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“ | The East-West-Prussian native speakers were for the most part expelled and deported by Soviet conquerors between 1945-49. That language therefore greatly suffered over the last 50 years due to the refugee/deportee survivors living in many scattered places. | ” |
What native speakers? Old Prussian became extinct by the end of 17th century! I think the facts quoted have nothing to do with the language. History of Prussians is for another article...
“ | But a large part of the language was retained in Ostpreussisch-EastPrussian German dialects | ” |
Any proofs? Links? Sources? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vassili Nikolaev ( talk • contribs) 23:50, 26 June 2003
What is meant, saying "the Balts did not use writing until fairly recently ?" Lithuanians used written language before the Christianizing rarely. If someone said they didn't used at all, it were quite the truth. It was a cultural tradition, for all their neighbors used written language more often at this time, and this kind of language was doubtless known for Lithuanians. But from the times of Christianizing , it was used. It was used more and more, and breaking the tradition, in the end of XIX century Lithuanians became a nation with quite big census of literacy (more than 60%. I don't have precise data currently). Printed books in Lithuanian appeared first time about one hundred years later, they did in the Europe at all. Do you mean it "recently"? The same is with Latvians, here only the dates differ a bit.
Prussian or Old-Prussian language dropped out in about the beginning of XVII century. Later German, Lithuanian (in the north part) and Polish (in the south-east part) languages were used in Prussia only, until 1944.
user: LinasLit —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
212.59.14.50 (
talk •
contribs) 10:46, 11 January 2004
Before the first conquest attempts a thousand years ago...
Was that really so? 1009 A.D. first mentioning of Lithuania in written sources, and border conflicts with slavic people is all i know from that period. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vytautas ( talk • contribs) 14:58, 29 June 2004
Muonium777 ( talk) 13:03, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
The opinion of some linguists is that there the Latvians and Lithuanian were initially two distinct Indo-European groups, due to the fact that there are many differences (phonetical/structural) between the archaic Latvian and Lithuanian, and they created a "language union" ( sprachbound) by living as neighbours for hundreds/thousands of years (that would explain the common features).
I won't change anything, as I am not a linguist, nor have enough knowledge in Baltic languages, but I just read a pretty convincing article on this on www.lituanus.org (I can't find the exact link at the moment) Bogdan | Talk 12:07, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I also agree that it's nonsense that Latvian and Lithuanian made the "union". They are *far too similar* to be a mash-up. An intelligent Lithuanian can open a Latvian book and do a good job of reading/puzzling thier way through it; latvian is lithuanian, but without the vowels, in a U CN RD THS sort of way. p.s. the link http://www.suduva.com/virdainas/proto.htm says nothing about such a union, and in fact recounts the more-or-less commonly accepted, mainstream theories. Anyway,a citation would be needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.100.217.179 ( talk • contribs) 08:27, 30 December 2004
The unsupported claim "closely related to Slavic" is dubious, and should be edited away. See for example, Harvey E. Mayer Was Slavic a Prussian Dialect? Lituanus, (1987) who replies in the negative.
See also: Harvey E. Mayer Tokharian and Baltic versus Slavic and Albanian Lituanus, (1991)
and Petras Klimas Baltic and Slavic Revisited Lituanus, (1973) for a review of the points of debate, and a listing of the scholars and their positions.
Basically, current scholarship indicates that "Balto-Germanic" might be the more accurate name for the language group.
Note also http://www.lituanus.org/IndexLanguage.htm Lituanus is a forum for articles dealing with the linguistics of the Slavic and Baltic languages; note however, that many current theories are hotly debated, and there is no small amount of nationalistic pride involved, which can color the presentation.
See also http://www.suduva.com/virdainas/pie.htm for a reference to the supra-archaic nature of Lithuanian (at bottom of article). User:Linas Dec 2004 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Linas ( talk • contribs) 18:12, 30 December 2004
There are as many or more linguistic correspondences between Germanic and Baltic as there are between Slavic and Baltic, yet we do not speak of a Balto-Germanic, or Germano-Baltic grouping, because the correspondences are not enough to warrant it. Neither are the correspondences between the Baltic and Slavic groups enough to warrant any (as yet) mythical grouping. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:6C44:E7F:E25F:E4EB:D62D:CE67:CAE4 ( talk) 14:02, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
I am attempting a rework of this article in Baltic languages/temp. My first edit should appear there shortly, and I'll look for input then. -- Theodore Kloba 18:35, 2005 Jan 3 (UTC)
I think this page should be listed in both Category:Baltic languages and Category:Indo-European languages, especially since some linguists believe the Baltic group is not appropriate to begin with. -- Theodore Kloba 15:12, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
A deletion discussion is taking place for a related article linked from this one:
Upon closer observation one detects several obvious errors in the map supplied with this article. Firstly, "Finnish" should read "Finnic". Secondly, the area where one of the Finnic languages - Livonian - was spoken by the Livonians in the 11th-12th century extended along the eastern coast of the Gulf of Riga (roughly from modern border of Estonia) down all the way to at least the Daugava river (later city of Riga, and possibly beyond); which is quite well documented in the 13th c. chronicles. That area should be clearly marked white, at least 30-50km wide. The chronicles also mention the now extinct tribe of "Wends" who then resided around what is now Cesis (Wenden) in northern-ish Latvia. The Wends, at least by contemporary chroniclers, were considered an entity separate and different from Latgals, and as far as I know, no evidence has been found yet about whether the language they spoke was Finnic or Baltic. So perhaps a bit of grey colour in that area of the map would be in order. As the map itself lacks source information (and risks deletion) as of now, perhaps someone (say from Latvia, with a better grasp of local history) can find a better map from another source or, alternatively, redraw and correct the obvious errors in the current one? The source can then be cited as IMIU (I Made It Up:) Cheers, -- 3 Löwi 13:16, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
I foun this map - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Balt_vietovard.png but I can't place it in article for some reason or maybe pictures from commons doesn't show up in preview ? -- Xil/ talk 14:08, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, for remark and undo - (cur) (last) 12:17, 17 July 2007 Dbachmann (Talk | contribs) (9,796 bytes) (rv. PCT may be "modern", but nobody believes in it. This article isn't about neolithic culture of the Baltics.) (undo), I really made mistake, not mentioning, that by scientific research (habil dr. Algirdas Girininkas, former chief of department at institute of Academy of Sciences) comparing the long sequence of Baltic sea cost cultures there was prooved not disrupted continuity of those cultures starting from the very beginning, so it was concluded that language developed continuously too. The oldest layer of Finnish is Baltic...Some very old loans from Basque (sea...) are detected in Baltic and Lithuanian too. Baltic verb system is much more close to German than Slavic. Baltic suffered these influences - protoSlavic-German, and later Finnish. Slavic - much more. Baltic languages are the most conservative and archaic ide languages, so let for us to explain to the people about our roots. One of the scientists who develops this theory is Prehistorian Marcel Otte (world known, famous and evaluated to be leader) from Université de Liege. So, the question is not "nobody believes it" but how scientificaly and logicaly it was created by the team ttp://www.continuitas.com/workgroup.html. colin renfrew stresse in 1997 - As I was saying earlier, the real problem is the interface between these three fields of archeology or culture-history, genetics, and historical linguistics. And nobody's a master of all these fields, so I don't feel too diffident; one's always an amateur if you're going between them. . So complex view describing languges origin problems is necessary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.62.22.250 ( talk • contribs) 14:54, 17 July 2007
This is nonsence, becouse of much earlier baltic tribes Bronze age beginning at the coast of Baltic sea than 13th Century B.C.!!! 78.62.22.250 08:20, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Hi, the text in the history/prehistory section seems highly implausible to me. Apart from being written in poor English, which makes it very hard to read, it clearly contains pseudoscientific claims. It is utterly impossible that Baltic speakers arrived at 8000 BC, when the IE languages probably didn't exist yet. This reads a like an attempt to make the Baltic languages seem as distinct as possible form the Slavic languages group, in order to eliminate the concept of a Baltic-Slavic group, advocated by Soviet scientists with an equally political agenda. Steinbach (fka Caesarion) 14:02, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
I want to see an original quote from presented sources, which supported thesis, that According to most linguists citation needed, the Baltic languages show.... Thanks. M.K. ( talk) 13:47, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
I have found similar issues (possible original research and a lack of NPOV) also in other Baltic-related articles: Balto-Slavic and Indo-European languages. See Talk:Balto-Slavic_languages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gotho-Baltic ( talk • contribs) 11:27, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
The ridiculous lie that before proto-Baltic and proto-Slavic languages there was a proto-Balto-Slavic is just unbelievably insulting and untrue. There was a proto-Balto-Slavo-Germano-Celto-Romano-etc. language, which is proto-Indo-European, but if Baltic really was one with another language group, it is likely that Baltic was in the same group with Germanic, Celtic, or Romance. Germanic, because the grammar is similar and some words are interesting, such as Leute means People in German, Lietuva means Lithuania in Lithuanian, and also Volk means People means Vokietija is Germany in Lithuania. Celtic, because Tacitus said that the languages of the Aestii resembled the ones of Britain. Romance because of the similarities between Lithuanian and Latin. Due to the history of the two remaining Baltic countries, Lithuania and Latvia, who have been in many unions, wars and overall, a lot of contact with Slavs, this is where a lot of similarities come from. Rather than the languages splitting to differ, they became more alike as the time passed, due to these countries constantly being under control or united with Russia, Poland, and Ruthenia(Belarus and Ukraine). There barely, if any, Baltic linguists that will ever accept the theory of Balto-Slavic, because everyone knows the very few similarities are due to history and contact, not a common ancestor. It is also disrespectful to group the two together, due to a theory. Looking at the Indo-European Languages page [1], Balto-Slavic is written as one thing, however, it is untrue, and therefore should be separated, because the Balto-Slavic theory is unproven, and it never will be, because it is false, likely due to Soviet propaganda as well, making the world think that Balts are the same thing as Slavs, and that's the attitude many linguists seem to take. Almost every Slav agrees with the theory, yet almost every Balt opposes it. Due to the fact it is a very unconvincing theory, someone that monitors Wikipedia, would you please change the articles and make it right? Balto-Slavic never existed, except for when proto-Indo-European was around, and that's when they split, just like Germanic, Romance, Celtic, Hellenic, and the rest of the Indo-European languages. Baltic is no closer to Slavic than Celtic, Romance, Germanic, Albanian, or any other Indo-European language group is. 173.72.35.239 ( talk) 00:40, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
Muonium777 ( talk) 13:06, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
What is most hilarious, is that its mostly western scholars and communists that try to pair Baltic and Slavic languages in the same family, I have yet to hear anyone in either Latvia or Russia to publicly try to make a claim that Russian and Latvian have similar roots. Nobody would make that claim, because its obviously laughable and they would be ridiculed to no end for it. Why? Because most Latvians know Russian and most Russians living in Latvia know Latvian, which means that practically everyone, from personal experience, knows Russian and Latvian are about as similar as Greek and English.
What to do with new-prussian? it is an unquestionable fact that the reconstructed language is in everyday use for long time now... internet is full with sites where people speak prussian. About the clasification - it is west baltic, and it is comprehensible with language written in catechisms. the NEW part is - only words who simply are neaded in 21 century, and many prusianised internationalisms. there is no words who are simply somehow "maded", it is a high level scientific fake. for example - if the same root of the word exists in latvian lithuanian - and slavic languages - simply it also has to be in prussian. so - yes i think there should be written one more language. New-Prussian, next to old-prussian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.246.141.190 ( talk) 15:15, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Whether as a part of Balto-Slavic or not, Baltic is nearly universally accepted as a valid clade within Indo-European. Fortson (2010, Indo-European Language and Culture), Mallory & Adams (2006, The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World), Szemerényi (1990, Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics), Beekes (1995, Comparative Indo-European Linguistics), Schmalsteig (1998, "The Baltic Languages," The Indo-European Languages, ed. Ramat & Ramat), Clackson (2007, Indo-European Linguistics), Baldi (1983, An Introduction to the Indo-European Languages), etc. all treat Baltic as a single clade either within Balto-Slavic or as an independent node of Indo-European. The statement that the majority of linguists reject Baltic as a clade is patently false since not a single one of these current Indo-European works takes that position. -- Taivo ( talk) 12:11, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
The unsourced stuff Ivan added - e.g. “ Most linguists agree however that the Baltic languages do not represent a genetic node in the Indo-European family. There are virtually no non-trivial isoglosses that connect the Baltic languages to Proto-Indo-European and leave the Slavic languages aside” - as it stands is nothing more than WP:SYNTH and OR. If the Baltic languages node were an invalid group, Ivan wouldn't have trouble to pointing out a source that would summarize various positions and draw that conclusion (rather than trying to discard one by one the sources presented by another user above). Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 15:55, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
I reverted a change indicating "baltic" group of IE instead of balto-slavic. I also reworded the section on subgrouping that made reference to Mallory and Adams since it is impossible to read their articles on baltic resp. slavic and still maintain that their view is that Balto-slavic as a linguistic subgroup does not have value. I do not doubt that someone will not agree with my edits, so I humbly ask anyone with a differing view to provide sufficiently recent (the 50's or 80's will not do since a lot of work has been done since then and a scholarly concensus has been reached, as you can see in any standard work from the past 15 years) sources, that also take into consideration the established common innovations and explains why they are not valid.
As a reminder to everyone reading the work of Mallory: linguistics and archaeology are quite different disciplines. His work is interesting because he tries to combine them into a single narrative. That is truly remarkable work, but not always conclusive or coherent. There are many uncertainties that stem from the gaps in both disciplines and even worse: established data that points in totally different directions. This wikipedia article, however, is solely regarding the linguistic aspects based on linguistic data, not the analysis of pottery and burial customs. Amilah ( talk) 00:21, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
The view that Baltic forms a family seperate from Slavic is a minority view promoted solely by Lithuanian and Latvian linguists out of nationalistic sentiment. The validity of the Balto-Slavic family is supported by vitually every other source, as given in the sources at the end of the "Relationship with other Indo-European languages". Overstatin support for the "Baltic alone" theory, while relegation the "Balto-Slavic theory" to an afterthought, is POV. Unbiased sources are need to prove that the "Baltic alone" theory has any substantial and significant support, especially outside of the Baltic countries. Dominus Vobisdu ( talk) 14:05, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
Someone just added "& Finnic" to the title of this subsection, then after the first sentence added the text 25 years later this opinion was contrasted by genetic linguists who reported a strong connection between Finnic & Baltic.[7], this opinion is supported by the high frequency of N1c1 a haplogroup thats dominant amongst Finnic speakers reaching frequencies of approximately 60% among Finns and approximately 40% among Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians.[8][9]
25 years later than what? What opinion was contrasted? Finnic & Baltic what? If Finnic & Baltic speakers, then say so. The apostrophe is missing in "thats" only I don't want to correct it as someone may want to revert the whole thing. And finally, it's a well-known fact that Baltic and Finnic speaking peoples have been neighbors for thousands of years, with evidence of continual borrowing from each other's languages. That there should also be intermarriage should come as no surprise. After all, this is what happened with Uralic and Altaic. One suggestion: discussion of Baltic's relation to Finnic should maybe go in a separate subsection. Zyxwv99 ( talk) 18:51, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
This article mentions that the group has several archaic features of Indo-European languages. Which ones are these? -- Caiilajoe ( talk) 16:20, 23 March 2013 (UTC) Caii
There is no such thing as 'Proto-Balto-Slavic'. It's really surprising that someone who describes himself as a trained linguist would say such a thing. Latvian and Russian are not related, just a lot of Russian people live in Latvia and they have boarders and some connections, maybe some influence on their language, but the reason for this is obviously geography. Latvian is only related to Lithuanian nowadays. And the German reference in the previous post was just an example I believe. 78.61.79.213 ( talk) 17:50, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
We could also just say Baltic is a branch of Indo-European, since that's a more agnostic way of stating the majority Balto-Slavic POV. Apparently only a minority thinks Baltic is paraphyletic. But saying Baltic is a part of Baltic is nonsensical. — kwami ( talk) 03:10, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
The range of the Eastern Balts once reached to the Ural mountains.<ref>Marija Gimbutas 1963. The Balts. London : Thames and Hudson, Ancient peoples and places 33.</ref><ref>J. P. Mallory, "Fatyanovo-Balanovo Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997</ref><ref>David W. Anthony, "[[The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World]]", Princeton University Press, 2007</ref>
Seriously? This seems to equate the Neolithic Fatyanovo–Balanovo culture of 3200–2300 BC (!!) with the medieval Eastern Balts. That strikes me as wild. That would be like identifying the northern Corded Ware/Single Grave culture with the medieval Norse or the Globular Amphora culture with the Western Slavs. There is a gap of more than 3000 years here, in which (for example) Proto-Indo-Iranian dispersed from the Volga area throughout Western/Southern Asia, changing wildly in the process, and disappearing in its original homeland, and Proto-Oceanic dispersed all over the Pacific, turning into very divergent languages such as Polynesian. Or, for a more conservative language, think Proto-Kartvelian and Old Georgian, which are far from identical. No, I don't buy it. I doubt that even anything like Proto-Balto-Slavic existed as early as 2000 BC. I can buy that Fatyanovo–Balanovo was Indo-European, but not more than that; I doubt there's any halfway plausible reason to identify it with any attested branch. -- Florian Blaschke ( talk) 09:12, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
I checked Gimbutas and predictably I can't find anything like what is claimed here. In chap. III, on p. 61, Gimbutas writes: "During the Early as well as the Middle Bronze Age, the territory occupied by the Baltic culture had reached its maximal size" but nothing about it reached as far as the Urals (she writes about areas reaching to the Volga Basin at most), and not identifying it specifically with the Eastern Balts (which isn't the same as the eastern zone of the Proto-Balts, but specifically refers to the Latvian–Lithuanian branch, which is highly unlikely to have any great time-depth).
I mean, I know of the medieval Golyad', and the ancient Galindoi, but it's still a huge stretch to claim they were already around in the Bronze Age!
Personally, I wouldn't be comfortable with speaking of Balts (if we equate this with early Balto-Slavic speakers) prior to the Iron Age (or Late Bronze Age at the earliest), and specifically of Eastern Balts prior to the early medieval period (or the last centuries BC at best, if we talk about a stage preceding Eastern Baltic before it started to split up, which I don't think was earlier than sometime in the Middle Ages). This may be an impressionistic argument, because we don't really have any absolute chronology of Balto-Slavic developments, but Latvian and Lithuanian are extremely closely related languages and even Balto-Slavic isn't particularly diverse – prior to the "Great Slavic Sound Shift", these languages must all have been pretty similar, and basically one huge dialect continuum.
But none of that really matters, because it's more or less my personal opinion and I have no way to prove anything (certainly no glottochronology!); in any case, giving three big books as refs and not even a single page number (let alone quotation) is unacceptable. -- Florian Blaschke ( talk) 09:50, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
“Balto-Slavic” is a rather doubtful concept and its current political context of Russian expansionism it’s impossible to ignore. The use of Balto-Slavic or Baltic & Slavic is probably more about contemporary political stance than about any science. The authors on Wikipedia side with those who say Balto-Slavic and the Baltic Languages entry in Encyclopedia Britannica, for example, doesn’t even mention the concept.
