throughout the world. Due to political, social and economic reasons, many Croats have since migrated throughout the world, and established a notable Croatian diaspora. Large Croat communities exists in a number of countries, including The United States, Australia, Germany, Chile, New Zealand and South Africa. Croats are noted for their unique culture, which throughout the ages, has been variously influenced by both the Eastern world and the Western world. The Croats are predominantly Catholic and their language is Croatian.
Croatian language (hrvatski jezik) is a South Slavic language which is used primarily by the inhabitants of Croatia and Croats in Bosnia and Herzegovina and parts of the Croatian diaspora. It is one of the standard versions of the Central-South Slavic diasystem.
Croatian is based on the Ijekavian pronunciation of Štokavian dialect (with some influence from Čakavian and Kajkavian) and written with the Croatian alphabet.
The modern Croatian standard language is a continuous outgrowth of more than nine hundred years of literature written in a mixture of Croatian Church Slavonic and the vernacular language. Croatian Church Slavonic was abandoned by the mid-1400s, and Croatian as embodied in a purely vernacular literature Croatian literature has existed for more than five centuries.
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Czechs (Czech: Češi, archaic Czech: Čechové) are a western Slavic people of Central Europe, living predominantly in the Czech Republic. Small populations of Czechs also live in Slovakia, Austria, U.S., Brazil, Argentina, Canada, Germany, Russia and other countries. They speak the Czech language, which is closely related to the Slovak language.[4]
Among the ancestors of the Czechs are ancient Slavic tribes who inhabited the regions of Bohemia, Moravia, and Silesia from the 6th century onwards.
Czech (/ˈʧɛk/; čeština in Czech) is one of the West Slavic languages, along with Slovak, Polish, Pomeranian (Kashubian), and Lusatian Sorbian. It is spoken by most people in the Czech Republic and by Czechs all over the world (about 12 million native speakers in total). Czech is quite close to and mutually intelligible with Slovak and, to a lesser degree, to Polish or to Sorbian in East Germany. As for the relation between Czech and Slovak, speakers of these languages usually understand the other language pretty well both in its written and spoken form and together they constitute kind of language diasystem, though some dialects or heavily accented speech might present difficulties to them (in particular, geographically most distant Eastern Slovak dialects to Czech speakers). Younger generations of Czechs who grew up after the dissolution of Czechoslovakia in 1993 and therefore tend to be less familiar with Slovak might also have some problems with a certain amount of words and expressions which differ considerably in the two languages and with false friends. Nevertheless, these differences don´t impede significantly the mutual intelligibility.
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Estonians (Estonian: eestlased, previously maarahvas) are a Finnic people closely related to the Finns and inhabiting, primarily, the country of Estonia. The Estonians speak a Finno-Ugric language, known as Estonian. Although Estonia is traditionally grouped as one of the Baltic countries, Estonians are linguistically and ethnically unrelated to the Baltic peoples of Latvia and Lithuania.
Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities. It is a Finno-Ugric language and is closely related to Finnish.
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The terms Finns and Finnish people (Finnish: suomalaiset, Swedish: finländare) are used in English to mean "a native or inhabitant of Finland". They are also used to refer to the ethnic group historically associated with Finland or Fennoscandia, and they are only used in that sense here.[5] [6]
As with most ethnic groups, the definition of Finns may vary. Usually, in every definition, the term includes the Finnish-speaking population of Finland. The group can also be seen to include the Swedish-speaking population of Finland and the Finnish-speaking population of Sweden. Smaller populations that may or may not be seen to fall under the term Finns include the Kvens in Norway, the Tornedalians of Sweden and the Ingrian Finns of Russia. Finns can be divided according to dialect into subgroups sometimes traditionally called heimo, but such divisions have become less important with internal migration.
Linguistically, Finnish, spoken by most Finns, is closest related to the other Baltic-Finnic languages Estonian and Karelian, while Swedish, spoken by Swedish-speaking Finns, is unrelated to the Finnish language and a member of the Indo-European language family. Finnish has loanwords from Swedish, other Germanic and broader Indo-European languages in different chronological layers while Swedish has few loan words from the Baltic-Finnic languages. Genetically, Finns seem to be a fairly homogeneous group with a genetic heritage mostly in common with the other European ethnicities.[7][8]
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Gorani
editGorani (Goranci, Cyrillic: Горанци) are a minority South Slavic ethnic group, living in the mountainous Gora-Dragaš region, just south of Prizren in the country Kosovo, north-western Republic of Macedonia in the Šar Planina region near Tetovo, as well as in north-eastern Albania (most notably in Shishtavec (Local Slavic: Шиштејец, Šištejec) in Kukës County).
