Slav Civs

[St Leo]

There isn't a so-called "slavic language"

I think he meant it in the sense similar to "romance language" or "germanic language".

This makes sense, as history might tell us that modern Lithuaninans resulted from intermarriage between the native Slavs and invading Teutonic Crusaders and settlers.

I assure you that we Balts split from the Slavs long before the Teutonic Knights conquered the Baltic seaboard.

Lithuania has many slavic members in it.

Had. It conquered Belorus before merging with Poland.

[aaglo]

Originally posted by OneFootInTheGrave


...watch out for Romanian posters.. onslaught is coming...

Yeah, my mistake. I just wasn't thinking clearly. People living in Romania are Romanians, of course. And gypsy is a race (I feel another onslaught incoming... ). But there are a lot of gypsies in Romania, so that got me

I hope I didn't rise anyone's blood pressure with my previous post

[Jacobite1688]

Originally posted by St Leo
There isn't a so-called "slavic language"

I think he meant it in the sense similar to "romance language" or "germanic language".
I assure you that we Balts split from the Slavs long before the Teutonic Knights conquered the Baltic seaboard.

Does anyone know what "Church Slavonic" is? Is this the mother language of St. Cyril's alphabet? As for the origns of the Balts, I am out of my primary fields here and bow to St. Leo's reasonable post.

[Gangerolf]

I think he meant it in the sense similar to "romance language" or "germanic language".

That is exactly what I meant

So Cybergod, what is your definition of Slavic then? You say that Bulgarians are not Slavs, but that their language is related to other Slavic languages?

[redfox74]

So far as I know the Bulgarians are a mix of the Slavs (the bigger part) and of the Protobulgars (Turkic people).

The Protobulgars (nomads from asia) conquered the Slavs and founded Bulgaria in 680.

Bulgarian language is slavonic.

[redfox74]

Lithuanians (and Latvians) are not a mix of Germans and Poles. They are a different indoeuropean group, neither Germanic nor Slavonic.

But their language, culture and also their ethnic composition were influenced by Germans and Slavs.
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BTW, now the Latvian population contains a lot of Russians (40%), but only Latvian is the official language. It is a clear violation of human rights. But nobody from the EU officials wants to notice it.

[Cybergod]

Originally posted by redfox74
So far as I know the Bulgarians are a mix of the Slavs (the bigger part) and of the Protobulgars (Turkic people).

The Protobulgars (nomads from asia) conquered the Slavs and founded Bulgaria in 680.

Bulgarian language is slavonic.

That's strange, since the Slavs only arrived to the Balkans in the 7th centure AD ...

Gangerolf, READ MY POSTS! The languages in Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Poland, etc. evolved from the Greek language which was spead by St. Cyrill and St. Methodius (or something, I fogot ). Yes, they all have the similar sence and meanings but if you ask a, say, Russian something in, say, Serbian, they wouldn't make heads or tales out of it!

[redfox74]

That's strange, since the Slavs only arrived to the Balkans in the 7th centure AD

The Slavs arrived to the Balkans in the beginning of the 6th century, founded their villages in the end of the 6th - beginning of the 7th century. In the middle of this century they founded the Union of the 7 slavonic tribes - the first slavonic "state" on the Balkans.

Protobulgars (nomadic Turkic tribe with good army of horsemen) with their leader Khan Asparukh came in 680, won against a bysantinian army and founded Bulgaria. The Union of the 7 tribes could not stand against the newcomers and accepted their government.

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The languages in Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Poland, etc. evolved from the Greek language which was spead by St. Cyrill and St. Methodius

The languages were there before Cyrill and Methodius. They are really original slavonic and not greek! Cyrill and Methodius translated the bible using the greek alphabet with some new letters they created to match the slavonic sounds. The cyrillic alphabet (NOT the languages) are from the Greeks. BTW, it was not the first alphabet used by Slavs, they used some runes before.

[ranskaldan]

The Bulgars weren't originally Slavs, but after a long period of contact with Slavs they eventually adopted a Slavic language, which evolved into Modern Bulgarian. So Bulgars aren't really Slavic, but they speak a Slavic language.

The Slavic languages did not evolve from Greek! They were completely separate branches of the Indo-European languages. But the Cyrillic alphabet that Russians, Ukrainians etc use was adapted from the Greek alphabet. But that's just the alphabet, not the whole language (vocabulary, grammar, structure etc.)

As for the Lithuanians, they are an entirely separate branch from the Germanic, Slavic etc. The Lithuanian language together with Latvian belong to the Baltic branch, though longterm contact with the Germanics and Slavics have influenced Lithuanian culture and language a lot.

From Encyclopedia.com:
"Slavic languages, also called Slavonic languages, a subfamily of the Indo-European family of languages. Because the Slavic group of languages seems to be closer to the Baltic group than to any other, some scholars combine the two in a Balto-Slavic subfamily of the Indo-European classification. "
and
"The Bulgars appeared on the Middle Volga by the 8th cent. and became known as the Eastern, Volga, or Kama Bulgars. Another branch of the same people moved west into present Bulgaria and merged with the Slavs."

[Martinus]

Originally posted by Cybergod


That's strange, since the Slavs only arrived to the Balkans in the 7th centure AD ...

Gangerolf, READ MY POSTS! The languages in Russia, Bulgaria, Serbia, Poland, etc. evolved from the Greek language which was spead by St. Cyrill and St. Methodius (or something, I fogot ). Yes, they all have the similar sence and meanings but if you ask a, say, Russian something in, say, Serbian, they wouldn't make heads or tales out of it!

Also, Cyrill and Methodius did not make it to every Slavic nation. The fact is neither Poland nor Bohemia uses the Cyrillic alphabet but the Latin one. There was never any Greek influence in both countries neither - Christianity was adopted from Germany, not Byzantium.

[St Leo]

BTW, now the Latvian population contains a lot of Russians (40%), but only Latvian is the official language. It is a clear violation of human rights. But nobody from the EU officials wants to notice it.

That's either a form of revenge for not making Latvian co-official until 1989 or a questionable way of discouraging Russian imperialism. Nowadays, I reside and Canada having emigrated from Latvia @ 11 so I don't have any more insight into the issue.

[ranskaldan]

The Polish and Czechs got Christianity from western Europe, thus they are Catholic and use the Roman Alphabet. The Russians and Serbs got Christianity from the Byzantines, thus they are Orthodox and use the Cyrillic Alphabet. But the languages themselves are Slavic, it's just the way it's written (the alphabet) that was linked to religion (Catholic or Orthodox).

[Inverse Icarus]

POLAND IS TOP 16 IMPORTANT. ARE YOU INSANE?

Poland participated in almost every large scale European war.

sure, they may have gotten beat during most of them, but they were still there fighting.

again, props to the Polskas

[Imran Siddiqui]

Yes, Poland deserves to be in the 16 civs for a scenario. Especially one for the 1500s. Poland-Lithuania was the largest nation in Europe at the time.

[Cybergod]

**Looks at the posts and wonders how little he knew about his ethnic background**

"D'oh!"

Anyway, I don't understand either why Poland wasn't chosen to be in Civ3. OH well, I guess Firaxis wasn't so fond of the Poles