Who were the Slavs?

[mrtn]

...Vrylakas just said "Oh God" and repaired to "oh gods"
...

I feel a bit left out here, not being slavic , but I was reminded of a very "romantic" thing in Swedish; when you want to say something like "oh gods" you can say Gudars skymning which means Twilight of the Gods. This feel like a very old saying...

 

[Companiero]

Still I feel Slavs have taken Catholicism, Orthodox Christianity, and Islam and made unique Slavic versions of it. I think people underestimate how much of our culture today is based on the old slavs and the ancient peoples.

There has always been a strain between official religion (as supported by the state) and the popular national culture practiced on free meetings and gatherings. Christianity didn't have any influence on that part of the national identity (which is the essential one actually). In fact Christianity itself was adapted much to the old believe system.

In Bosnia for example, one of the most important days for Muslims is based off of I believe a Celtic/Christian ritual. Not Slavic, but it gives you an idea of how things can be passed on.

Yes, we have this types of pagan holidays and customs too. Looks like the pagan spirit still lives somewhere deep inside our culture. And may i live for long time.

 

[Knight-Dragon]

The Slavs entered Europe proper in the 6th and 7th centuries, piggy-backing with the Avars in the Danube Basin before spreading much farther afield.

They came fr outside Europe? Where?

Were the original Slavs non-Indo-European?

 

[aaminion00]

They came fr outside Europe? Where?

Were the original Slavs non-Indo-European?

No, they were always Indo-European. By entering "Europe" I assume Vryklas believes that the original "Slavic homeland" was somewhere in Russia, the Ukraine, or beyond.

 

[Gladi]

Origin of Slavs have been placed from eastern Poland to Scythia, and even in Persia. The big problem here is a lack of written material. But they belong to Western European branch of Indo-European family along with Germanics, and Romanics. ( which would remove them from other people in area- Dacians, Thracians, Greeks and others are East European branch).

 

[Vrylakas]

aaminion00 and Gladi beat me. Yes, the Slavs are definitely Indo-European speakers and have always been - though they've often mixed with and been influenced by non-Indo-European groups.

I haven't drawn any conclusions about where the Slavs originated; the evidence is too scattered and sketchy still today for any conclusive answer. When I saw "entered Europe" I mean Europe-proper, outside of western Russia or Ukraine. This isn't an anti-Russian approach; it's a recognition that until Muscovy began to establish itself and firmly control lands farther afield in the 15th and 16th centuries, the region known today as "European Russia" was chock-full of peoples, tribes and transients. It functioned as a bridge between the Steppe societies of northern Asia and southeastern (continental) Europe. Sorry for the confusion. In the 7th, 8th and 9th centuries this civilizational border was much farther west, resting somewhere along the modern German-Polish border.

 

[aaminion00]

Hey mrtn, look what I found:

http://lexin.nada.kth.se/sve-bos.shtml

 

[mrtn]

Hey mrtn, look what I found:

http://lexin.nada.kth.se/sve-bos.shtml

I'm not surprised; we've a fair number of immigrants/refugees here from all over (former) Yugoslavia. Just look at our football team; Lucic and Ibrahimovic...
That site is for "Swedish for Immigrants" btw.

 

[Squonk]

Dobry Den
Here is an example why Slavia is so unpractical idea, put us together and soon we will start to argue. (plus imperialistic Poles and Russians )

Not to mention those land-greedy Czechs...

Oh, and as far as I know from university lessons,
Slavic languages are much closer to Iranic ones than to Germanic (though Baltic are the closest)
There are some similarities in basic words.
jeden = jek (1)
dwa = do (2)
(dwiescie - dwist) (200)
piec = panc (5)
szesc = szesz (6)
siedem = haft (in old-Polish it was similar) (7)
dziesiec (dycha) = dach (10)

 

[Cimbri]

They came fr outside Europe? Where?

Were the original Slavs non-Indo-European?

I am quite an Indo-European language nerd, but I can’t really answer the question about a ‘Slavic homeland’ I can only present some theories. Interestingly enough, some of those regard the language as in a greater Balto-Slavic sub-group of Proto Indo-European, much like the Indo-Iranian group, before dividing it into Baltic and Slavic respectively.

Moving on,

“East or Southeast of the Germans, South of the Balts, and West of the Iranians”. This is where the Slavic-speakers seem located, pleasantly deep in the colourful sea of Indo-European languages.