The Gorani speak "Ours" (Нашински), a language of Torlakian dialect, although many consider a dialect of Serbian. Many also speak Albanian. According to the last, 1991 Yugoslav census, 54.8% of the inhabitants of the Gora municipality said that they spoke the Gorani language, while little less than half the inhabitants of Gora declared that their native tongue is Serbian[9]. Some Goranian intellectuals and researchers define their language as Bulgarian.[10]
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Hungary (Hungarian: Magyarország; literally Magyar (Hungarian) Republic), is a landlocked country in the Carpathian Basin of Central Europe, bordered by Austria, Slovakia, Ukraine, Romania, Serbia, Croatia, and Slovenia. Its capital is Budapest. Hungary is a member of OECD, NATO, EU and a Schengen state. The official language is Hungarian also known as Magyar, part of the Finno-Ugric family, thus one of the three official languages of the European Union that is not of Indo-European origin.
The term Magyar is used to refer to people whose first language is Hungarian and who are or consider themselves the descendants of the nomads who conquered the area in the Middle Ages and established the Hungarian state. The term "Hungarian" is synonymous with "Magyar" today, but when we refer to the period before World War I it is often necessary to distinguish "Hungarian," referring to the multi-ethnic Kingdom of Hungary, and "Magyar," referring to the dominant ethnic group and language, but excluding the minorities such as the Slovaks or Rumanians, most of whom have founded independent states since. Historically, the official language of the Kingdom of Hungary was Latin, becoming German under Joseph II, and then Magyar as an achievement of the Magyar national movement.
Hungarian (magyar nyelv unrelated to most other languages in Europe. It is spoken in Hungary and by the Hungarian minorities in seven neighbouring countries. The Hungarian name for the language is magyar.
As one of the small number of modern European languages that do not belong to the Indo-European language family, Hungarian has always been of great interest to linguists. Due to the Ugric heritage, Hungarian often sounds as incomprehensible gibberish to foreigners, unlike the others (for example, a German can partly understand English because of the similarities).
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Hutsuls
editHutsuls (Ukrainian: Гуцули, singular Гуцул, Romanian: Huţuli, singular Huţul, Hutsul dialect: Hutsule, singular Hutsul; alternatively spelled Huculs, Huzuls, Hutzuls, Gutsuls, Guculs, Guzuls, or Gutzuls; Polish: Hucuł, singular Huculi, Hucułowie) are an ethno-cultural group of Ukrainian highlanders who for centuries have inhabited the Carpathian mountains, mainly in Ukraine, but also in the northern extremity of Romania (in the areas of Bukovina and Maramureş), as well as in Slovakia and Poland.
There are different versions for the origins of the name Hutsul. An explanation is that it comes from the Romanian word for "outlaw" (cf. Rom. hoţ - "thief", hoţul - "the thief"). Other explanations place their origins in the Slavic kochul - "wanderer","migrant", in reference to their semi-nomadic lifestyle, to the name of the Turkic tribe of the Uzy, and even to the name of the Moravian Serbian king Hetsyl[5].
Hutsuls inhabit areas situated between the south-east of those inhabited by the Boykos, down to the northern part of the Romanian segment of the Carpathians.
There are several hypotheses concerning the origin of Hutsuls. According to one of them, Hutsuls are descendants of Slavic tribe Ulichs, that had to leave their previous homes near the Buh river under the pressure of Pechenegs Hutsuls identify themselves as a part of Ukrainian ethnos, having at the same time their local identity as a sub-ethnos.
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Janjevs
editJanjevci (English: Janjevs, root pronounced yan-yev) are the inhabitants of the Kosovo town of Janjevo and surrounding villages, located near Priština as well as villages centered on Letnica near Vitina (Papare, Vrmez, Vrnavo Kolo).
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Karelians
editThe Karelians is a name used to denote two related, yet different ethnic groups of Finnic-language speakers. The so called "Russian Karelians" inhabit the Russian Republic of Karelia. The "Finnish Karelians" live in eastern Finland. During the Second World War many Finnish Karelians were forced to leave the Karelian provinces that Finland had to cede to the Soviet Union. They and their descendants are now integrated in the population of present-day Finland.
At least since the 13th century, the two groups have had different histories, cultures, religions, identities and languages. They should not to be thought as members of the same ethnic group.
