West Slavs#Linguistic grouping

{{Main|Early Slavs|Polabian Slavs|Wends}}

File:WalRhad.jpg in Groß Raden]]

File:Slavic tribes in the 7th to 9th century.jpg

In the Early Middle Ages, the name "Wends" (probably derived from the Roman-era Veneti) may have applied to Slavic peoples.{{Cite book|author=Ilya Gavritukhin, Vladimir Petrukhin|title=Slavs|url=https://bigenc.ru/ethnology/text/3625013|publisher=Great Russian Encyclopedia (in 35 vol.) Vol. 30.|date=2015|editor=Yury Osipov|pages=388–389|access-date=2022-08-03|archive-date=2022-08-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220803062631/https://bigenc.ru/ethnology/text/3625013|url-status=dead}} However, sources such as the Chronicle of Fredegar and Paul the Deacon are neither clear nor consistent in their ethnographic terminology, and whether "Wends" or "Veneti" refer to Slavic people, pre-Slavic people, or to a territory rather than a population, is a matter of scholarly debate.{{sfn|Curta|1997|p=141–144, 152–153}}

The early Slavic expansion reached Central Europe in the 7th century, and the West Slavic dialects diverged from common Slavic over the following centuries. The West Slavic tribes settled on the eastern fringes of the Carolingian Empire, along the Limes Saxoniae. Prior to the Magyar invasion of Pannonia in the 890s, the West Slavic polity of Great Moravia spanned much of Central Europe between what is now Eastern Germany and Western Romania. In the high medieval period, the West Slavic tribes were again pushed to the east by the incipient German Ostsiedlung, decisively so following the Wendish Crusade in the 11th century.

The early Slavic expansion began in the 5th century, and by the 6th century the groups that would become the West, East, and South Slavic groups had probably become geographically separated.{{Citation needed|date=June 2022}} One of the distinguishing features of the West Slavic tribes was manifested in the structure of the Pagan sanctuaries of the closed (long) type, while the East Slavic sanctuaries had a round (most often open) shape (see also: Peryn).{{sfn|Sedov|1953|p=94}} Early modern historiographers such as Penzel (1777) and Palacky (1827) have claimed Samo's Empire to be first independent Slavic state in history by taking Fredegar's Wendish account at face value.{{sfn|Curta|1997|p=143}} Curta (1997) argued that the text is not as straightforward: according to Fredegar, Wends were a gens, Sclavini merely a genus, and there was no "Slavic" gens.{{sfn|Curta|1997|p=152–153}} He further states that "Wends occur particularly in political contexts: the Wends, not the Slavs, made Samo their king."{{sfn|Curta|1997|p=152}}

Other such alleged early West Slavic states include the Principality of Moravia (8th century–833), the Principality of Nitra (8th century–833), and Great Moravia (833–c. 907).{{Citation needed|date=August 2022}} Christiansen (1997) identified the following West Slav tribes in the 11th century from "the coastlands and hinterland from the aby of Kiel to the Vistula, including the islands of Fehmarn, Poel, Rügen, Usedom and Wollin", namely the Wagrians, Obodrites (or Abotrites), the Polabians, the Liutizians or Wilzians, the Rugians or Rani, the Sorbs, the Lusatians, the Poles, and the Pomeranians (later divided into Pomerelians and Cassubians).Christiansen, Erik (1997). [https://books.google.com/books?id=a1OWoMo5ZsAC&pg=PT41 The Northern Crusades] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20231006150308/https://books.google.com/books?id=a1OWoMo5ZsAC&pg=PT41#v=onepage&q&f=false |date=2023-10-06 }}. London: Penguin Books. p. 41. {{ISBN|0-14-026653-4}}. They came under the domination of the Holy Roman Empire after the Wendish Crusade{{Citation needed|date=August 2022}} in the Middle Ages and had been strongly assimilated by Germans at the end of the 19th century.{{Citation needed|date=August 2022}} The Polabian language survived until the beginning of the 19th century in what is now the German state of Lower Saxony.{{Cite web |url=http://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-466672/Polabian-language |title=Polabian language |access-date=2009-01-05 |archive-date=2020-02-24 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20200224143516/https://www.britannica.com/eb/topic-466672/Polabian-language |url-status=live }}

{{Wikisourcelang|la|Geographus Bavarus}}

Various attempts have been made to group the West Slavs into subgroups according to various criteria, including geography, historical tribes, and linguistics.