And there are plenty of controversial theories regarding ancient Slavs and their exact ‘land of origin’. But in ‘later times’ they seems to have been running about in the Chernyakovo region, where they supposedly adopted a few Iranian (Scythian/Sarmatian) and Germanic (Gothic) loan-words. But the Chernyakovo region seems to have ‘housed’ a lot of different linguistic groups.

As for the Proto-Slavic homeland… Perhaps it is the Przewor culture or the Zarubinets culture, from the 2nd century BC to the 2nd century AD, as suggested (and vigorously defended) by some. But nevertheless, it seems commonly accepted that the concept of a linguistically differentiated Proto-Slavic can be pushed as far back as 2000-1500 BC. And evidently the accepted archeologically representative for this is the Komarov complex in the middle Dnieper – upper Vistula region. However some claim that the northwestern Trzciniec culture was also Proto-Slavic.

 

[Commy]

There are some similarities in basic words.
jeden = jek (1)
dwa = do (2)
(dwiescie - dwist) (200)
piec = panc (5)
szesc = szesz (6)
siedem = haft (in old-Polish it was similar) (7)
dziesiec (dycha) = dach (10)

In Russian:
1=adin
2=dva, 200=dvesti,
5=pyat'
6=shest'
7=sem'
10=dyesyat'
It seems all slavs are brothers

 

[Kosez]

I would just like to point out, that a word slave, came in European languages in middle ages, after the contact with Slavs. Before they were using latin word servus.
And the fact words slave and Slav are similar, comes from the fact, that Slavs were trading with slaves, before they were christianized. Or that is a general understanding of that.

1=ena
2=dva, 200- dvesto
3=tri
4=štiri
5=pet
6=šest
7=sedem
8=osem
9=devet
10=deset

 

[Verbose]

Modern Polish identity has been firmly locked westward and Poles spent most of the 19th and 20th centuries trying desperately to be someone else, just not the Slavs. There was a belief among Polish nationalists c. 1900 that claimed that we were actually descendants of the Iranian Sarmatians, and just became "lightly Slavified" over time by Slavic immigrants. Uh huh. Sarmatian warriors sitting on a white, powerful horse and founding one of the earlier Steppe empires sure sounds a lot more romantic than having ancestors who lived in mud huts and having to learn basic civilizational skills rfom someone else... There's an old English saying; You can choose your friends but not your family.

I've had the impression the 'Sarmatian' myth was originally concocted in the 16th c. or thereabouts as a way for the Polish nobility to widen the gap between themselves — a Sarmatian warrior aristocracy — and their Slavic commoners. I.e. that it was originally a bit of social mythology comparable to their contemporaries among the French nobility who wanted to derive their ancestry from various Germanic sources (Frank and Norman) to set them appart from the common 'Gaul' folk.
Anybody that couldn't directly draw upon the Roman Empire during the Renaissance tended to make up a glorious past: The Swedes claimed to be the nation that spawned the Goths, as per Joardanes' 'Getica', that brought down the Romans. The Germans made a big deal out of Tacitus 'Germanica' and the defeat of Varus' and his legions etc. The English claimed to be one of the lost tribes of Israel. Etc.
Viewed in that light, Polish nobles claiming to be 'Sarmatians' wasn't particularily far out — and they made up some fancy costumes to fit the part. I've seen some of these as part of the trophies collected in war in Stockholm, and they are Amazing; very exotic looking, with huge crests and feathers all over.
Reviving that idea in the 19th c. is far-fetched indeed.

 

[Kosez]

At us, some people are convinced Slovenians aren't Slavs at all, but ancestors of Venetians. They're making really big fuss about it. They're ashamed of their Slavic ancestors, stupids. I'm proud that I'm a Slav. ( though sometimes I wish I wasn't living in this sociologically backwards country filled with stupid conservatives and fundamental catholics, with one and only interest: to have bigger car than neighbours.)