The Karelian language is closely related to the Finnish language, and particularly by Finnish linguists seen as a dialect of Finnish, although the variety spoken in East Karelia is usually seen as a proper language. [6] The dialect spoken in the South Karelian Region of Finland is considered to be part of the South Eastern dialects of the Finnish language. The dialect spoken in the Karelian Isthmus before World War II and the Ingrian language are also seen as part of this dialect group although sometimes in Finland wrongly called Karelian dialect.[7] The dialect that is spoken in North Karelia is considered to be one of the Savonian dialects.[8]
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Kashubians
editKashubians (Kashubian: Kaszëbi; Polish: Kaszubi; German: Kaschuben), also called Kassubians or Cassubians, are a West Slavic ethnic group of north-central Poland.
The Kashubian unofficial capital is Kartuzy (Kartuzë; German: Karthaus). Among larger cities, Gdynia (Gdiniô; (German: Gdingen (until 1939), Gotenhafen (1939-1945) contains the largest proportion of people declaring Kashubian origin. However, the biggest city of Cassubia region is Gdańsk (Gduńsk; German: Danzig), the capital of the Pomeranian Voivodeship. The traditional occupations of the Kashubians were agriculture and fishing; today these are joined by the service and hospitality industry, and agrotourism.
Kashubian or Cassubian (Kashubian: kaszëbsczi jãzëk, pòmòrsczi jãzëk, kaszëbskò-słowińskô mòwa; Polish: język kaszubski) is one of the Lechitic languages, a subgroup of the Slavic languages.
Kashubian is assumed to have evolved from the language spoken by some tribes of Pomeranians called Kashubians, in the region of Pomerania, on the southern coast of the Baltic Sea between the Vistula and Oder rivers.
It is closely related to Slovincian, and both of them are dialects of Pomeranian. Though the Kashubian language can hardly be understood by Polish speakers, until recently many Polish linguists considered it a dialect of Polish.
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Kosovo (Albanian: Kosova or Kosovë, Serbian: Косово, Kosovo) is a disputed territory in the Balkans, which was unilaterally declared an independent republic. After international negotiations failed to reach a consensus on an acceptable constitutional status, Kosovo's provisional government unilaterally declared independence from Serbia on 17 February 2008.
Kosovo, as a Serbian province, was formed in 1945. Prior to that, the only territory called Kosovo was Kosovo Vilayet (1875 - 1912) in the Ottoman Empire, with borders significantly different from today's Kosovo. On Feb 17th 2008 2008 Kosovo's Parliament declared independence, with mixed recognition of that independence. Kosovo's ethnic population has fluctuated wildly over the centuries and even recent decades, from predominantly Christian Serbian to predominantly Moslem Albanian, with the province's complex ethnic map currently including Albanians, Serbs, Bosniaks, Ladins, Turks, Roma, Gorans, Jews and Janjevs.
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Ladins
editLadin (Ladino in Italian, Ladin in Ladin, Ladinisch in German) is a Rhaeto-Romance language spoken in the Dolomite mountains in Italy, between the regions of Trentino-Alto Adige/Südtirol and Veneto. It is closely related to the Swiss Romansh and Friulian.
Ladin should not be confused with Ladino (also called Judaeo-Spanish), which is a Romance language derived mainly from Spanish, Hebrew, Turkish, and Greek.
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Latvia (historically Lettonia, or Lettland), officially the Republic of Latvia (Latvian: Latvija or Latvijas Republika, Livonian: Lețmō), is a country in Northern Europe. Latvia shares land borders with Estonia to the north and Lithuania to the south — and both Russia and Belarus to the east. It is separated from Sweden in the west by the Baltic Sea. The capital of Latvia is Riga (Latvian: Rīga). Latvia has been a member state of the European Union since May 1, 2004 and a member of NATO since March 29, 2004
The official language of Latvia is Latvian, which belongs to the Baltic language group of the Indo-European language family. Another notable language of Latvia is the nearly extinct Livonian language of Baltic-Finnic subbranch of Uralic language family, which enjoys protection by law; Latgalian language — a dialect of Latvian — is also protected by Latvian law as historical variation of Latvian language. Russian is by far the most widespread minority language.
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The Republic of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos Respublika) is a country in eastern, often considered also northern Europe.[11] Situated along the south-eastern shore of the Baltic Sea, sharing borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and the Russian exclave of the Kaliningrad Oblast to the southwest. Lithuania is a member of NATO and of the European Union. The population is 3.4 million, the largest city and the capital is Vilnius.
