Slavs are the largest European ethnolinguistic group. They speak the various Slavic languages, belonging to the larger Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European languages. Slavs are geographically distributed throughout northern Eurasia, mainly inhabiting Central and Eastern Europe, and the Balkans ; and Siberia to the east. A large Slavic minority is also scattered across the Baltic states and Central Asia, while a substantial Slavic diaspora is found throughout the Americas, as a result of immigration. Present-day Slavs are classified into East Slavs (chiefly Belarusians, Russians, Rusyns, and Ukrainians), West Slavs (chiefly Czechs, Kashubians, Poles, Slovaks and Sorbs) and South Slavs (chiefly Bosniaks, Bulgarians, Croats, Macedonians, Montenegrins, Serbs and Slovenes). The vast majority of Slavs are traditionally Christians. However, modern Slavic nations and ethnic groups are considerably diverse both genetically and culturally, and relations between them – even within the individual groups – range from "ethnic solidarity to mutual feelings of hostility". Ethnonym The oldest mention of the Slavic ethnonym is from the 6th century AD, when Procopius, writing in Byzantine Greek, used various forms such as Sklaboi (), Sklabēnoi (), Sklauenoi (), Sthlabenoi (), or Sklabinoi (), and his contemporary Jordanes refers to the in Latin. The oldest documents written in Old Church Slavonic, dating from the 9th century, attest the autonym as Slověne (). Those forms point back to a Slavic autonym, which can be reconstructed in Proto-Slavic as , plural Slověne. The reconstructed autonym is usually considered a derivation from slovo ("word"), originally denoting "people who speak (the same language)", meaning "people who understand one another", in contrast to the Slavic word denoting "German people", namely , meaning "silent, mute people" (from Slavic "mute, mumbling"). The word slovo ("word") and the related slava ("glory, fame") and ("hearing") originate from the Proto-Indo-European root ("be spoken of, glory"), cognate with Ancient Greek ( "fame"), as in the name Pericles, Latin ("be called"), and English . In medieval and early modern sources written in Latin, Slavs are most commonly referred to as Sclaveni or the shortened version Sclavi. History Origins First mentions Ancient Roman sources refer to the Early Slavic peoples as Veneti, who dwelt in a region of central Europe east of the Germanic tribe of Suebi, and west of the Iranian Sarmatians in the 1st and 2nd centuries AD, between the upper Vistula and Dnieper rivers. The Slavs under name of the Antes and the Sclaveni first appear in Byzantine