In 845 the Bavarian Geographer made a list of West Slavic tribes who lived in the areas of modern-day Poland, Czech Republic, Germany and Denmark:{{cite journal |author=Krzysztof Tomasz Witczak |title=Poselstwo ruskie w państwie niemieckim w roku 839: Kulisy śledztwa w świetle danych Geografa Bawarskiego |url=https://www.academia.edu/6870884 |year=2013 |journal=Slavia Orientalis |volume=62 |issue=1 |language=pl, en |pages=25–43 |access-date=2017-12-04 |archive-date=2022-03-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220311074113/https://www.academia.edu/6870884 |url-status=live }}

{{further|List of ancient Slavic peoples}}

File:West slavs 9th-10th c..png

• Lechitic groupJerzy Strzelczyk. Bohemia and Poland: two examples of successful western Slavonic state-formation. In: Timothy Reuter ed. The New Cambridge Medieval History: c. 900-c. 1024. Cambridge University Press. 1995. p. 514.
• Poles
• Masovians
• Polans
• Lendians
• Vistulans
• Silesians
• Pomeranians
• Slovincians
• Kashubians
• Polabians
• Obodrites/Abodrites
• Obotrites proper
• Wagrians
• Warnower
• Polabians proper
• Linonen
• Travnjane
• Drevani
• Veleti (Wilzi), succeeded by Lutici (Liutici)
• Kissini (Kessiner, Chizzinen, Kyzziner)
• Circipani (Zirzipanen)
• Tollensians
• Redarier
• Ucri (Ukr(an)i, Ukranen)
• Rani (Rujani)
• Hevelli (Stodorani)
• Volinians (Velunzani)
• Pyritzans (Prissani)
• Czech–Slovak group
• Czechs
• Moravians
• Slovaks
• Sorbian group
• Milceni (Upper Sorbs)
• Lusatian Sorbs (Lower Sorbs)

{{main|West Slavic languages#Classification}}

File:Lenguas eslavas occidentales.PNG

• Lechitic group
• Polans
• Lendians
• Silesians
• Wends
• Sorbs
• Vistulans
• Polabians
• Obodrites
• Slovincians
• Kashubians
• Gorals(Highlanders)
• Czech–Slovak group
• Czechs
• Bohemians
• Moravians
• Slovaks

{{Main|Slavs#Population}}

• Slavic peoples
• List of Slavic studies journals
• Czechization
• Polonization
• Slovakization
• East Slavs
• South Slavs
• Outline of Slavic history and culture

{{reflist}}

• {{cite book |url=https://archive.org/stream/04GolabTheOriginsOfTheSlavs/The%20origins%20of%20the%20Slavs%20a%20linguist%27s%20view_djvu.txt|last=Gołąb|first=Zbigniew|date=1992|title=The Origins of the Slavs: A Linguist's View|pages=12–13|location=Columbus, Ohio|publisher=Slavica Publishers.}}
• {{Cite journal |last=Curta |first=Florin |date=1997 |title=Slavs in Fredegar and Paul the Deacon: medieval gens or 'scourge of God'? |url=https://arheo.ffzg.unizg.hr/ska/tekstovi/fredegar_paul.pdf |journal=Early Medieval Europe |publisher=Blackwell Publishers |volume=6 |issue=2 |pages=141–167 |doi=10.1111/1468-0254.00009 |s2cid=162269231 |access-date=17 August 2022 |quote=While being traditionally regarded, at least in Polish historiography, as forefathers of the western Slavs, and therefore successors of the Veneti mentioned by Pliny, Tacitus, or Claudius Ptolemaeus, recent studies argue that the name may have not been a self-designation. By calling the Slavs 'Wends', German-speaking groups may have alluded to a pre-Slavic population. It is, however, not clear how an ancient terminology came to be used in the case of the early medieval Slavs. (...) [There may be] a meaning behind Fredegar's presumably inconsistent ethnic vocabulary. Perhaps 'Wends' and 'Sclavenes' are meant to denote a specific social and political configuration, in which such concepts as 'state' or 'ethnicity' are relevant, while 'Slavs' is a more general term, used in a territorial rather than an ethnic sense; Samo as a merchant went in Sclauos to do business...}}
• {{Cite book|author=Sergey Skorvid|title=Slavic languages|url=https://bigenc.ru/linguistics/text/3625253|publisher=Great Russian Encyclopedia (in 35 vol.) Vol. 30.|date=2015|editor=Yury Osipov|pages=396–397–389|access-date=2022-08-03|archive-date=2019-09-04|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20190904000000/https://bigenc.ru/linguistics/text/3625253|url-status=dead}}
• {{Cite book|author=Ilya Gavritukhin, Vladimir Petrukhin|title=Slavs|url=https://bigenc.ru/ethnology/text/3625013|publisher=Great Russian Encyclopedia (in 35 vol.) Vol. 30.|date=2015|editor=Yury Osipov|pages=388–389|access-date=2022-08-03|archive-date=2022-08-03|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20220803062631/https://bigenc.ru/ethnology/text/3625013|url-status=dead}}
• {{cite journal|last1=Sedov|first1=Vasili|title=Drevneslavănskoe yazyčeskoe svătilişe v Peryni |journal=Kratkie Soobşeniă Instituta Istorii Materialnoy Kultury|date=1953|issue=50|pages=92–103 |language=ru |url=http://www.russiancity.ru/hbooks/h011.htm}}

{{Slavic ethnic groups}}

{{Authority control}}

*West Slavs