During the 1300s, Lithuania was the largest country in Europe, as present day Belarus, Ukraine, and parts of Poland and Russia were territories of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. With the Lublin Union of 1569 Poland and Lithuania formed a new state: the Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth, which was finally destroyed by its neighboring countries in 1795. Most of Lithuania's territory was annexed to Russian Empire, until the Act of Independence was signed on February 16, 1918, which declared re-establishment of a sovereign state. Between 1940 and 1945 Lithuania was occupied by several powers — Soviet Union, Nazi Germany. When World War II was near its end in 1944 and the Nazis retreated, Lithuania would again be merged into the Soviet Union. On March 11, 1990, Lithuania became the first Soviet republic to declare its renewed independence.
Present day Lithuania has one of the fastest growing economies in the European Union. Lithuania became a full member of the Schengen Agreement on 21 December 2007.[12] In 2009 Lithuania will celebrate the millennium of its name.
Lithuanian (lietuvių kalba) is the official state language of the Republic of Lithuania, spoken by about 4 million native speakers
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Moldovans, or Moldavians (original name: Moldoveni; Молдовень is used by the Moldovan Cyrillic script, which nowadays has official status only in Transnistria) are the native population in, depending on one's interpretation, all or part of the lands that correspond to the former Principality of Moldavia. In the Republic of Moldova, the term Moldovans is used to officially denote an ethnicity separate from Romanians.
The recognition of Moldovans as a separate ethnicity, distinct from Romanians, is nevertheless a relatively new and controversial subject (See the chapter Controversy). Outside of the Moldovan Republic, this group is currently recognized as a minority ethnic group only by several former soviet republics.
Moldovan Language (also Moldavian) is the official name for the Romanian language in the Republic of Moldova and in its breakaway territory of Transnistria.[13][14] The Constitution of Moldova (Title I, Article 13) states that the "Moldovan language" is the official language of the country. In Moldova's Declaration of Independence the same language is called Romanian.[15] Moldovan President Vladimir Voronin has, however, emphasized the separate identity of the Moldovan language, accusing Romania of failing to do the same.[16] A group of Romanian linguists adopted a resolution stating that promotion of the notion of Moldovan language is an unscientific campaign.[17]
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Montenegro (Montenegrin/Serbian:/Croatian/Bosnian Црна Гора, Crna Gora , Albanian: Mali i Zi ([ˈmaʎi ˈi ˈz̟i])) is a country located in Southeastern Europe. It has a coast on the Adriatic Sea to the south and borders Croatia to the west, Bosnia and Herzegovina to the northwest, Kosovo to the east, Serbia to the northeast and Albania to the southeast. Its capital and largest city is Podgorica, while Cetinje is designated as Prijestonica, the old royal capital or former seat of the throne.
A Serbian principality in the Late Middle Ages, its independence from the Ottoman Empire was formally recognized in 1878. From 1918, Montenegro became a part of various incarnations of Yugoslavia and the state union of Serbia and Montenegro. Based on the results of the referendum held on May 21 2006, Montenegro declared independence on June 3, 2006 making it the newest fully recognized country in the world. On June 28, 2006, it became the 192nd member state[18] of the United Nations, and on May 11, 2007, the 47th member state of the Council of Europe.
Montenegrin language (Crnogorski jezik, Црногорски језик) is the name given to the Ijekavian-Shtokavian dialect spoken in Montenegro. It is recognized as a variant of the South Slavic languages. Since 2004, the Montenegrin administration has slowly promoted the idea of a Montenegrin language to the public, a movement which has its origins as far as 1993. As of the Montenegrin 2006 independence, there is an ongoing dispute over the subject by pro-Serbian nationalistic political forces inside and outside of Montenegro, culminating with the Montenegrin language being proclaimed the official language of Montenegro in the new Constitution on 22 October 2007. The Constitution was supported by a majority in the Montenegrin Parliament, and Montenegro is today the only state in the region which officially supports the majority of south Slavic languages in all their differences and similarities, even including the linguistically unrelated Albanian Language.
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Polish people, or Poles, (Polish: Polacy) are a Western Slavic ethnic group of Central Europe, living predominantly in Poland. Poles are sometimes defined as people who share a common Polish culture and are of Polish descent. Their religion is predominantly Roman Catholic. A wide-ranging Polish diaspora exists throughout Western and Eastern Europe, the Americas and Australia.
As to its origins, the name of the nation comes from a western Slavic ethnic group of Polans primarily associated with Poland and the Polish language. Poles belong to the Lechitic subgroup of these ethnic people. The Polans of Giecz, Gniezno, and Poznań were one of the most influential tribes of Greater Poland and managed to unite many other West Slavic tribes in the area under the rule of what became the Piast dynasty, thus giving birth to a new state.
