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Just found this book partially available on-line on Google Books:
Foreword to the Past: A Cultural History of the Baltic People By Endre Bojtár Published by Central European University Press, 1999 ISBN 9639116424, 9789639116429 419 pages
The reason I was looking for a reference was my initial suspicion that the Wiki pages on the Baltic and Slavic languages and cultural history are very much confusing because of the Slavic POV on one hand, and the lack of good summaries in English on the other. After having read the chapters about the research on the Proto-Baltic-Slavic in that excellent book, I just can confirm, unfortunately, that the Balto-Slavic language page is a collection of selected/preferred topics, nationalistic views, hasty conclusions (such as the recent methodological tests of computational analysis in the IE language genetics), amateurish experiments rather than a broad perspective of a difficult and constantly developing research field. It is ridiculous that the same editors who’ve been constructing the Balto-Slavic language article took their freedom to come up even with a separate article about Balto-Slavic peoples, a topic, which is close to science fiction (there has been found no archaeological culture that could be identified as a trace left by those language speakers, and the population genetics data shows a clear difference in the genetic substrate of the existing Slavic and Baltic peoples). Also, in the main IE language article, the same author(s) are dominant, and no surprise that there have been overlooked some “small” peculiarities that the modern Lithuanian with its dialects is one of the last reflections of the old IE, that the Baltic and Slavic are also close to Germanic, that Germanic made a strong influence on Western Baltic. Finally, in the comparative linguistics table as a representative of the “Baltoslavic” is given, of course, Russian, although, as far as I understand, the most innovative product of that branch.
I want to make my point clear- the articles about IE, Slavic, Baltic and- perhaps- Germanic languages and peoples need to be examined by experts like the author of the above-mentioned book. Other vice, they’ll remain childish playground for self-interested, or specific POV promoting individuals. 22:39, 26 December 2008 (UTC)Gotho-Baltic Gotho-Baltic 18:00, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Balto-Slavic is a somewhat less "sturdy" hypothesis than Indo-Iranian, as is made perfectly clear in the article. It is still clearly the mainstream view. -- dab (𒁳) 20:40, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Well, E Britannica is hardly a specialist source, if we are going to discuss the finer points of proto-Balto-Slavic theory. Hxseek ( talk) 11:05, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
There is an English review of Pietro Dini's "Le lingue baltiche" in Lituanus: http://www.lituanus.org/1998/98_4_06.htm And it's written not by a Lithuanian.Gotho-Baltic 22:12, 30 December 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gotho-Baltic ( talk • contribs)
Ivan Stambuk certainly knows what he is writing. Let's not start charging accusations of pan-Slavic propaganda against their powerless Baltic cousins. (Its OK, the USSR is gone). The article states that the issue has debates, as all language theories do. Hxseek ( talk) 11:12, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
Dude, I'm not pan-Slavic propagandist (in fact I hate it as much as I hate every other pan-*, the whole idea of "one language, one people" being a result of someone's sick imagination). You yourself cited sources several times very selectively, without interpreting them (i.e. not understanding what that mean), which is esp. illustrative in Novotná & Blažek (2007) paper this vry article cites wherefrom you quote a sentence "15/14th cent. BC – crystalization of the proto-Slavs in the southern periphery of the proto-Baltic continuum, localized from Silesia to Central Ukraine (Trziniec-Komarov culture).”, and 1 sentence further the paper says: ""These results represent unambiguous evidence for Balto-Slavic unity.". Sapienti sat.
Again, I repeat: it's pointless to speak of "Balts" or "Slavs" in the period before the Balto-Slavic split (Late PIE c. 4000 BCE - 1500-1000 BCE). The ethnocultural traits that define Slavs and Balts are all results of later development (few paganic deities here and there aside), as opposed to e.g. Indo-Iranian branch where Old Indic (Vedic Sanskrit) and Old Iranian (Avestan) documents speak of very long stage of shared common social and religious development. That paper you quote just uses the term Baltic in 1500 BCE synonymously with Balto-Slavic, as Ivanov&Toporov have originally suggested. It would be insane POV to call Proto-Balto-Slavic "Old Balic". Linguistic evidence shows that there is no significant difference between the Proto-Baltic one can reconstruct on the basis of comparative Baltic evidence, and Proto-Balto-Slavic one can reconstruct on the basis of comparative Slavic and Baltic evidence - they refer to the same chronological sage. In fact, hundreds of Proto-Slavic words can be derived from Baltic by application of regular sound laws. I can imagine that "Slavs descending from Balts" fits into some crazy nationalist scheme of yours, but that is far from truth, esp. because most of the modern-they Slavic speakers have very little with the Proto-Slavic speakers of the 6th century (pre-expansion), but that's another problem to deal with. -- Ivan Štambuk ( talk) 13:11, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
I think you misinterpreted what I wrote. I stated that some of the (apparently Baltic) editors were implying that the proto-Balto-Slavic linguistic theorem is a Soviet era, pan-Slavist propaganda. I'm saying its not, but based on some good, objective evidence. ? or was that directed at Gotho-Baltic ? Hxseek ( talk) 04:37, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
Summary. As can be judged from available references, Baltic-Slavic is just a hypothetical IE language group, and the existence of proto-Balto-Slavic is a subject of ongoing debate. This should be explicitly stated in this article, and the decisive statements like “… prevalent scholary opinion is that there is very little doubt that Baltic and Slavic languages experienced a period of common development” should be toned down. Here I list my references once again:
