Languages and dialects spoken in the Serbian province of Vojvodina include South Slavic languages (Serbian, Croatian, Bunjevac dialect, Macedonian), West Slavic languages (Slovak), East Slavic languages (Rusyn), Hungarian, Romanian, Romani, and others.
It is unknown which languages were spoken in the territory of present-day Vojvodina in paleolithic and neolithic times. First speakers of Indo-European languages arrived here in 4200 BC and since the first written traces about this region appeared, there are records about speakers of various Indo-European languages that lived in this area, including speakers of Thracian, Illyrian, Celtic, Iranian and Italic branches of Indo-European language family. The decline and fall of the Roman Empire brought to this area speakers of Turkic and Germanic languages as well. Speakers of South Slavic languages settled in the area in the 6th century, while speakers of Hungarian appeared in the 9th century. Ottoman conquest of the region in the 16th century brought to this area speakers of Turkish, Romani, and other languages, while Habsburg conquest in the end of the 17th and first half of the 18th century brought here the speakers of German, Slovak, Rusyn, Czech, Ukrainian and other languages. In recent years, there is an increasing number of speakers of Chinese language as well.
According to the 2011 census, main languages spoken in Vojvodina were:
Besides Serbian, which is the official language in the whole country, there are five regional languages in the official use by the provincial administration in Vojvodina: Hungarian, Romanian, Slovak, Rusyn, and Croatian. The Serbian language is used in all municipality governments, while minority languages are used in selected municipality governments. The Serbian language with Cyrillic script is in official use in all 45 municipalities of Vojvodina. The Hungarian language is in official use in 29 municipalities, Slovak in 12, Romanian in 9, Rusyn in 6, and Croatian and Czech in 1 municipality each (however, the Czech language is not official at provincial level).
Radio Television of Vojvodina, the public broadcaster in the province, broadcasts programme in 10 languages: Serbian, Hungarian, Slovak, Rusyn, Romanian, Bunjevac dialect, Ukrainian, Romani, Croatian, and Macedonian. Certain TV shows are also translated into Sign language.
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples or their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the Early Middle Ages, which in turn is thought to have descended from the earlier Proto-Balto-Slavic language, linking the Slavic languages to the Baltic languages in a Balto-Slavic group within the Indo-European family.
Slovak is a West Slavic language of the Czech–Slovak group, written in Latin script. It is part of the Indo-European language family, and is one of the Slavic languages, which are part of the larger Balto-Slavic branch. Spoken by approximately 5 million people as a native language, primarily ethnic Slovaks, it serves as the official language of Slovakia and one of the 24 official languages of the European Union.
Romani is an Indo-Aryan macrolanguage of the Romani communities. According to Ethnologue, seven varieties of Romani are divergent enough to be considered languages of their own. The largest of these are Vlax Romani, Balkan Romani (600,000), and Sinte Romani (300,000). Some Romani communities speak mixed languages based on the surrounding language with retained Romani-derived vocabulary – these are known by linguists as Para-Romani varieties, rather than dialects of the Romani language itself.
Rusyn, also known by the older term, руснацькый язык, rusnac'kyj jazyk, 'Rusnak language', is an East Slavic language spoken by Rusyns in several parts of Central and Eastern Europe, and written in the Cyrillic script. The majority of speakers live in an area that spans from Transcarpathia, westward into eastern Slovakia and south-east Poland. There is also a sizeable linguistic island in the Vojvodina, Serbia and a Rusyn diaspora throughout the world. Per the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, Rusyn is officially recognized as a protected minority language by Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Hungary, Romania, Poland, Serbia, and Slovakia.
Vojvodina, officially the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina, is an autonomous province that occupies the northernmost part of Serbia. It lies within the Pannonian Basin, bordered to the south by the national capital Belgrade and the Sava and Danube Rivers. The administrative center, Novi Sad, is the second-largest city in Serbia.
The West Bačka District is one of seven administrative districts of the autonomous province of Vojvodina, Serbia. It lies in the geographical region of Bačka. It has a population of 188,087 inhabitants. The administrative seat of the district is the city of Sombor.