The Polish language became far more homogeneous in the second half of the 20th century, in part due to the mass migration of several million Polish citizens from the eastern to the western part of the country after the east was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1939, during World War II.
"Standard" Polish is still spoken somewhat differently in different regions of the country, although the differences between these broad "dialects" are slight. There is never any difficulty in mutual understanding, and non-native speakers are generally unable to distinguish among them easily. The differences are slight compared to different dialects of English, for example. The regional differences correspond mainly to old tribal divisions from around a thousand years ago; the most significant of these in terms of numbers of speakers are Great Polish (spoken in the west), Lesser Polish (spoken in the south and southeast), Mazovian (Mazur) spoken throughout the central and eastern parts of the country, and Silesian spoken in the southwest. Mazovian shares some features with the Kashubian language
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Pomors (Russian: помо́ры) are Russian settlers of the White Sea coasts, where they used to live side by side with the Kola Saami, the Kola Norwegians (to the west), and the Nenets people (to the east).
As early as the 12th century, explorers from Novgorod entered the White Sea through the Northern Dvina and Onega estuaries and founded settlements along the sea coasts of Bjarmaland. Their chief town used to be Kholmogory, until the rise of Arkhangelsk in the late 1500s. From their base at Kola, they explored the Barents Region and the Kola peninsula, Spitsbergen, and Novaya Zemlya.
Later in history, the Pomors discovered and maintained the Northern Sea Route between Arkhangelsk and Siberia. With their ships (koches), the Pomors penetrated to the trans-Ural areas of Northern Siberia, where they founded the settlement of Mangazeya east of the Yamal Peninsula in the early 1500s.
Some authors speculate that it was Pomors who settled, supposedly in the early 1600s, the isolated village of Russkoye Ustye in the delta of the Indigirka, in north-eastern Yakutia.[19]
Pomor dialects are a group of Northern Russian dialects widespread among the Pomors of the former Arkhangelsk Governorate and northern parts of the Olonets and Vologda Governorates.
The dialects are heavily influenced by Novgorod patois and there are a significant number of archaisms and borrowings from Finno-Ugric and Scandinavian languages.
The study of the Pomor dialects was undertaken by I. S. Merkuryev (1924-2001), a professor of philology and author of several books including Живая речь кольских поморов ("The Living Speech of the Kola Peninsula Pomors").
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Romania Rumania, Roumania; Romanian: România, is a country in Southeastern Europe. It shares a border with Hungary and Serbia to the west, Ukraine and the Republic of Moldova to the northeast, and Bulgaria to the south. Romania has a stretch of sea coast along the Black Sea. It is located roughly in the lower basin of the Danube and almost all of the Danube Delta is located within its territory.
Romania is a semi-presidential unitary state. As a nation-state, the country was formed by the merging of Moldavia and Wallachia in 1859 and it gained recognition of its independence in 1878. Later, in 1918, they were joined by Transylvania, Bukovina and Bessarabia. At the end of World War II, parts of its territories (roughly the present day Moldova) were occupied by USSR and Romania became a member of Warsaw Pact. With the fall of the Iron Curtain in 1989, Romania started a series of political and economic reforms that allowed for Romania to join the European Union on January 1 2007.
Romanian (Rumanian or Roumanian; self designation: limba română, is a Romance language spoken by around 24 to 28 million people, primarily in Romania and Moldova. It has official status in Romania, Moldova and the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina in Serbia. The official form of the Moldovan language in the Republic of Moldova is identical to that of Romanian; a minor difference in spelling was abolished in 2000.[20] Romanian is also an official or administrative language in various communities and organisations (such as the Latin Union and the European Union).
Romanian speakers are scattered across many other countries, notably Italy, Spain, Israel, Portugal, United Kingdom, the United States, Canada, France and Germany.
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Romanies
editThe Romani or Romany people (Devanagari: as a noun, singular Rom, plural Roma; sometimes Rrom, Rroma) or Romanies are an Aryan ethnic group living in many communities all over the world. They also belong to many ethnic groups that appear in literature and folklore, and are often referred to as Gypsies or Gipsies, a term that is sometimes considered pejorative and is based on a mistaken belief of an origin in Egypt.[21] The term is, however, still in widespread official use, for instance in the UK. In actuality, the Roma have their origins in India.[22][23]
The Roma are still thought of as wandering nomads in the popular imagination, despite the fact that today the vast majority live in permanent housing.[24] This widely dispersed ethnic group lives across the world not only near their historic heartland in Southern and Eastern Europe,[25] but also in the American continent and the Middle East.