Many Lithuanians who attended school attentively in the Soviet times would be surprised to find out that their language is Balto-Slavic. Not surprisingly, one of the authors in the references of the Wikipedia entry Balto-Slavic languages, Thomas Olander, named his PhD Det baltoslaviske problem – Accentologien. Problem implies a solution. The same Wikipedia has an entry Final Solution. The choice of the title is astonishing.
The articles on Wikipedia (Baltic languages, Balto-Slavic languages, Proto-Balto-Slavic language and Indo-European languages) assert the existence of Balto-Slavic and do not provide any scientific evidence for this, if you take a closer look. The biggest argument I encountered was that the majority of scholars uphold that view.
The section Historical dispute of the entry Balto-Slavic languages in Wikipedia lists seven sources. Anyone who has ever come into contact with mathematical statistics would know very well that one doesn’t make any scientific conclusions from seven observations. The entry Indo-European languages in Wikipedia mentions four sources, one of them from the XIX century.
Nevertheless, the arguments themselves are not provided. The reader has to have trust: “Beekes (1995:22), for example, states expressly that "[t]he Baltic and Slavic languages were originally one language and so form one group".[8] Gray and Atkinson's (2003) application of language-tree divergence analysis supports a genetic relationship” (from Balto-Slavic languages in Wikipedia).
The accuracy and scientific validity of these articles is questionable. The entries on the “Balto-Slavic problem” may be more interesting as raw data, as a possible indication of political bias. Maybe to play a scientist even wasn’t very difficult, because the discourse about Indo-European linguistics takes us into the midst of the XIX century.
“In the 16th century, European visitors to the Indian Subcontinent began to suggest similarities between Indo-Aryan, Iranian and European languages”, says Wikipedia (Indo-European languages). I have just returned from Sapmi and kept listening to Sami radio at home afterwards. Remarkably, I found it strikingly similar and often understandable to a Lithuanian for a language that is not even Indo-European.
Let’s return to the basics: “A media text is made by a particular media institution and this will also affect the way that it is constructed and the meaning it communicates” (from Revision Express AS and A2 Media Studies, Mr Ken Hall & Philip Holmes). Sometimes it’s great to know who bakes your bread.
The 1975 World Book encyclopedia articles on Latvia and Lithuania mentioned both Latvian and Lithuanian languages are thought by some linguists to be distantly related to Greek. It's possible the Baltic languages and the Greeks moved apart after the Kurgan hypothesis migrations across Eastern Europe around 3,000 BCE. Greek is thought to be related to Armenian in some ways, but Greek is a Centum branch language while Armenian is a Satem branch language, like the Baltic and Slavic languages. The Centum and Satem branches are named after the words "Cent" which means one hundred in Latin, Germanic and Celtic languages, versus "Sat" for Iranian and Indian languages. 2605:E000:FDCA:4200:D962:2182:F3EB:EEB3 ( talk) 20:08, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
This article currently claims that there are East and West Baltic branches, but it doesn't say what defines these groups. Can shared innovations of each group be given? I know East Baltic has the change of ei > ie, but not much more than that. CodeCat ( talk) 00:03, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
Hello, is anybody interested in translation of an article "Proto-Baltic language"? It's in Lithuanian Wikipedia https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balt%C5%B3_prokalb%C4%97. I saw, some users of English Wikipedia know Lithuanian language well. Could you ask them about them?-- Ed1974LT ( talk) 16:39, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
Compare inflexion of -o- and -ā- stems. (Baltų prok. galūnė - Proto-Baltic ending; Ide.- Proto-Indo European ending). Visit article "Proto-Baltic language" in Lithuanian, there are more tables of inflaxion. "Proto- Slavic language" (in Russian) is here https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%8F%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D1%8F%D0%B7%D1%8B%D0%BA#.D0.93.D0.BB.D0.B0.D0.B3.D0.BE.D0.BB
Proto-Baltic
*-o-1 | *-ā-2 | *-ē- | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Vyr. g. 'dievas' | Bev. g.'namas, būstas' | Baltų prok. galūnė | Ide. galūnė | Mot. g.'ranka' | Baltų prok. galūnė | Ide. galūnė | Mot. g. 'žemė' | Baltų prok. galūnė | ||
Vienaskaita | V. | *deiṷas | *butan / *buta | *-as; bev. g. *-an,*-a3 | *-os; bev. g. *-om,*-o? | *rankā | *-ā | *-ā | *žemē | *-ē |
K. | *deiṷas(a) / *deiṷā | *butas(a) / *butā | *-as(a),*-ā4 | *-os(i̯)o,*-ōd? | *rankās | *-ās | *-ās | *žemēs | *-ēs | |
N. | *deiṷōi | *butōi | *-ōi | *-ōi | *rankāi | *-āi | *-āi | *žemēi | *-ēi | |
G. | *deiṷan | *butan / *buta | *-an; bev. g. *-an,*-a | *-om; bev. g. *-om,*-o? | *rankān | *-ān | *-ām | *žemēn | *-ēn | |
Įn. | *deiṷō | *butō | *-ō | *-ō | *rankān | *-ān5 | *-ā | *žemēn | *-ēn5 | |
Vt. | *deiṷei | *butei | *-ei | *-ei | *rankāi | *-āi | *-āi | *žemēi | *ēi | |
Š. | *deṷe! | *butan! / buta! | *-e; bev. g. *-an, *-a | *-e; bev. g. *-om,*-o? | *ranka! | *-a | *-a | *žeme! | *-e | |
Dviskaita | V. – G. – Š. | *deiṷō | *butai | *-ō; bev. g. *-ai? | *-ō; bev. g. *-oi | *rankei / rankai? | *-ei, *-ai? | *-āi, *-ai? | *žemei | *-ei |
N. – Įn. | *deiṷamā | butamā | *-amā | *-omō? | *rankāmā | *-āmā | *-āmō? | *žemēmā | *-ēmā | |
K. – Vt. | *deiṷau(s) | *butau(s) | *-au(s) | Samplaika iš dvs. Vt. *-ou ir dvs. K. *-ōs? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | |
Daugiskaita | V. | *deiṷai | *butā | *-ai;6 bev. g.*-ā | *-oi; bev. g. *-ā < *-ah₂ | *rankās | *-ās | *-ās | *žemēs | *-ēs |
K. | *deiṷōn | *butōn | *-ōn | *-ōm | *rankōn | *-ōn | *-ōm | *žemi̯ōn | *-i̯ōn | |
N. | *deiṷamas | *butamas | *-amas | *-omos | *rankāmas | *-āmas | *-āmos | *žemēmas | *-ēmas | |
G. | *deiṷōns | *butā | *-ōns; bev. g. *-ā | *-ōns; bev. g. *-ā < *-ah₂ | *rankāns | *-āns | *-āns | *žemēns | *-ēns | |
Įn. | *deiṷais | *butais | *-ais | *-ōis? | *rankāmīs | *-āmīs7 | *-āmis | *žemēmīs | *-ēmīs7 | |
Vt. | *deiṷeisu | *buteisu | *-eisu | *-oisu | *rankāsu | *-āsu | *-āsu | *žemēsu | *-ēsu |
Proto-Slavic
Род | мужской | средний | женский | ||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Тип склонения | *-o- | *-jo- | *-u- | *-i- | *-en- | *-o- | *-jo- | *-en- | *-ent- | *-es- | *-ā- | *-jā- | *-i- | *-ū- | *-r- |
И. ед. | *vьlkъ | *kon’ь | *synъ | *gostь | *kamy | *lěto | *pol’e | *jьmę | *telę | *slovo | *žena | *duša | *kostь | *svekry | *mati |
Р. ед. | *vьlka | *kon’a | *synu | *gosti | *kamene | *lěta | *pol’a | *jьmene | *telęte | *slovese | *ženy | *dušě/*dušę | *kosti | *svekrъve | *matere |
Д. ед. | *vьlku | *kon’u | *synovi | *gosti | *kameni | *lětu | *pol’u | *jьmeni | *telęti | *slovesi | *ženě | *duši | *kosti | *svekrъvi | *materi |
В. ед. | *vьlkъ | *kon’ь | *synъ | *gostь | *kamenь | *lěto | *pol’e | *jьmę | *telę | *slovo | *ženǫ | *dušǫ | *kostь | *svekrъvь | *materь |
Тв. ед. | *vьlkomь | *kon’emь | *synъmь | *gostьmь | *kamenьmь | *lětomь | *pol’emь | *jьmenьmь | *telętьmь | *slovesьmь | *ženojǫ | *dušejǫ | *kostьjǫ | *svekrъvьjǫ | *materьjǫ |
М. ед. | *vьlcě | *kon’i | *synu | *gosti | *kamene | *lětě | *pol’i | *jьmene | *telęte | *slovese | *ženě | *duši | *kosti | *svekrъve | *matere |
Зв. ед. | *vьlče | *kon’u | *synu | *gosti | *ženo | *duše | *kosti | *mati | |||||||
И., В. дв. | *vьlka | *kon’a | *syny | *gosti | *kameni | *lětě | *pol’i | *jьmeně | *telętě | slovesě | *ženě | *duši | *kosti | ||
Р., М. дв. | *vьlku | *kon’u | *synovu | *gostьju | *kamenu | *lětu | *pol’u | *jьmenu | *telętu | *slovesu | *ženu | *dušu | *kostьju | ||
Д., Тв. дв. | *vьlkoma | *kon’ema | *synъma | *gostьma | *kamenьma | *lětoma | *pol’ema | *jьmenьma | *telętьma | *slovesьma | *ženama | *dušama | *kostьma | ||
И. мн. | *vьlci | *kon’i | *synove | *gostьje | *kamene | *lěta | *pol’a | *jьmena | *telęta | *slovesa | *ženy | *dušě | *kosti | *svekrъvi | *materi |
Р. мн. | *vьlkъ | *kon’ь | *synovъ | *gostьjь | *kamenъ | *lětъ | *pol’ь | *jьmenъ | *telętъ | *slovesъ | *ženъ | *dušь | *kostьjь | *svekrъvъ | *materъ |
Д. мн. | *vьlkomъ | *kon’emъ | *synъmъ | *gostьmъ | *kamenьmъ | *lětomъ | *pol’emъ | *jьmenьmъ | *telętьmъ | *slovesьmъ | *ženamъ | *dušamъ | *kostьmъ | *svekrъvamъ | *materьmъ |
В. мн. | *vьlky | *kon'ě/*kon'ę | *syny | *gosti | *kameni | *lěta | *pol’a | *jьmena | *telęta | *slovesa | *ženy | *dušě/*dušę | *kosti | *svekrъvi | *materi |
Тв. мн. | *vьlky | *kon’i | *synъmi | *gostьmi | *kamenьmi | *lěty | *pol’i | *jьmeny | *telęty | *slovesy | *ženami | *dušami | *kostьmi | *svekrъvami | *materьmi |
М. мн. | *vьlcěxъ | *kon’ixъ | *synъхъ | *gostьхъ | *kamenьхъ | *lětěxъ | *pol’ixъ | *jьmenьхъ | *telętьхъ | *slovesьхъ | *ženaxъ | *dušaxъ | *kostьхъ | *svekrъvaxъ | *materьхъ |
