The Slavic south in time and space

The author discusses some social/ethnological characteristics of the Slavic South as opposed to the Slavic North: 1. the influence of the multicultural and multilingual environment on the direction, scope and pace of grammaticalization processes, 2. the character, phases and results of the first Slavic standardization with the church, and not the state, as the controlling power, 3. the influence of the absence of state administration based on the local language and local customs on the growth of local patriotism and the emergence of the so-called „little motherlands,“ 4. a late standardization of national languages and, in consequence, an accelerated development of the local variants of the „science of language“ and its reflection on all levels of education.