Romani or Romany (native name: romani ćhib) is the language of the Roma and Sinti. The Indo-Aryan Romani language should not be confused with either Romanian (spoken by Romanians), or Romansh (spoken in parts of southeastern Switzerland), both of which are Romance languages.
Analysis of the Romani language has shown that it is closely related to those spoken in central and northern India, Pothwari in particular. Romani, Panjabi, and Pothwari share some words and similar grammatical systems. A 2003 study published in Nature suggests Romani is also related to Sinhalese,[26] presently spoken in Sri Lanka.
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Russians ([Русские—Russkie] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help) ) are an East Slavic ethnic group, primarily living in Russia and neighboring countries.
The English term Russians is also used to refer to citizens of Russia, regardless of their ethnicity (see demographics of Russia for information on other nationalities inhabiting Russia); in Russian, this meaning is covered by term Rossiyanin (Россиянин, plural Rossiyane)
Russian transliteration: russkiy yazyk, is the most geographically widespread language of Eurasia and the most widely spoken of the Slavic languages. Russian belongs to the family of Indo-European languages and is one of three (or, according to some authorities, four) living members of the East Slavic languages, the others being Belarusian and Ukrainian.
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Rusyns
editRusyns (also referred to as Русини, Ruthenians, Ruthenes, Rusins, Carpatho-Rusyns, and Rusnaks) are a modern slavic ethnic group that speaks the Rusyn language and are descended from the minority of Ruthenians who did not adopt a Ukrainian national identity in the nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. Because an overwhelming majority of Ruthenians within Ukraine itself have adopted a Ukrainian identity, most modern self-declared Rusyns live outside Ukraine. Thus, of the approximately 2 million people claimed by Rusyn organizations as being Rusyns, only 55,000 declare themselves as having this nationality. The ethnic identity of Rusyns is therefore highly controversial, with some researchers claiming a separate East Slavic ethnicity distinct from Russians, Ukrainians, and Belarusians, while others considering Rusyns to be a subgroup of the Ukrainian nation
Rusyn ([русинська мова] Error: {{Lang}}: unrecognized language code: ry (help); [rusyns'ka mova] Error: {{Transliteration}}: unrecognized language / script code: ry (help)) is an East Slavic language (along with Russian, Belarusian and Ukrainian to which it shares a common linguistic ancestry) that is spoken by the Rusyns. Opinions differ among linguists concerning whether Rusyn is a separate East Slavic language or a dialect of Ukrainian.[27] The political implications of the dispute add to the controversy.
Rusyn is spoken in the Transcarpathian Region of Ukraine, in northeastern Slovakia, southeastern Poland (where it is often called łemkowski 'Lemko', from their characteristic word lem/лєм 'only'), and Hungary (where the people and language are called Ruten). The Pannonian Rusyn language in Serbia is sometimes considered part of the Rusyn language group, although some linguists consider that language to be West Slavic. In Ukraine, Rusyn is usually considered a dialect of Ukrainian, as it is very close to the Ukrainian Hutsul dialect, but some speakers sometimes prefer to consider themselves distinct from Ukrainians.
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The Republic of Serbia ([Република Србија / Republika Srbija] Error: {{Lang-xx}}: text has italic markup (help), is a landlocked country in Central and Southeastern Europe, covering the southern part of the Pannonian Plain and the central part of the Balkan Peninsula. It is bordered by Hungary on the north; Romania and Bulgaria on the east; Albania and Republic of Macedonia on the south; and Montenegro, Croatia and Bosnia and Herzegovina on the west. The capital is Belgrade.
Serbian (српски језик; [srpski jezik] Error: {{Lang}}: text has italic markup (help)) is the most spoken South Slavic language. It is one of the standard versions of the Shtokavian dialect, used primarily in Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, and by Serbs in the Serbian diaspora. The former standard is known as Serbo-Croatian, now split into Serbian, Croatian and Bosnian standards. It counts among official (and minority) languages of Serbia, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Montenegro, Croatia, Romania, Republic of Macedonia and Hungary.
Two alphabets are used to write the Serbian language: a variation on the Cyrillic alphabet, devised by Vuk Karadžić, and a variation on the Latin alphabet, devised by Ljudevit Gaj. The characters of the two alphabets map to each other one-to-one.