There are hardly many fringe theories for poorly attested ancient languages as Dacian and Thracian. Logically, what is described as fringe view is the claim that Dacian was a Latin language /info/en/?search=Dacian_language#Fringe_theories Seeing this example, if the Baltic theory of Daco-Thracian is fringe the section should rather be renamed to fringe theories and provided some weight in the article as shown in the link above. Anyway Mayer suggesting genetic link with Baltic languages is not described as fringe author here. /info/en/?search=Dacian_language#Baltic_languages Duridanov, who made the most extensive linguistic analysis on Dacian and Thracian, did not state the theory, but already wrote a special publication DIE THRAKISCH UND DAKISCH-BALTISCHEN SPRACHBEZIEHUNGEN. He never wrote a book for the relation of Daco-Thracian with any other languages. His conclusion in the book "Language of Thracians" is that the most frequent parallels of the reconstructed words and toponyms are found in the Baltic languages, which already drives the theory out of the fringe area. The subsequent proponents of it base their views on the linguistic analysis of Duridanov, do not seem to be fringe and make sense. So far I can cite three authors backing the Baltic theory - Mayer, Basanavičius and Benac. Does anyone disputes that the theory is notable enough to be placed here? If you are convinced in your statement, please, explain why the theory has no place here. I suggest the template below to be placed in the section instead of completely removing the language family- Template:Fringe theories. I disagree for the whole classification to be allegedly removed as fringe. Any similar hypothesis about extinct languages is given weight in the lead of other articles , e.g. in Turkic peoples it is mentioned that Hunnic is considered Turkic, although this is only a plausible, but not a consensus theory among most of the authors.-- 46.10.61.81 ( talk) 17:26, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
There is a sentence "Tens[19] of scholars among whom the Russian Toparov printed a book on the topic[20] have found many linguistic similarities between Baltic and ancient Balkan languages pointing to the many close parallels between Dacian and Thracian placenames and those of the Baltic language-zone." I can't parse this sentence (and I'm a native speaker of English). In particular, the clause "the Russian Toparov printed a book on the topic" doesn't fit. I am not sure what it's trying to say, so I'm hesitant to re-word it, but perhaps "Some scholars, including Toparov[20], have found..." In this re-wording, I removed the "printed a book", since that is irrelevant. I don't read Russian, so I couldn't check the relevance of Toparov's work; in my suggested re-wording, I did omit the fact that he's Russian, which doesn't seem relevant. And fwiw, ref [19] is an ethnomusicology study, and probably not relevant to this question. It does cite a few linguists at one point, but not "tens". 100.36.60.54 ( talk) 16:15, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
So according to Herr Schmid (in 1977), all European languages, and also, for example, Iranian, sprang from "Baltic languages"? Wow. Even better seems to be Mr Meyer of America. He, as I understand, says something contrary to what Herr Schmid has said, doesn't he? Hahaha. So now there is the concept of "the Balts" being an alleged separate linguistic, cultural (and racial?) group alongside "the Celts,""the Germanics" and the "Romantics," isn't it? I wonder what pertinent and hard facts warrant such a division? Consider fierce "Baltic" nationalism and selective xenophobia of today. Their curious version of their and others' history. Their contempt for the Slavs; their compulsive denial of having common traits with the Slavs; their assertion they have common traits with "the Germanics" instead. It all seems political, unscientific, contrary to historical facts, racialist, highly delusional, doesn't it?
To anonymous responding to my comment: What do you mean by trolling? Making statements that aren't to your political liking? I don't notice any particular alleged cultural distinctness between Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians and other nations of the area, notably Russians. All of these nations besides seem to speak Russian fluently and way better than others in their vicinity eg. Poles, Czechs, Hungarians. Are you trying to censor me?
Do you mean if some one in this discussion section doesn't give specific suggestions for improving the entry then he should be stopped from making comments, i.e. he should be censored? If so, then every one who has made comments here should be censored. Including you. Agreed? Or do you mean just myself am required to provide the said suggestions, but others - including you - aren't?
Well, if "article talk pages exist solely to discuss how to improve articles; they are not for general discussion about the subject of the article. Material unsuitable for talk pages may be subject to removal," then the majority of the comments here are subject to removal, aren't they? Particularly those that are full of obvious racialist hatred towards things Slavic (those comments seem to come from some Latvian or Lithuanian chauvinist nationalists in a delusional frame of mind). If so, why do you single out only my comment for removal? So you say free speech has limitations and you praise the fact it does? Well, then it's not free speech you talk about but imprisoned speech and you praise imprisoned speech. You say my expressing doubts as to some of the statements in the entry is like saying in the church that God doesn't exist? So you mean the statements by Schmid, Meyer and some Slav-hating authors of comments are the equivalent of religious dogmas?
I only asked if Schmid means all European languages, and also Iranian, sprang from "Baltic languages." His diagram justifies asking such a question. Your statement on what he means in his diagram is an expression of your own opinion. I think the latter is false: contrary to what you assert, the diagram in question does not necessarily convey only "where Baltic languages are: Iranian languages are to the east of that group" etc.
Wikipedia isn't a house nor is this section of Wikipedia. If you say they're a house, you are delusional, aren't you? Re "conspiracy theories," do you insinuate the statements I've made here are false? Any proof of this? Your reply and attitude is disrespectful and bullying. So is your seeming threat of banning me out of Wikipedia. If you carry the threat out, I protest against it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.103.225.108 ( talk) 13:02, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
Twice have I removed my comment above entitled "ISN'T IT ALL POLITICAL?" (along with replies to it, including yours and mine) and twice it has been brought back. Is it you who have brought it back? Why? Whoever has brought it back, he or she is responsible for the comment now, not I. I don't any longer agree with my statements in the comment in question nor in my other comments under it; I consider them false now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.103.225.108 ( talk) 00:32, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
The entry suggests the "geographic distribution" - meaning, I understand, the native location - of "Baltic languages" is "Northern Europe." Wouldn't it be a false suggestion? Isn't the "geographic distribution" located, actually, in Eastern Europe or, if one so pleases, in North-Eastern Europe? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.103.225.108 ( talk) 12:25, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:
Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. — Community Tech bot ( talk) 17:22, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
The article mentions twice that the Baltic languages are divided into two branches, East and West Baltic, however the "Branches" section of the article has three sections. Either this is a mistake because the Dnieper branch is not a branch of Baltic, or because it is part of one of the other two branches Emmy571 ( talk) 00:40, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
The lead currently says: The range of the Eastern Baltic linguistic influence once possibly reached as far as the Ural Mountains, but this hypothesis has been questioned
. This is like feeding our readers with speculations and leaving them in the dark about what is actually widely accepted among Balticists. Based on Dini's monograph, I propose to change it to:
For details, there is the section "Geographic distribution".
Another thing: @ SeriousThinker, can you find a single source that mentions the full number of Baltic speakers? Doing arithmetics is always a bit problematic, since different sources might use different criteria or give figures from different years. I think we can leave things temporarily as they are, but not permanently. Austronesier ( talk) 16:23, 26 August 2022 (UTC)
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“ | The East-West-Prussian native speakers were for the most part expelled and deported by Soviet conquerors between 1945-49. That language therefore greatly suffered over the last 50 years due to the refugee/deportee survivors living in many scattered places. | ” |
What native speakers? Old Prussian became extinct by the end of 17th century! I think the facts quoted have nothing to do with the language. History of Prussians is for another article...
