The Difference Between Slavic and Germanic
Both the words "Slavic" and "Germanic" refer to language and culture families. Slavic refers to a family of languages, including Russian, which are spoken mainly in eastern, central and southern Europe. Germanic refers to the Germanic language family, which originated in central and western Europe and today includes English and German. Both language families are descended from the Indo-European language and both are spoken by millions of people.
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Geographic Distribution of Native Speakers
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Slavic languages are spoken principally in eastern Europe, southern Europe, and north Asia -- especially in Siberia. Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Czech and Serbian are Slavic languages. Germanic languages are also widely distributed and are found on many continents. German, English, Dutch, Swedish and other languages are all considered Germanic. Native English speakers live throughout the world in nations such as Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States and other countries, making it very widely distributed.
Origins and Development
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The Germanic family of languages probably originated in northern Germany and southern Scandinavia. It has since split into two surviving branches. The north Germanic branch includes Scandinavian languages; the western Germanic branch includes English, German, Dutch and other languages. The Slavic languages spread from their probable origins in modern-day Ukraine and southern Russia. They split into western, eastern and southern branches. The southern branch is used in the Balkans and its environs, the western in Poland and other nearby nations, while the eastern is spoken in Russia and neighboring nations.
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Historical Record
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Germanic writing appears in the historical record earlier than Slavic writing. Some Germanic runic writing from the 1st and 2nd centuries A.D. survives. Slavic writing does not appear until hundreds of years later, around the middle of the 9th century A.D. This writing is in Old Church Slavonic, a religious and literary language. In comparison to the Germanic tongues, the very early development of the Slavic family of languages is less well documented.
Alphabet
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While all modern Germanic languages -- including English -- and some Slavic languages are written in a Latin script, many Slavic languages are written in Cyrillic script. Cyrillic script was introduced by the missionaries Cyril and Methodius and looks very different from the Latin script in use in the West. Russia, Bulgaria and some other Slavic countries use a Cyrillic script.
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References
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