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Slovakia (long form: Slovak Republic; Slovak: Slovensko, long form Slovenská republika) is a landlocked country in Central Europe with a population of over five million and an area of about 49,000 square kilometres (almost 19,000 square miles). The Slovak Republic borders the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south. The largest city is its capital, Bratislava. Slovakia is a member state of the European Union, NATO, OECD, WTO, and other international organizations.
The Slavic people arrived in the territory of present day Slovakia between the 5th and 6th century AD during the Migration Period (Migration of Nations). Various parts of Slovakia belonged to Samo's Empire, the first known political unit of Slavs, Great Moravia, the Kingdom of Hungary, Habsburg (Austrian) monarchy, Austria-Hungary, Czechoslovakia throughout history. Slovakia became independent on 1 January, 1993, with the peaceful division of Czechoslovakia in the Velvet Divorce.
The Slovak language (slovenčina, slovenský jazyk), sometimes referred to as "Slovakian", is an Indo-European language belonging to the West Slavic languages (together with Czech, Polish, Kashubian and [Sorbian language|Sorbian]]). Slovak is mutually intelligible with Czech and Slovak uses a modification of the Roman (Latin) alphabet.
Slovak is spoken in Slovakia (by 5 million people), the United States (500,000), the Czech Republic (320,000), Hungary (20,000), Northern Serbia-Vojvodina (60,000), Romania (22,000), Poland (20,000), Canada (20,000), Australia, Austria, Ukraine, Bulgaria, Croatia (5,000) and elsewhere.
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Slovenia is a country in southern Central Europe bordering Italy to the west, the Adriatic Sea to the southwest, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north. The capital of Slovenia is Ljubljana.
At various points in Slovenia's history, the country has been part of the Roman Empire, the Duchy of Carantania (only modern Slovenia's northern part), the Holy Roman Empire, the Habsburg Monarchy, the Austrian Empire (later known as Austria-Hungary), the State of Slovenes, Croats and Serbs, the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes (renamed to Kingdom of Yugoslavia in 1929) between the two World Wars, and the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia from 1945 until gaining independence in 1991. Slovenia is a member of the European Union, the Council of Europe and NATO.
Slovene or Slovenian (slovenski jezik or slovenščina) is an Indo-European language that belongs to the family of South Slavic languages. It is spoken by approximately 2 million speakers worldwide, the majority of whom live in Slovenia. Slovene is one of the few languages to have preserved the dual grammatical number from Proto-Indo-European. Also, Slovene and Slovak are the two modern Slavic languages whose names for themselves literally mean "Slavic" (slověnьskъ in old Slavonic). Slovene is also one of the official languages of the European Union.
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Sorbians
editSorbs (Upper Sorbian Serbja, Lower Sorbian Serby; also Wends, Lusatian Sorbs), Slavonic nation settled in Lusatia, region on the territory of Germany. Historically, Lusatia also encompasses small parts of Poland and the Czech Republic. Not to be confused with Serbs.
Sorbs are divided into: Upper Sorbs speaking Upper Sorbian (about 30,000 people) and Lower Sorbs speaking Lower Sorbian (about 20,000 people). Some of them using in-between dialects- a mixture of these two Sorbian languages.
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Tatars (Tatar: Tatarlar/Татарлар), sometimes spelled Tartar (more about the name), are a Turkic ethnic group or a couple of ethnic groups.
Most current day Tatars live all over Russia, Ukraine, Poland, Moldova, Lithuania, Belarus, Bulgaria, China, Kazakhstan, Romania, Turkey, and Uzbekistan. They collectively numbered more than 10 million in the late 20th century.
The original Ta-ta inhabited the north-eastern Gobi in the 5th century and, after subjugation in the 9th century by the Khitans, migrated southward, there founding the Mongol Empire under Genghis Khan. Under the leadership of his grandson Batu Khan, they moved westwards, driving with them many stems of the Turkic Ural-Altayans towards the plains of Russia.
Tatar is a Turkic language, which is considered part of the disputed Altaic language family.
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Ukrainians (Ukrainian: Українці, Ukrayintsi) are an East Slavic ethnic group primarily living in Ukraine, or more broadly—citizens of Ukraine (who may or may not be ethnic Ukrainians).
Ukrainians are one of the largest European ethnic groups with a population of more than 44 million people worldwide. Most ethnic Ukrainians, about 37 million in total, live in Ukraine where they make up over three-quarters of the population. The largest Ukrainian community outside of Ukraine is in Russia, about 3 million Russian citizens consider themselves ethnic Ukrainians, while millions of others (primarily in southern Russia and Siberia) have some Ukrainian ancestry.