 

[Vrylakas]

I've had the impression the 'Sarmatian' myth was originally concocted in the 16th c. or thereabouts as a way for the Polish nobility to widen the gap between themselves — a Sarmatian warrior aristocracy — and their Slavic commoners. I.e. that it was originally a bit of social mythology comparable to their contemporaries among the French nobility who wanted to derive their ancestry from various Germanic sources (Frank and Norman) to set them appart from the common 'Gaul' folk.
Anybody that couldn't directly draw upon the Roman Empire during the Renaissance tended to make up a glorious past: The Swedes claimed to be the nation that spawned the Goths, as per Joardanes' 'Getica', that brought down the Romans. The Germans made a big deal out of Tacitus 'Germanica' and the defeat of Varus' and his legions etc. The English claimed to be one of the lost tribes of Israel. Etc.
Viewed in that light, Polish nobles claiming to be 'Sarmatians' wasn't particularily far out — and they made up some fancy costumes to fit the part. I've seen some of these as part of the trophies collected in war in Stockholm, and they are Amazing; very exotic looking, with huge crests and feathers all over.
Reviving that idea in the 19th c. is far-fetched indeed.

I'll have to read up to be sure but I'm fairly certain this arose first in the 19th century. 16th century Poles had far less of a sense of nationalism or national culture, so there was less point in their distancing themselves from their Slavic background. The Sarmatians had certainly left some historical footprints in Poland but the 19th century Poles - ruled for the most part by Russians and subjected to Pan-Slavic propaganda from both St. Petersburg and the neighboring Czech lands - were keen to be something else - anything else. The point is there isn't much evidence of such a relationship. In fact, pre-historical archaeoogical evidence suggests the Polish lands have long been associated with, fought against but also received much cultural input from, the Bohemian and Moravian lands south of the Carpathians. If Sarmatians had set up shop in Polish lands, they certainly were not from the more advanced Sarmatian tribes...

There was however a great streak of orientalism in post-Jagiellonian Poland, in which Polish szlachta went through waves of fashions and fads of Asian - Turkish, Persian, Arab, Central Asian, Tartar, Chinese, Egyptian - clothing and architectural styles. There are many stories of Polish delegations showing up in European capitals and shocking the locals by wearing Asian garb. I honestly don't know where this comes from; it seems unique to Poland in the region but to this day Poland's universities always offer courses that study eastern cultures.

 

[Verbose]

There was however a great streak of orientalism in post-Jagiellonian Poland, in which Polish szlachta went through waves of fashions and fads of Asian - Turkish, Persian, Arab, Central Asian, Tartar, Chinese, Egyptian - clothing and architectural styles. There are many stories of Polish delegations showing up in European capitals and shocking the locals by wearing Asian garb. I honestly don't know where this comes from; it seems unique to Poland in the region but to this day Poland's universities always offer courses that study eastern cultures.

I think I'm getting the 'Sarmatian connection' from Neal Asherson's "The Black Sea" and from a Swedish book on the wars in the 1650's, Peter Englund's "Den öovervinnerlige".
Englund makes a point of comparing the Polish nobility — having several centuries of tremendous success behind them, and their own unique fashion as a product of the self-confidence this provided — and the Swedish nobles, slavishly aping the latest Paris fashion, scared to death that anybody will discover they are just jumped up country bumpkins underneath.

 

[BG_Zero]

In Russian:
1=adin
2=dva, 200=dvesti,
5=pyat'
6=shest'
7=sem'
10=dyesyat'
It seems all slavs are brothers

Da indeed in bulgarian:
1-edno
2-dve
3-tri
4-chetiri
5-pet
6-shest
7-sedem ... and so on..In fact bulgarian is the clousest to russian after the ukranian.
Vsicki slaviani sme bratia!

 

[Orthodox Warior]

Da indeed in bulgarian:
1-edno
2-dve
3-tri
4-chetiri
5-pet
6-shest
7-sedem ... and so on..In fact bulgarian is the clousest to russian after the ukranian.
Vsicki slaviani sme bratia!

I was always thinking that Serbian is closest to Russian after Ukrainian. We have about 80% simillar languages. But hey, maybe I was thinking that because I don't speak Bulgarian

Serbian
1-jedan
2-dva
3-tri
4-chetiri
5-pet
6-shest
7-sedam
8-osam
9-devet
10-deset

(sh is in Serbian one character and is writing like this "ш".)
(ch is in Serbian one character and is writing like this "ч".)

 

[Gladi]

Dobry den
Okay here we go too
1- jeden (vulgar Czech- jedna)
2- dva
3- tři
4- čtyři (štyři)
5- pět
6- šest
7- sedm (sedum)
8- osm (osum; especialy vulgar and for most intentionaly- vosum)
9- devět
10- deset

 

[Commy]

(sh is in Serbian one character and is writing like this "ø".)
(ch is in Serbian one character and is writing like this "÷".)

The same in Russian.