Slovenes share a common ancestry, culture , history and speak Slovene as their native language. According to ethnic classification based on language , they are closely related to other South Slavic ethnic groups, as well as more distantly to West Slavs. July In the Slovenian national census of , 1,, people ethnically declared themselves as Slovenes, [ 48 ] while 1,, people claimed Slovene as their native language.
The autochthonous Slovene minority in Italy is estimated at 83, to ,, [ 50 ] the Slovene minority in southern Austria at 24,, in Croatia at 13,, and in Hungary at 3, The largest population of Slovenes outside of Slovenia is in Cleveland.
Due to the geographic position of Slovenia, the population is substantially diverse, sharing genes with Italic peoples , Germanic , Slavs and Hungarians. The homogenous genetic strata of the West Slavic populations and the Slovenian population suggest the existence of a common ancestral population in the central European region.
In the autosomal analysis of Slovenian population, the Slovenes clustered with Hungarians and were close to Czechs. In the 6th century AD, Slavic people settled the region between the Alps and the Adriatic Sea in two consecutive migration waves: the first wave came from the Moravian lands around , [ 56 ] [ 57 ] while the second wave, coming from the southeast, moved into the area after the migration of the Lombards to Italy in The tribal union collapsed after Samo's death in , but a smaller Slavic tribal principality, Carantania Slovene : Karantanija , remained, with its centre in the present-day region of Carinthia.
Faced with the pressing danger of Avar tribes from the east, the Carantanians accepted a union with Bavaria in , and later in the 8th century recognized Frankish rule [ citation needed ] and accepted Christianity. Slovene ethnic territory subsequently shrank due to pressure from Germans from the west and the arrival of Hungarians in the Pannonian plain ; it stabilized in its present form in the 15th century. The first mentions of a common Slovene ethnic identity, transcending regional boundaries, date from the 16th century.