Ukrainian (украї́нська мо́ва, ukrayins'ka mova, is a language of the East Slavic subgroup of the Slavic languages. It is the only official state language of Ukraine. Written Ukrainian uses a Cyrillic alphabet. The language shares some vocabulary with the languages of the neighboring Slavic nations, most notably with Belarusian, Polish, Russian and Slovak.
The Ukrainian language traces its origins to the Old East Slavic language of the medieval state of Kievan Rus'. In its earlier stages it was called Ruthenian. Ukrainian, along with other East Slavic languages, is a lineal descendant of the colloquial language used in Kievan Rus.
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References
edit- ^ Idem.
- ^ Also spoken in Azerbaijan, Canada, Estonia, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Latvia, Lithuania, Moldova, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, USA, Uzbekistan, per Ethnologue.
- ^ [1], from Party for Bosnia and Herzegovina website
- ^ Czech language, alphabet and pronunciation
- ^ "Finn noun" The Oxford Dictionary of English (revised edition). Ed. Catherine Soanes and Angus Stevenson. Oxford University Press, 2005. Oxford Reference Online. Oxford University Press. Tampere University of Technology. 3 August 2007 [2]
- ^ Perspectives to Finnish Identity, by Anne Ollila: Scandinavian Journal of History, Volume 23, Numbers 3-4, 1 September 1998, pp. 127-137(11). Retrieved 06 October 2006.
- ^ "Since the (two) population (groups') genetic, ecological and socioeconomic circumstances are equal, Swedish speakers’ longer active life is difficult to explain by conventional health-related risk factors." Markku T. Hyyppä and Juhani Mäki: Social participation and health in a community rich in stock of social capital
- ^ [3] and [4]
- ^ (in Serbian) "Горански Говор" (PDF)., Dr Padivoje Mladenović
- ^ Dokle, Nazif. Reçnik Goransko (Nashinski) — Albanski, Sofia 2007, Peçatnica Naukini akademiji "Prof. Marin Drinov", s. 5, 11, 19 (Nazif Dokle. Goranian-Albanian Dictionary, Sofia 2007, Published by Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, p. 5, 11, 19)
- ^ United Nations Geographical region and composition
- ^ "Lietuva įsiliejo į Šengeno erdvę" (in Lithuanian). Vidaus reikalų ministerija. Retrieved 2007-12-22.
{{cite news}}:|first=missing|last=(help); Cite has empty unknown parameter:|coauthors=(help) - ^ Kogan Page 2004, p 242
- ^ http://ec.europa.eu/translation/language_aids/recognition/field_guide_main_languages_of_europe_en.pdf A Field Guide to the Main Languages of Europe - Spot that language and how to tell them apart], on the website of the European Commission
- ^ (in Romanian)Declaraţia de independenţa a Republicii Moldova, Moldova Suverană
- ^ "Moldovans suspicious of Romania's intentions". The Financial Times. 2007-12-08. Retrieved 2007-12-16.
{{cite web}}: Check date values in:|date=(help) - ^ (in Romanian)"Ziare.ro - Linguists condemn "Moldovan language"". Retrieved 2007-11-10.
- ^ List of members to the United Nations by joining date
- ^ Tatyana Bratkova Russkoye Ustye. Novy Mir, 1998, no. 4 (in Russian)
- ^ The new edition of „Dicţionarul ortografic al limbii române (ortoepic, morfologic, cu norme de punctuaţie)” – introduced by the Academy of Sciences of Moldova and recommended for publishing following the board reunion on 15 November 2000 – applies the decision of the General Meeting of the Romanian Academy from 17 February 1993, regarding the return to „â” and „sunt” in the orthography of the Romanian language. The decision is mandatory in schools and other official use of the language.
- ^ "A Brief History of the Roma". Patrin Web Journal. 1999-04-17. Retrieved 2007-08-26.
- ^ Kenrick, Donald (1998). Historical Dictionary of the Gypsies (Romanies). Scarecrow Press. ISBN 0-8108-3444-8.
- ^ The History and Origin of the Roma
- ^ "Gypsies in Canada: The Promised Land?". Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. 1997.
{{cite web}}: Unknown parameter|month=ignored (help) - ^ The Roma of Eastern Europe: Still Searching for Inclusion
- ^ Gray, R.D. & Atkinson, Q.D. 2003. "Language-tree divergence times support the Anatolian theory of Indo-European origin." Nature. 426, 435-439.
- ^ RFE/RL on intolerance in Belarus and Ruthenians in Ukraine