“ | But a large part of the language was retained in Ostpreussisch-EastPrussian German dialects | ” |
Any proofs? Links? Sources? —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vassili Nikolaev ( talk • contribs) 23:50, 26 June 2003
What is meant, saying "the Balts did not use writing until fairly recently ?" Lithuanians used written language before the Christianizing rarely. If someone said they didn't used at all, it were quite the truth. It was a cultural tradition, for all their neighbors used written language more often at this time, and this kind of language was doubtless known for Lithuanians. But from the times of Christianizing , it was used. It was used more and more, and breaking the tradition, in the end of XIX century Lithuanians became a nation with quite big census of literacy (more than 60%. I don't have precise data currently). Printed books in Lithuanian appeared first time about one hundred years later, they did in the Europe at all. Do you mean it "recently"? The same is with Latvians, here only the dates differ a bit.
Prussian or Old-Prussian language dropped out in about the beginning of XVII century. Later German, Lithuanian (in the north part) and Polish (in the south-east part) languages were used in Prussia only, until 1944.
user: LinasLit —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
212.59.14.50 (
talk •
contribs) 10:46, 11 January 2004
Before the first conquest attempts a thousand years ago...
Was that really so? 1009 A.D. first mentioning of Lithuania in written sources, and border conflicts with slavic people is all i know from that period. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Vytautas ( talk • contribs) 14:58, 29 June 2004
Muonium777 ( talk) 13:03, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
The opinion of some linguists is that there the Latvians and Lithuanian were initially two distinct Indo-European groups, due to the fact that there are many differences (phonetical/structural) between the archaic Latvian and Lithuanian, and they created a "language union" ( sprachbound) by living as neighbours for hundreds/thousands of years (that would explain the common features).
I won't change anything, as I am not a linguist, nor have enough knowledge in Baltic languages, but I just read a pretty convincing article on this on www.lituanus.org (I can't find the exact link at the moment) Bogdan | Talk 12:07, 30 Jun 2004 (UTC)
I also agree that it's nonsense that Latvian and Lithuanian made the "union". They are *far too similar* to be a mash-up. An intelligent Lithuanian can open a Latvian book and do a good job of reading/puzzling thier way through it; latvian is lithuanian, but without the vowels, in a U CN RD THS sort of way. p.s. the link http://www.suduva.com/virdainas/proto.htm says nothing about such a union, and in fact recounts the more-or-less commonly accepted, mainstream theories. Anyway,a citation would be needed. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 67.100.217.179 ( talk • contribs) 08:27, 30 December 2004
The unsupported claim "closely related to Slavic" is dubious, and should be edited away. See for example, Harvey E. Mayer Was Slavic a Prussian Dialect? Lituanus, (1987) who replies in the negative.
See also: Harvey E. Mayer Tokharian and Baltic versus Slavic and Albanian Lituanus, (1991)
and Petras Klimas Baltic and Slavic Revisited Lituanus, (1973) for a review of the points of debate, and a listing of the scholars and their positions.
Basically, current scholarship indicates that "Balto-Germanic" might be the more accurate name for the language group.
Note also http://www.lituanus.org/IndexLanguage.htm Lituanus is a forum for articles dealing with the linguistics of the Slavic and Baltic languages; note however, that many current theories are hotly debated, and there is no small amount of nationalistic pride involved, which can color the presentation.
See also http://www.suduva.com/virdainas/pie.htm for a reference to the supra-archaic nature of Lithuanian (at bottom of article). User:Linas Dec 2004 —Preceding unsigned comment added by Linas ( talk • contribs) 18:12, 30 December 2004
There are as many or more linguistic correspondences between Germanic and Baltic as there are between Slavic and Baltic, yet we do not speak of a Balto-Germanic, or Germano-Baltic grouping, because the correspondences are not enough to warrant it. Neither are the correspondences between the Baltic and Slavic groups enough to warrant any (as yet) mythical grouping. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:6C44:E7F:E25F:E4EB:D62D:CE67:CAE4 ( talk) 14:02, 28 March 2018 (UTC)
I am attempting a rework of this article in Baltic languages/temp. My first edit should appear there shortly, and I'll look for input then. -- Theodore Kloba 18:35, 2005 Jan 3 (UTC)
I think this page should be listed in both Category:Baltic languages and Category:Indo-European languages, especially since some linguists believe the Baltic group is not appropriate to begin with. -- Theodore Kloba 15:12, Jan 10, 2005 (UTC)
A deletion discussion is taking place for a related article linked from this one:
Upon closer observation one detects several obvious errors in the map supplied with this article. Firstly, "Finnish" should read "Finnic". Secondly, the area where one of the Finnic languages - Livonian - was spoken by the Livonians in the 11th-12th century extended along the eastern coast of the Gulf of Riga (roughly from modern border of Estonia) down all the way to at least the Daugava river (later city of Riga, and possibly beyond); which is quite well documented in the 13th c. chronicles. That area should be clearly marked white, at least 30-50km wide. The chronicles also mention the now extinct tribe of "Wends" who then resided around what is now Cesis (Wenden) in northern-ish Latvia. The Wends, at least by contemporary chroniclers, were considered an entity separate and different from Latgals, and as far as I know, no evidence has been found yet about whether the language they spoke was Finnic or Baltic. So perhaps a bit of grey colour in that area of the map would be in order. As the map itself lacks source information (and risks deletion) as of now, perhaps someone (say from Latvia, with a better grasp of local history) can find a better map from another source or, alternatively, redraw and correct the obvious errors in the current one? The source can then be cited as IMIU (I Made It Up:) Cheers, -- 3 Löwi 13:16, 22 August 2005 (UTC)
I foun this map - http://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Image:Balt_vietovard.png but I can't place it in article for some reason or maybe pictures from commons doesn't show up in preview ? -- Xil/ talk 14:08, 10 March 2006 (UTC)
Thanks, for remark and undo - (cur) (last) 12:17, 17 July 2007 Dbachmann (Talk | contribs) (9,796 bytes) (rv. PCT may be "modern", but nobody believes in it. This article isn't about neolithic culture of the Baltics.) (undo), I really made mistake, not mentioning, that by scientific research (habil dr. Algirdas Girininkas, former chief of department at institute of Academy of Sciences) comparing the long sequence of Baltic sea cost cultures there was prooved not disrupted continuity of those cultures starting from the very beginning, so it was concluded that language developed continuously too. The oldest layer of Finnish is Baltic...Some very old loans from Basque (sea...) are detected in Baltic and Lithuanian too. Baltic verb system is much more close to German than Slavic. Baltic suffered these influences - protoSlavic-German, and later Finnish. Slavic - much more. Baltic languages are the most conservative and archaic ide languages, so let for us to explain to the people about our roots. One of the scientists who develops this theory is Prehistorian Marcel Otte (world known, famous and evaluated to be leader) from Université de Liege. So, the question is not "nobody believes it" but how scientificaly and logicaly it was created by the team ttp://www.continuitas.com/workgroup.html. colin renfrew stresse in 1997 - As I was saying earlier, the real problem is the interface between these three fields of archeology or culture-history, genetics, and historical linguistics. And nobody's a master of all these fields, so I don't feel too diffident; one's always an amateur if you're going between them. . So complex view describing languges origin problems is necessary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.62.22.250 ( talk • contribs) 14:54, 17 July 2007
This is nonsence, becouse of much earlier baltic tribes Bronze age beginning at the coast of Baltic sea than 13th Century B.C.!!! 78.62.22.250 08:20, 22 July 2007 (UTC)
Hi, the text in the history/prehistory section seems highly implausible to me. Apart from being written in poor English, which makes it very hard to read, it clearly contains pseudoscientific claims. It is utterly impossible that Baltic speakers arrived at 8000 BC, when the IE languages probably didn't exist yet. This reads a like an attempt to make the Baltic languages seem as distinct as possible form the Slavic languages group, in order to eliminate the concept of a Baltic-Slavic group, advocated by Soviet scientists with an equally political agenda. Steinbach (fka Caesarion) 14:02, 27 July 2007 (UTC)
I want to see an original quote from presented sources, which supported thesis, that According to most linguists citation needed, the Baltic languages show.... Thanks. M.K. ( talk) 13:47, 19 March 2009 (UTC)
I have found similar issues (possible original research and a lack of NPOV) also in other Baltic-related articles: Balto-Slavic and Indo-European languages. See Talk:Balto-Slavic_languages. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gotho-Baltic ( talk • contribs) 11:27, 21 March 2009 (UTC)
The ridiculous lie that before proto-Baltic and proto-Slavic languages there was a proto-Balto-Slavic is just unbelievably insulting and untrue. There was a proto-Balto-Slavo-Germano-Celto-Romano-etc. language, which is proto-Indo-European, but if Baltic really was one with another language group, it is likely that Baltic was in the same group with Germanic, Celtic, or Romance. Germanic, because the grammar is similar and some words are interesting, such as Leute means People in German, Lietuva means Lithuania in Lithuanian, and also Volk means People means Vokietija is Germany in Lithuania. Celtic, because Tacitus said that the languages of the Aestii resembled the ones of Britain. Romance because of the similarities between Lithuanian and Latin. Due to the history of the two remaining Baltic countries, Lithuania and Latvia, who have been in many unions, wars and overall, a lot of contact with Slavs, this is where a lot of similarities come from. Rather than the languages splitting to differ, they became more alike as the time passed, due to these countries constantly being under control or united with Russia, Poland, and Ruthenia(Belarus and Ukraine). There barely, if any, Baltic linguists that will ever accept the theory of Balto-Slavic, because everyone knows the very few similarities are due to history and contact, not a common ancestor. It is also disrespectful to group the two together, due to a theory. Looking at the Indo-European Languages page [1], Balto-Slavic is written as one thing, however, it is untrue, and therefore should be separated, because the Balto-Slavic theory is unproven, and it never will be, because it is false, likely due to Soviet propaganda as well, making the world think that Balts are the same thing as Slavs, and that's the attitude many linguists seem to take. Almost every Slav agrees with the theory, yet almost every Balt opposes it. Due to the fact it is a very unconvincing theory, someone that monitors Wikipedia, would you please change the articles and make it right? Balto-Slavic never existed, except for when proto-Indo-European was around, and that's when they split, just like Germanic, Romance, Celtic, Hellenic, and the rest of the Indo-European languages. Baltic is no closer to Slavic than Celtic, Romance, Germanic, Albanian, or any other Indo-European language group is. 173.72.35.239 ( talk) 00:40, 19 April 2009 (UTC)
Muonium777 ( talk) 13:06, 3 February 2021 (UTC)
What is most hilarious, is that its mostly western scholars and communists that try to pair Baltic and Slavic languages in the same family, I have yet to hear anyone in either Latvia or Russia to publicly try to make a claim that Russian and Latvian have similar roots. Nobody would make that claim, because its obviously laughable and they would be ridiculed to no end for it. Why? Because most Latvians know Russian and most Russians living in Latvia know Latvian, which means that practically everyone, from personal experience, knows Russian and Latvian are about as similar as Greek and English.
