Slavic refers to a large family of related languages spoken across Eastern Europe and parts of Asia, as well as the diverse peoples and cultures connected to these languages. When historians talk about Slavic peoples, they mean groups whose ancestors spoke early versions of these languages and whose cultures share certain historical connections.

The Slavic language family includes Russian, Polish, Czech, Ukrainian, Serbian, Bulgarian, and many others. These languages share common roots, similar to how Spanish, French, and Italian all descended from Latin. A Polish speaker and a Czech speaker can sometimes understand bits of each other's languages because of these shared origins.

Slavic cultures have given the world remarkable contributions: the melodies of Russian classical music, the intricate patterns of Ukrainian folk art, the architectural wonders of Prague's medieval buildings, and countless scientific discoveries and literary works. One of the main alphabets used by Slavic languages such as Russian and Bulgarian is called Cyrillic, named after a medieval scholar who helped develop it.

Today, Slavic languages are spoken by more than 300 million people worldwide. Understanding what Slavic means helps make sense of a large portion of European history, literature, and culture.