freddie ha ha yeah, too similar, see...
Ok, I put those 3 'cause that's what the book said- I will read some more- I had forgotten lot of this (it is amazing how different I see things now, when I am not 15 year old in school having to learn the lesson
)
So the Slavics- they came from the East- settled all over whats today Russia, Ukraine, Belarus (the eastern slavics)... then they kept moving west- all the way to, as you said, Czech, Poland, Slovenia, Slovakia, Serbia, Bulgaria (south slavics) they even made it all the way down to Solun (greece)- the land between 'Carpati', 'dnesar', 'dnepar', the 'danube' (spelling on all of those- sorry, my history is better in Bulgarian). So the slavic moved over to the balkans around 6- 7 century A.C. Those, the slavics, were the
new people in those lands, since there were already people living there. (for example where Bulgaria is now, the local people living there were 'Traki') The local people weren't that many though, and Slavic were a lot. So, in general, they were all one 'narod'- the east slavic or the south slavic- all started migrating from one place. So it is understandable languages are close- of course today there are differences, the contemproary languages are changed a lot from the original 'slavic' language spoken.
Then there was the Byzantine Empire- the East one (with center Constantinople) and the West one (Rome). Slavic people were always fighting with the Emipire- the Empire got them baptised, so they became christians- I am not sure what year exactly, bulgarian slavic were the first ones baptised. Here is where some differences come- The eastern Slavics (Russians, Ukranias, Belarus, ect),Bulgarian Slavic were baptised by the East Byzantian empire, that is why we are Eastern Ortodox, while the rest, like Czech, Slovenian, Croatian, ect were baptised by the West Byzantian Empire, so catholics.
I can say about my country, in 681 it was declared as a state, and the Byzantian Empire recognized it's independance. We got this because the Bulgarian Slavic made coalition with another 'narod', now called proto-bulgarians, who also migrated from East. Both together fought the Byzantians and established a state- so Bulgaria became Bulgaria in 681 A.C. Very early, before any other Slavic in the region had independance.
So in stead of writing more now, here are some links about the Cyrillic alphabet, and also the Glagolitic alphabet (Old Church Slavonic or also called Old Bulgarian) which is the precestor for the Cyrillic alphabet. Cyril and Methodius were two brothers from Solun, one parent was Bulgarian one Greek, they came up with the alphabet so that they can translate the bible and regular people from the villages can understand it, because before that the bible was only in greek or latin.
Glagolitic Alphabet
Cyrillic Alphabet
freddie I will try to explain the 'padezhi' next time since it is more complicated for me.
And also how the Cyrillic alphabet traveled all the way 'up there' to the Ukranians (Kievskaya Russ) and then to Russia.