What to do with new-prussian? it is an unquestionable fact that the reconstructed language is in everyday use for long time now... internet is full with sites where people speak prussian. About the clasification - it is west baltic, and it is comprehensible with language written in catechisms. the NEW part is - only words who simply are neaded in 21 century, and many prusianised internationalisms. there is no words who are simply somehow "maded", it is a high level scientific fake. for example - if the same root of the word exists in latvian lithuanian - and slavic languages - simply it also has to be in prussian. so - yes i think there should be written one more language. New-Prussian, next to old-prussian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.246.141.190 ( talk) 15:15, 7 July 2009 (UTC)
Whether as a part of Balto-Slavic or not, Baltic is nearly universally accepted as a valid clade within Indo-European. Fortson (2010, Indo-European Language and Culture), Mallory & Adams (2006, The Oxford Introduction to Proto-Indo-European and the Proto-Indo-European World), Szemerényi (1990, Introduction to Indo-European Linguistics), Beekes (1995, Comparative Indo-European Linguistics), Schmalsteig (1998, "The Baltic Languages," The Indo-European Languages, ed. Ramat & Ramat), Clackson (2007, Indo-European Linguistics), Baldi (1983, An Introduction to the Indo-European Languages), etc. all treat Baltic as a single clade either within Balto-Slavic or as an independent node of Indo-European. The statement that the majority of linguists reject Baltic as a clade is patently false since not a single one of these current Indo-European works takes that position. -- Taivo ( talk) 12:11, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
The unsourced stuff Ivan added - e.g. “ Most linguists agree however that the Baltic languages do not represent a genetic node in the Indo-European family. There are virtually no non-trivial isoglosses that connect the Baltic languages to Proto-Indo-European and leave the Slavic languages aside” - as it stands is nothing more than WP:SYNTH and OR. If the Baltic languages node were an invalid group, Ivan wouldn't have trouble to pointing out a source that would summarize various positions and draw that conclusion (rather than trying to discard one by one the sources presented by another user above). Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 15:55, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
I reverted a change indicating "baltic" group of IE instead of balto-slavic. I also reworded the section on subgrouping that made reference to Mallory and Adams since it is impossible to read their articles on baltic resp. slavic and still maintain that their view is that Balto-slavic as a linguistic subgroup does not have value. I do not doubt that someone will not agree with my edits, so I humbly ask anyone with a differing view to provide sufficiently recent (the 50's or 80's will not do since a lot of work has been done since then and a scholarly concensus has been reached, as you can see in any standard work from the past 15 years) sources, that also take into consideration the established common innovations and explains why they are not valid.
As a reminder to everyone reading the work of Mallory: linguistics and archaeology are quite different disciplines. His work is interesting because he tries to combine them into a single narrative. That is truly remarkable work, but not always conclusive or coherent. There are many uncertainties that stem from the gaps in both disciplines and even worse: established data that points in totally different directions. This wikipedia article, however, is solely regarding the linguistic aspects based on linguistic data, not the analysis of pottery and burial customs. Amilah ( talk) 00:21, 20 December 2011 (UTC)
The view that Baltic forms a family seperate from Slavic is a minority view promoted solely by Lithuanian and Latvian linguists out of nationalistic sentiment. The validity of the Balto-Slavic family is supported by vitually every other source, as given in the sources at the end of the "Relationship with other Indo-European languages". Overstatin support for the "Baltic alone" theory, while relegation the "Balto-Slavic theory" to an afterthought, is POV. Unbiased sources are need to prove that the "Baltic alone" theory has any substantial and significant support, especially outside of the Baltic countries. Dominus Vobisdu ( talk) 14:05, 2 April 2012 (UTC)
Someone just added "& Finnic" to the title of this subsection, then after the first sentence added the text 25 years later this opinion was contrasted by genetic linguists who reported a strong connection between Finnic & Baltic.[7], this opinion is supported by the high frequency of N1c1 a haplogroup thats dominant amongst Finnic speakers reaching frequencies of approximately 60% among Finns and approximately 40% among Estonians, Latvians and Lithuanians.[8][9]
25 years later than what? What opinion was contrasted? Finnic & Baltic what? If Finnic & Baltic speakers, then say so. The apostrophe is missing in "thats" only I don't want to correct it as someone may want to revert the whole thing. And finally, it's a well-known fact that Baltic and Finnic speaking peoples have been neighbors for thousands of years, with evidence of continual borrowing from each other's languages. That there should also be intermarriage should come as no surprise. After all, this is what happened with Uralic and Altaic. One suggestion: discussion of Baltic's relation to Finnic should maybe go in a separate subsection. Zyxwv99 ( talk) 18:51, 16 April 2012 (UTC)
This article mentions that the group has several archaic features of Indo-European languages. Which ones are these? -- Caiilajoe ( talk) 16:20, 23 March 2013 (UTC) Caii
There is no such thing as 'Proto-Balto-Slavic'. It's really surprising that someone who describes himself as a trained linguist would say such a thing. Latvian and Russian are not related, just a lot of Russian people live in Latvia and they have boarders and some connections, maybe some influence on their language, but the reason for this is obviously geography. Latvian is only related to Lithuanian nowadays. And the German reference in the previous post was just an example I believe. 78.61.79.213 ( talk) 17:50, 6 September 2013 (UTC)
We could also just say Baltic is a branch of Indo-European, since that's a more agnostic way of stating the majority Balto-Slavic POV. Apparently only a minority thinks Baltic is paraphyletic. But saying Baltic is a part of Baltic is nonsensical. — kwami ( talk) 03:10, 6 December 2013 (UTC)
The range of the Eastern Balts once reached to the Ural mountains.<ref>Marija Gimbutas 1963. The Balts. London : Thames and Hudson, Ancient peoples and places 33.</ref><ref>J. P. Mallory, "Fatyanovo-Balanovo Culture", Encyclopedia of Indo-European Culture, Fitzroy Dearborn, 1997</ref><ref>David W. Anthony, "[[The Horse, the Wheel, and Language: How Bronze-Age Riders from the Eurasian Steppes Shaped the Modern World]]", Princeton University Press, 2007</ref>
Seriously? This seems to equate the Neolithic Fatyanovo–Balanovo culture of 3200–2300 BC (!!) with the medieval Eastern Balts. That strikes me as wild. That would be like identifying the northern Corded Ware/Single Grave culture with the medieval Norse or the Globular Amphora culture with the Western Slavs. There is a gap of more than 3000 years here, in which (for example) Proto-Indo-Iranian dispersed from the Volga area throughout Western/Southern Asia, changing wildly in the process, and disappearing in its original homeland, and Proto-Oceanic dispersed all over the Pacific, turning into very divergent languages such as Polynesian. Or, for a more conservative language, think Proto-Kartvelian and Old Georgian, which are far from identical. No, I don't buy it. I doubt that even anything like Proto-Balto-Slavic existed as early as 2000 BC. I can buy that Fatyanovo–Balanovo was Indo-European, but not more than that; I doubt there's any halfway plausible reason to identify it with any attested branch. -- Florian Blaschke ( talk) 09:12, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
I checked Gimbutas and predictably I can't find anything like what is claimed here. In chap. III, on p. 61, Gimbutas writes: "During the Early as well as the Middle Bronze Age, the territory occupied by the Baltic culture had reached its maximal size" but nothing about it reached as far as the Urals (she writes about areas reaching to the Volga Basin at most), and not identifying it specifically with the Eastern Balts (which isn't the same as the eastern zone of the Proto-Balts, but specifically refers to the Latvian–Lithuanian branch, which is highly unlikely to have any great time-depth).
I mean, I know of the medieval Golyad', and the ancient Galindoi, but it's still a huge stretch to claim they were already around in the Bronze Age!
Personally, I wouldn't be comfortable with speaking of Balts (if we equate this with early Balto-Slavic speakers) prior to the Iron Age (or Late Bronze Age at the earliest), and specifically of Eastern Balts prior to the early medieval period (or the last centuries BC at best, if we talk about a stage preceding Eastern Baltic before it started to split up, which I don't think was earlier than sometime in the Middle Ages). This may be an impressionistic argument, because we don't really have any absolute chronology of Balto-Slavic developments, but Latvian and Lithuanian are extremely closely related languages and even Balto-Slavic isn't particularly diverse – prior to the "Great Slavic Sound Shift", these languages must all have been pretty similar, and basically one huge dialect continuum.