The South Slavic languages are one of three branches of the Slavic languages. There are approximately 30 million speakers, mainly in the Balkans. These are separated geographically from speakers of the other two Slavic branches by a belt of German, Hungarian and Romanian speakers. The first South Slavic language to be written was the variety of the Eastern South Slavic spoken in Thessaloniki, now called Old Church Slavonic, in the ninth century. It is retained as a liturgical language in Slavic Orthodox churches in the form of various local Church Slavonic traditions.
Vojvodina's demographic history reflects its rich history and its former location at the border of the Ottoman and Habsburg empires and at the confluence of various peoples, making it a hotbed of invasion, colonization, and assimilation processes. Currently there are more than 25 ethnic groups living in Vojvodina and six official languages.
Vojvodina is a province in Republic of Serbia and one of the most ethnically diverse regions in Europe, home to 25 different ethnicities.
The dominant religion in Vojvodina is Orthodox Christianity, mainly represented by the Serbian Orthodox Church, while other important religions of the region are Catholic Christianity, Protestant Christianity, Islam, and Judaism.
Yugoslavian languages or languages of Yugoslavia are the languages spoken in the former Yugoslav states. They are mainly Indo-European languages and dialects, namely dominant South Slavic varieties as well as Albanian, Aromanian, Bulgarian, Czech, German, Italian, Venetian, Balkan Romani, Romanian, Rusyn, Slovak and Ukrainian languages. There are also pockets where non-Indo-European languages such as Hungarian, Turkish, etc. varieties are spoken.
Serbia has only one nationwide official language, which is Serbian. Other languages spoken in Serbia include Hungarian, Bosnian, Romani, Slovak, Albanian, Romanian, Croatian, Bulgarian, Macedonian, Rusyn, etc.
The languages spoken in Hungary include Hungarian, recognized minority languages and other languages.
This article is about demographic history of Subotica.
The official language of North Macedonia is Macedonian, while Albanian has co-official status. Macedonian is spoken by roughly two-thirds of the population natively, and as a second language by much of the rest of the population. Albanian is the largest minority language. There are a further five national minority languages: Turkish, Romani, Serbian, Bosnian, and Aromanian. The Macedonian Sign Language is the country's official sign language.
This is demographic history of Bačka. This article contains data from various population censuses conducted in the region of Bačka during the history. Censuses from 1715 to 1910 contain data about population of the entire Bačka, while censuses from 1921 to 2002 contain data about population of the Yugoslav/Serbian part of Bačka.
Slavic microlanguages are literary linguistic varieties that exist alongside the better-known Slavic languages of historically prominent nations. Aleksandr Dulichenko coined the term "(literary) microlanguages" at the end of the 1970s; it subsequently became a standard term in Slavistics.
Pannonian Rusyn, also historically referred to as Yugoslav Rusyn, is a variety of the Rusyn language, spoken by the Pannonian Rusyns, primarily in the regions of Vojvodina and Slavonia, and also in Pannonian Rusyn diaspora in the United States and Canada. Since Rusyns are officially recognized as a national minority both in Serbia and Croatia, their language is also recognized as a minority language, and in the Autonomous Province of Vojvodina (Serbia) it is employed as one of six official provincial languages.
The Constitution of Croatia in its preamble defines Croatia as a nation state of ethnic Croats, a country of traditionally present communities that the constitution recognizes as national minorities and a country of all its citizens. National minorities explicitly enumerated and recognized in the Constitution are Serbs, Czechs, Slovaks, Italians, Hungarians, Jews, Germans, Austrians, Ukrainians, Rusyns, Bosniaks, Slovenes, Montenegrins, Macedonians, Russians, Bulgarians, Poles, Romani, Romanians, Istro-Romanians ("Vlachs"), Turks and Albanians. Article 12 of the constitution states that the official language in Croatia is Croatian, but also states that in some local governments another language and Cyrillic or some other script can be introduced in official use. Croatia recognises the following languages: Albanian, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Czech, German, Hebrew, Hungarian, Macedonian, Montenegrin, Polish, Romani, Romanian, Russian, Rusyn, Serbian, Slovak, Slovenian, Turkish and Ukrainian.
The various regional and minority languages in Europe encompass four categories: