Bosnian

The Bosnians are a South Slavic people of the mountainous middle Danube basin, settled from the sixth and seventh centuries, when Slavic tribes moved into the Roman provinces of Dalmatia and Pannonia and mixed with the romanized population.

In the twelfth century local lords built the Banate of Bosnia around the Bosna valley; under the Kotromanić dynasty it absorbed lands such as Soli, Usora and Zahumlje. Stephen II ruled from 1322 to 1353, and in 1377 Tvrtko I crowned himself king of a Bosnia that stretched to the Adriatic.

Medieval Bosnian society was divided among Catholics, Eastern Orthodox and a native Bosnian Church, whose Krstjani Rome and Constantinople both treated as heretics. The Ottoman conquest of 1463 ended the kingdom, and over following centuries large numbers of Bosnians converted to Islam, giving the region its mix of Muslim, Orthodox and Catholic communities sharing Shtokavian speech.