But none of that really matters, because it's more or less my personal opinion and I have no way to prove anything (certainly no glottochronology!); in any case, giving three big books as refs and not even a single page number (let alone quotation) is unacceptable. -- Florian Blaschke ( talk) 09:50, 2 June 2015 (UTC)
“Balto-Slavic” is a rather doubtful concept and its current political context of Russian expansionism it’s impossible to ignore. The use of Balto-Slavic or Baltic & Slavic is probably more about contemporary political stance than about any science. The authors on Wikipedia side with those who say Balto-Slavic and the Baltic Languages entry in Encyclopedia Britannica, for example, doesn’t even mention the concept.
Many Lithuanians who attended school attentively in the Soviet times would be surprised to find out that their language is Balto-Slavic. Not surprisingly, one of the authors in the references of the Wikipedia entry Balto-Slavic languages, Thomas Olander, named his PhD Det baltoslaviske problem – Accentologien. Problem implies a solution. The same Wikipedia has an entry Final Solution. The choice of the title is astonishing.
The articles on Wikipedia (Baltic languages, Balto-Slavic languages, Proto-Balto-Slavic language and Indo-European languages) assert the existence of Balto-Slavic and do not provide any scientific evidence for this, if you take a closer look. The biggest argument I encountered was that the majority of scholars uphold that view.
The section Historical dispute of the entry Balto-Slavic languages in Wikipedia lists seven sources. Anyone who has ever come into contact with mathematical statistics would know very well that one doesn’t make any scientific conclusions from seven observations. The entry Indo-European languages in Wikipedia mentions four sources, one of them from the XIX century.
Nevertheless, the arguments themselves are not provided. The reader has to have trust: “Beekes (1995:22), for example, states expressly that "[t]he Baltic and Slavic languages were originally one language and so form one group".[8] Gray and Atkinson's (2003) application of language-tree divergence analysis supports a genetic relationship” (from Balto-Slavic languages in Wikipedia).
The accuracy and scientific validity of these articles is questionable. The entries on the “Balto-Slavic problem” may be more interesting as raw data, as a possible indication of political bias. Maybe to play a scientist even wasn’t very difficult, because the discourse about Indo-European linguistics takes us into the midst of the XIX century.
“In the 16th century, European visitors to the Indian Subcontinent began to suggest similarities between Indo-Aryan, Iranian and European languages”, says Wikipedia (Indo-European languages). I have just returned from Sapmi and kept listening to Sami radio at home afterwards. Remarkably, I found it strikingly similar and often understandable to a Lithuanian for a language that is not even Indo-European.
Let’s return to the basics: “A media text is made by a particular media institution and this will also affect the way that it is constructed and the meaning it communicates” (from Revision Express AS and A2 Media Studies, Mr Ken Hall & Philip Holmes). Sometimes it’s great to know who bakes your bread.
The 1975 World Book encyclopedia articles on Latvia and Lithuania mentioned both Latvian and Lithuanian languages are thought by some linguists to be distantly related to Greek. It's possible the Baltic languages and the Greeks moved apart after the Kurgan hypothesis migrations across Eastern Europe around 3,000 BCE. Greek is thought to be related to Armenian in some ways, but Greek is a Centum branch language while Armenian is a Satem branch language, like the Baltic and Slavic languages. The Centum and Satem branches are named after the words "Cent" which means one hundred in Latin, Germanic and Celtic languages, versus "Sat" for Iranian and Indian languages. 2605:E000:FDCA:4200:D962:2182:F3EB:EEB3 ( talk) 20:08, 15 March 2016 (UTC)
This article currently claims that there are East and West Baltic branches, but it doesn't say what defines these groups. Can shared innovations of each group be given? I know East Baltic has the change of ei > ie, but not much more than that. CodeCat ( talk) 00:03, 16 March 2016 (UTC)
Hello, is anybody interested in translation of an article "Proto-Baltic language"? It's in Lithuanian Wikipedia https://lt.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balt%C5%B3_prokalb%C4%97. I saw, some users of English Wikipedia know Lithuanian language well. Could you ask them about them?-- Ed1974LT ( talk) 16:39, 15 July 2016 (UTC)
Compare inflexion of -o- and -ā- stems. (Baltų prok. galūnė - Proto-Baltic ending; Ide.- Proto-Indo European ending). Visit article "Proto-Baltic language" in Lithuanian, there are more tables of inflaxion. "Proto- Slavic language" (in Russian) is here https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/%D0%9F%D1%80%D0%B0%D1%81%D0%BB%D0%B0%D0%B2%D1%8F%D0%BD%D1%81%D0%BA%D0%B8%D0%B9_%D1%8F%D0%B7%D1%8B%D0%BA#.D0.93.D0.BB.D0.B0.D0.B3.D0.BE.D0.BB
Proto-Baltic
*-o-1 | *-ā-2 | *-ē- | ||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Vyr. g. 'dievas' | Bev. g.'namas, būstas' | Baltų prok. galūnė | Ide. galūnė | Mot. g.'ranka' | Baltų prok. galūnė | Ide. galūnė | Mot. g. 'žemė' | Baltų prok. galūnė | ||
Vienaskaita | V. | *deiṷas | *butan / *buta | *-as; bev. g. *-an,*-a3 | *-os; bev. g. *-om,*-o? | *rankā | *-ā | *-ā | *žemē | *-ē |
K. | *deiṷas(a) / *deiṷā | *butas(a) / *butā | *-as(a),*-ā4 | *-os(i̯)o,*-ōd? | *rankās | *-ās | *-ās | *žemēs | *-ēs | |
N. | *deiṷōi | *butōi | *-ōi | *-ōi | *rankāi | *-āi | *-āi | *žemēi | *-ēi | |
G. | *deiṷan | *butan / *buta | *-an; bev. g. *-an,*-a | *-om; bev. g. *-om,*-o? | *rankān | *-ān | *-ām | *žemēn | *-ēn | |
Įn. | *deiṷō | *butō | *-ō | *-ō | *rankān | *-ān5 | *-ā | *žemēn | *-ēn5 | |
Vt. | *deiṷei | *butei | *-ei | *-ei | *rankāi | *-āi | *-āi | *žemēi | *ēi | |
Š. | *deṷe! | *butan! / buta! | *-e; bev. g. *-an, *-a | *-e; bev. g. *-om,*-o? | *ranka! | *-a | *-a | *žeme! | *-e | |
Dviskaita | V. – G. – Š. | *deiṷō | *butai | *-ō; bev. g. *-ai? | *-ō; bev. g. *-oi | *rankei / rankai? | *-ei, *-ai? | *-āi, *-ai? | *žemei | *-ei |
N. – Įn. | *deiṷamā | butamā | *-amā | *-omō? | *rankāmā | *-āmā | *-āmō? | *žemēmā | *-ēmā | |
K. – Vt. | *deiṷau(s) | *butau(s) | *-au(s) | Samplaika iš dvs. Vt. *-ou ir dvs. K. *-ōs? | ? | ? | ? | ? | ? | |
Daugiskaita | V. | *deiṷai | *butā | *-ai;6 bev. g.*-ā | *-oi; bev. g. *-ā < *-ah₂ | *rankās | *-ās | *-ās | *žemēs | *-ēs |
K. | *deiṷōn | *butōn | *-ōn | *-ōm | *rankōn | *-ōn | *-ōm | *žemi̯ōn | *-i̯ōn | |
N. | *deiṷamas | *butamas | *-amas | *-omos | *rankāmas | *-āmas | *-āmos | *žemēmas | *-ēmas | |
G. | *deiṷōns | *butā | *-ōns; bev. g. *-ā | *-ōns; bev. g. *-ā < *-ah₂ | *rankāns | *-āns | *-āns | *žemēns | *-ēns | |
Įn. | *deiṷais | *butais | *-ais | *-ōis? | *rankāmīs | *-āmīs7 | *-āmis | *žemēmīs | *-ēmīs7 | |
Vt. | *deiṷeisu | *buteisu | *-eisu | *-oisu | *rankāsu | *-āsu | *-āsu | *žemēsu | *-ēsu |
Proto-Slavic
Род | мужской | средний | женский | ||||||||||||
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Тип склонения | *-o- | *-jo- | *-u- | *-i- | *-en- | *-o- | *-jo- | *-en- | *-ent- | *-es- | *-ā- | *-jā- | *-i- | *-ū- | *-r- |
И. ед. | *vьlkъ | *kon’ь | *synъ | *gostь | *kamy | *lěto | *pol’e | *jьmę | *telę | *slovo | *žena | *duša | *kostь | *svekry | *mati |
Р. ед. | *vьlka | *kon’a | *synu | *gosti | *kamene | *lěta | *pol’a | *jьmene | *telęte | *slovese | *ženy | *dušě/*dušę | *kosti | *svekrъve | *matere |
Д. ед. | *vьlku | *kon’u | *synovi | *gosti | *kameni | *lětu | *pol’u | *jьmeni | *telęti | *slovesi | *ženě | *duši | *kosti | *svekrъvi | *materi |
В. ед. | *vьlkъ | *kon’ь | *synъ | *gostь | *kamenь | *lěto | *pol’e | *jьmę | *telę | *slovo | *ženǫ | *dušǫ | *kostь | *svekrъvь | *materь |
Тв. ед. | *vьlkomь | *kon’emь | *synъmь | *gostьmь | *kamenьmь | *lětomь | *pol’emь | *jьmenьmь | *telętьmь | *slovesьmь | *ženojǫ | *dušejǫ | *kostьjǫ | *svekrъvьjǫ | *materьjǫ |
М. ед. | *vьlcě | *kon’i | *synu | *gosti | *kamene | *lětě | *pol’i | *jьmene | *telęte | *slovese | *ženě | *duši | *kosti | *svekrъve | *matere |
Зв. ед. | *vьlče | *kon’u | *synu | *gosti | *ženo | *duše | *kosti | *mati | |||||||
И., В. дв. | *vьlka | *kon’a | *syny | *gosti | *kameni | *lětě | *pol’i | *jьmeně | *telętě | slovesě | *ženě | *duši | *kosti | ||
Р., М. дв. | *vьlku | *kon’u | *synovu | *gostьju | *kamenu | *lětu | *pol’u | *jьmenu | *telętu | *slovesu | *ženu | *dušu | *kostьju | ||
Д., Тв. дв. | *vьlkoma | *kon’ema | *synъma | *gostьma | *kamenьma | *lětoma | *pol’ema | *jьmenьma | *telętьma | *slovesьma | *ženama | *dušama | *kostьma | ||
И. мн. | *vьlci | *kon’i | *synove | *gostьje | *kamene | *lěta | *pol’a | *jьmena | *telęta | *slovesa | *ženy | *dušě | *kosti | *svekrъvi | *materi |
Р. мн. | *vьlkъ | *kon’ь | *synovъ | *gostьjь | *kamenъ | *lětъ | *pol’ь | *jьmenъ | *telętъ | *slovesъ | *ženъ | *dušь | *kostьjь | *svekrъvъ | *materъ |
Д. мн. | *vьlkomъ | *kon’emъ | *synъmъ | *gostьmъ | *kamenьmъ | *lětomъ | *pol’emъ | *jьmenьmъ | *telętьmъ | *slovesьmъ | *ženamъ | *dušamъ | *kostьmъ | *svekrъvamъ | *materьmъ |
