Baltic languages
The
Baltic languages are a group of related languages belonging to the
Indo-European language family and spoken mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the
Baltic Sea in
Northern Europe. The language group is sometimes divided into two sub-groups:
Western Baltic, containing only extinct languages, and
Eastern Baltic, containing both extinct and the two living languages in the group:
Lithuanian and
Latvian (including both literary Latvian and
Latgalian). While related, Lithuanian, Latvian, and particularly the Old Prussian vocabularies differ substantially from each other and are not mutually intelligible. The now extinct Old Prussian language has been considered the most archaic of the Baltic languages.
Western Baltic languages*
Galindan â€
*
Old Prussian â€
*
Sudovian (
Yotvingian) â€
Eastern Baltic languages*
Curonian (nearly extinct) â€"
sometimes considered Western Baltic.*
Latvian (~1,6 million speakers)
**
Latgalian (150 thousand speakers) â€"
usually considered a dialect of Latvian*
Lithuanian (~3,9 million speakers)
**
Samogitian â€"
usually considered a dialect of Lithuanian*
Selonian â€
*
Semigallian â€
(â€
â€"Extinct language)Speakers of modern Baltic languages
[Though included among the Baltic states, the language of Estonia (the Estonian language) is a Finno-Ugric language and is not related to the Baltic languages, which are Indo-European.] are generally concentrated within the borders of
Lithuania and
Latvia, and in emigrant communities in the
United States,
Canada,
Australia and former
Soviet states. Historically the languages were spoken over a larger area: West to the mouth of the
Vistula river in present-day
Poland, at least as far East as the
Dniepr river in present-day
Belarus, perhaps even to
Moscow, perhaps as far South as
Kiev. Key evidence of Baltic language presence in these regions is found in hydronyms (names of bodies of water) in the regions that are characteristically Baltic. Use of hydronyms is generally accepted to determine the extent of these cultures' influence, but
not the date of such influence. Historical expansion of the usage of
Slavic languages in the South and East, and
Germanic languages in the West reduced the geographic distribution of Baltic languages to a fraction of the area which they had formerly covered.
According to one theory, the Indo-European tribes speaking the dialects that would become the Baltic languages probably settled in the area South of the Baltic coast in about the 13th Century B.C. and later migrated towards the coast where they met an indigenous population of subsistence fishermen and farmers speaking a proto-
Finnic language. This indigenous population is believed to have assimilated to varying degrees with the
Baltic peoples. Divergence of the dialects into distinct languages probably occurred in the 1st millennium A.D.
Although the various Baltic tribes were mentioned by ancient historians as early as 98 B.C., The first attestation of a Baltic language was in about 1350, with the creation of the
Elbing Prussian Vocabulary, a German to Prussian translation dictionary. Lithuanian was first attested in a hymnal translation in
1545; the first printed book in Lithuanian, a
Catechism by
Martynas Mažvydas was published in
1547. Latvian appeared in a hymnal in
1530 and in a printed Catechism in
1585. One reason for the late attestation is that the Baltic peoples resisted
Christianization longer than any other Europeans, which delayed the introduction of writing and isolated their languages from outside influence.
With the establishment of a
German state in Prussia, and the relocation of much of the Baltic Prussian population in the 13th century, Prussians began to be assimilated, and by the end of the 17th century, the Prussian language had become extinct.
During the years of the
Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth (
1569-
1795), official documents were written in
Polish,
Ruthenian and
Latin, with Lithuanian being mostly an oral language of commoners.
After the
Partitions of Poland, much of the Baltic lands were under the rule of the
Russian Empire, where the native languages were sometimes prohibited from being written down, or used publicly.
The Baltic languages are of particular interest to linguists because they retain many archaic features, which are believed to have been present in the early stages of the
Proto-Indo-European language.
Linguists disagree regarding the relationship of the Baltic languages to other languages in the Indo-European family. Such relationships are discerned primarily by the
Comparative method, which seeks to reconstruct the
chronology of the languages' divergence from each other in
phonology and
lexicon. Language kinship is generally determined by the identification of linguistic innovations that are held in common by two languages or groups.
Several of the extinct Baltic languages have a limited or nonexistent written record, their existence being known only from the records of ancient historians and personal or place names; all of the languages in the Baltic group (including the living ones) were first written down relatively late in their probable existence as distinct languages. These two factors combined with others have obscured the history of the Baltic languages, leading to a number of theories regarding their position in the Indo-European family.
Most linguists believe that the Baltic languages diverged from Proto-Indo-European separately from other language groups.
According to most scientists, the Baltic languages show closest relationship with the Slavic languages. Opinions vary, however, as to whether this relation is a result of a common ancestry or merely of geographic proximity.
Close relationships have also been posited between the Baltic languages and geographically-distant Indo-European languages and groups such as
Albanian,
Dacian (and Moesian), and
Thracian.
More recently, it has been suggested that the Baltic language group is itself an inappropriate grouping and that the West Baltic and East Baltic groups have differing lineages that converged later in their existences.
*
Historical linguistics*
Language families and languages*
Baltic peoples*
Balto-Slavic languages*
Ethnologue Report on Baltic languages* Joseph Pashka,
Proto Baltic and Baltic languages (1994)
*
Lituanus Linguistics Index (1955-2004) provides a number of articles on modern and archaic Baltic languages.
* Mallory, J.P. (1991).
In Search of the Indo-Europeans: Language, Archaeology and Myth. New York: Thames and Hudson Ltd. ISBN 0-500-27616-1
