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( North Slavic languages)
The term North Slavic languages (or, North Slavonic languages) has three unrelated, mutually exclusive, meanings. It is sometimes used to combine the West Slavic and the East Slavic languages into one group, as opposed to the South Slavic languages (much like South Germanic combining the West and East Germanic branches). This grouping of East and West Slavic as opposed to the South Slavic group does not have any reasonable genetic justification. Since, however, the Southern group was separated from the rest of the Slavic dialects by the Hungarian invasion of the 9th century, the term is widely used by Slavists as a matter of convenience. Some Slavists believe that a separate, now extinct, branch of North Slavic languages once existed, different from both East and West Slavic. The dialect formerly spoken in the vicinity of Novgorod (the so-called Old Novgorod dialect) contains several Proto-Slavic archaisms that did not survive in any other Slavic language, and can in their opinion be considered a remnant of an ancient North Slavic branch. There is also a group of about ten artistic languages forming a fictional North Slavic branch of the Slavic languages. The authors of these languages were inspired by the existence of West, East and South Slavic languages and the absence of a (known) North Slavic group. Most of these languages therefore have an experimental character; they suppose a certain influence of the Germanic, the Finno-Ugric and/or the Baltic languages. Despite the fact that the creators of these languages have worked independently from each other and in different time frames, these languages have several elements in common. The best-known examples of constructed North Slavic languages are Sevorian (Sievrøsku), Nassian (Nassika), Seversk, Slavëni, Vozgian and Novegradian.
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