В. мн. | *vьlky | *kon'ě/*kon'ę | *syny | *gosti | *kameni | *lěta | *pol’a | *jьmena | *telęta | *slovesa | *ženy | *dušě/*dušę | *kosti | *svekrъvi | *materi |
Тв. мн. | *vьlky | *kon’i | *synъmi | *gostьmi | *kamenьmi | *lěty | *pol’i | *jьmeny | *telęty | *slovesy | *ženami | *dušami | *kostьmi | *svekrъvami | *materьmi |
М. мн. | *vьlcěxъ | *kon’ixъ | *synъхъ | *gostьхъ | *kamenьхъ | *lětěxъ | *pol’ixъ | *jьmenьхъ | *telętьхъ | *slovesьхъ | *ženaxъ | *dušaxъ | *kostьхъ | *svekrъvaxъ | *materьхъ |
There are hardly many fringe theories for poorly attested ancient languages as Dacian and Thracian. Logically, what is described as fringe view is the claim that Dacian was a Latin language /info/en/?search=Dacian_language#Fringe_theories Seeing this example, if the Baltic theory of Daco-Thracian is fringe the section should rather be renamed to fringe theories and provided some weight in the article as shown in the link above. Anyway Mayer suggesting genetic link with Baltic languages is not described as fringe author here. /info/en/?search=Dacian_language#Baltic_languages Duridanov, who made the most extensive linguistic analysis on Dacian and Thracian, did not state the theory, but already wrote a special publication DIE THRAKISCH UND DAKISCH-BALTISCHEN SPRACHBEZIEHUNGEN. He never wrote a book for the relation of Daco-Thracian with any other languages. His conclusion in the book "Language of Thracians" is that the most frequent parallels of the reconstructed words and toponyms are found in the Baltic languages, which already drives the theory out of the fringe area. The subsequent proponents of it base their views on the linguistic analysis of Duridanov, do not seem to be fringe and make sense. So far I can cite three authors backing the Baltic theory - Mayer, Basanavičius and Benac. Does anyone disputes that the theory is notable enough to be placed here? If you are convinced in your statement, please, explain why the theory has no place here. I suggest the template below to be placed in the section instead of completely removing the language family- Template:Fringe theories. I disagree for the whole classification to be allegedly removed as fringe. Any similar hypothesis about extinct languages is given weight in the lead of other articles , e.g. in Turkic peoples it is mentioned that Hunnic is considered Turkic, although this is only a plausible, but not a consensus theory among most of the authors.-- 46.10.61.81 ( talk) 17:26, 20 May 2017 (UTC)
There is a sentence "Tens[19] of scholars among whom the Russian Toparov printed a book on the topic[20] have found many linguistic similarities between Baltic and ancient Balkan languages pointing to the many close parallels between Dacian and Thracian placenames and those of the Baltic language-zone." I can't parse this sentence (and I'm a native speaker of English). In particular, the clause "the Russian Toparov printed a book on the topic" doesn't fit. I am not sure what it's trying to say, so I'm hesitant to re-word it, but perhaps "Some scholars, including Toparov[20], have found..." In this re-wording, I removed the "printed a book", since that is irrelevant. I don't read Russian, so I couldn't check the relevance of Toparov's work; in my suggested re-wording, I did omit the fact that he's Russian, which doesn't seem relevant. And fwiw, ref [19] is an ethnomusicology study, and probably not relevant to this question. It does cite a few linguists at one point, but not "tens". 100.36.60.54 ( talk) 16:15, 16 June 2017 (UTC)
The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.
So according to Herr Schmid (in 1977), all European languages, and also, for example, Iranian, sprang from "Baltic languages"? Wow. Even better seems to be Mr Meyer of America. He, as I understand, says something contrary to what Herr Schmid has said, doesn't he? Hahaha. So now there is the concept of "the Balts" being an alleged separate linguistic, cultural (and racial?) group alongside "the Celts,""the Germanics" and the "Romantics," isn't it? I wonder what pertinent and hard facts warrant such a division? Consider fierce "Baltic" nationalism and selective xenophobia of today. Their curious version of their and others' history. Their contempt for the Slavs; their compulsive denial of having common traits with the Slavs; their assertion they have common traits with "the Germanics" instead. It all seems political, unscientific, contrary to historical facts, racialist, highly delusional, doesn't it?
To anonymous responding to my comment: What do you mean by trolling? Making statements that aren't to your political liking? I don't notice any particular alleged cultural distinctness between Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians and other nations of the area, notably Russians. All of these nations besides seem to speak Russian fluently and way better than others in their vicinity eg. Poles, Czechs, Hungarians. Are you trying to censor me?
Do you mean if some one in this discussion section doesn't give specific suggestions for improving the entry then he should be stopped from making comments, i.e. he should be censored? If so, then every one who has made comments here should be censored. Including you. Agreed? Or do you mean just myself am required to provide the said suggestions, but others - including you - aren't?
Well, if "article talk pages exist solely to discuss how to improve articles; they are not for general discussion about the subject of the article. Material unsuitable for talk pages may be subject to removal," then the majority of the comments here are subject to removal, aren't they? Particularly those that are full of obvious racialist hatred towards things Slavic (those comments seem to come from some Latvian or Lithuanian chauvinist nationalists in a delusional frame of mind). If so, why do you single out only my comment for removal? So you say free speech has limitations and you praise the fact it does? Well, then it's not free speech you talk about but imprisoned speech and you praise imprisoned speech. You say my expressing doubts as to some of the statements in the entry is like saying in the church that God doesn't exist? So you mean the statements by Schmid, Meyer and some Slav-hating authors of comments are the equivalent of religious dogmas?
I only asked if Schmid means all European languages, and also Iranian, sprang from "Baltic languages." His diagram justifies asking such a question. Your statement on what he means in his diagram is an expression of your own opinion. I think the latter is false: contrary to what you assert, the diagram in question does not necessarily convey only "where Baltic languages are: Iranian languages are to the east of that group" etc.
Wikipedia isn't a house nor is this section of Wikipedia. If you say they're a house, you are delusional, aren't you? Re "conspiracy theories," do you insinuate the statements I've made here are false? Any proof of this? Your reply and attitude is disrespectful and bullying. So is your seeming threat of banning me out of Wikipedia. If you carry the threat out, I protest against it. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.103.225.108 ( talk) 13:02, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
Twice have I removed my comment above entitled "ISN'T IT ALL POLITICAL?" (along with replies to it, including yours and mine) and twice it has been brought back. Is it you who have brought it back? Why? Whoever has brought it back, he or she is responsible for the comment now, not I. I don't any longer agree with my statements in the comment in question nor in my other comments under it; I consider them false now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.103.225.108 ( talk) 00:32, 30 November 2018 (UTC)
The entry suggests the "geographic distribution" - meaning, I understand, the native location - of "Baltic languages" is "Northern Europe." Wouldn't it be a false suggestion? Isn't the "geographic distribution" located, actually, in Eastern Europe or, if one so pleases, in North-Eastern Europe? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 172.103.225.108 ( talk) 12:25, 29 November 2018 (UTC)
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The article mentions twice that the Baltic languages are divided into two branches, East and West Baltic, however the "Branches" section of the article has three sections. Either this is a mistake because the Dnieper branch is not a branch of Baltic, or because it is part of one of the other two branches Emmy571 ( talk) 00:40, 27 July 2022 (UTC)
The lead currently says: The range of the Eastern Baltic linguistic influence once possibly reached as far as the Ural Mountains, but this hypothesis has been questioned
. This is like feeding our readers with speculations and leaving them in the dark about what is actually widely accepted among Balticists. Based on Dini's monograph, I propose to change it to:
For details, there is the section "Geographic distribution".
Another thing: @ SeriousThinker, can you find a single source that mentions the full number of Baltic speakers? Doing arithmetics is always a bit problematic, since different sources might use different criteria or give figures from different years. I think we can leave things temporarily as they are, but not permanently. Austronesier ( talk) 16:23, 26 August 2022 (UTC)