1. Maziulis article “Baltic languages” in E. Britannica.
2. Pietro Dini's "Le lingue baltiche", a review available in Lituanus:
http://www.lituanus.org/1998/98_4_06.htm
3. Foreword to the Past: A Cultural History of the Baltic People By Endre Bojtár. Central European University Press, 1999. Chapter 2, p 70-77. Accessible via Google Books.
If this is not enough, here is one more:
4. Reconstructing Prehistorical Dialects: Initial Vowels in Slavic and Baltic, by Henning Andersen. Mouton de Gruyter, 1996. See for example p.187- 190. Accessible via Google Books. Just one citation:
p.188; “..there is evidence internal to the inherited lexicon of the Slavic and Baltic languages which speaks against this previously hypothesized, more or less distant, unified language stage”.
This WP article and Baltic and Slavic-related parts of the Indo-European languages article should be cleaned to reach NPOV [1]. Other vice, they deserve to be warned of original research [2].Gotho-Baltic 11:16, 21 March 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gotho-Baltic ( talk • contribs)
(od) Thanks for the new sources. I just wanted to mention regarding my comment earlier, "The current article gives a bit WP:UNDUE to Soviet scholarship and feels a bit more like an inventory of the synthesized Proto-Balto-Slavic than a story." When I made that observation it was based on the impression the article made in terms of sources and narrative. When it comes to linguistics, I personally have no nationalistic agenda seeking to promote proto-Baltic (intended to bypass proto-Balto-Slavic, denying common ancestry, etc.).
It might be worthwhile to include a tail section somewhere on "==Proponents of proto-Baltic==" (as an alternative to proto-Balto-Slavic) so specific claims can be outlined and laid to rest. To the various points made above, I think we can agree that a simple redirect of proto-Baltic to the article here is not sufficient and leaves the article open to interpretations of pan-Slavism.
PetersV
TALK 16:53, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
It is not necessary to call Lituanus a crackpot magazine. A Balto-Slavic protolanguage is untenable. The assessment that there was no singular "Proto" Baltic dialect appears to debunk a Balto-Slavic protolanguage. The Γαλίνδαι and Σουδινοί of the Greek geographer Ptolemy in the 2nd Century A.D. resurface again in the historical record one millennium later, as Galindians and Sūdovians, inhabiting the same geographic location during the European Papal Christian Crusades against Baltic peoples. The "unconnected paganic tribes", with their allies, defeated the Papal Crusaders of Western Europe in 1410 and established Freedom of Religion in the Duchy of Lithuania. The archaeological record has hemp and wheat seeds in the Lithuanian area around 3,100 BCE and agriculture record intensifying in the centuries following. The genetic legacy of early contacts of that period is reflected in the allele DYS19*15 in relation to N1c [old name N3] in Baltic population. Is Slavic at Pre-Komarov ethnic or multi-ethnic as perhaps Chernoles culture? A Balto-Slavic area-language would be defacto multi-ethnic, more so than an earlier Pre-Baltic/PreThracian. -- We could split hairs here until we're bald. Of course Baltic & Slavic are related - they're I.E. As the West-Baltic greeting " Kailas " connotates - We are all One Sudowite ( talk) 04:20, 23 April 2009
New perspectives on Baltic, Slavic and Balto-Slavic Workshop to be held within the XIXth International Conference on Historical Linguistics in Nijmegen, 10-15 August 2009 Conveners: Imke Mendoza (Salzburg), Eugen Hill (München). E-mail: eugen.hill (at) lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Key-note speakers: Henning Andersen (UCLA), Johannes Reinhart (Universität Wien)
The diachronic relationship between the Baltic and the Slavic languages is one of the most intriguing puzzles of Indo-European linguistics. Although these groups of languages constitute two separate branches of Indo-European, they share an unusually high number of common innovations concerning the inflectional, derivational and accentual system. Despite many years of research, the reason for the striking similarity remains unclear. There are two competing, although not mutually exclusive hypotheses. One assumes an intermediate Balto-Slavic stage after the break up of Proto-Indo-European. The other hypothesis seeks to explain the similarities within the framework of language contact, i.e as a result of their longstanding geographic relationship. Both positions have been argued, but neither has been generally accepted. During the last few decades, international research has concentrated on particular grammatical features of Baltic and Slavic. Most of these studies while useful, however, focused on either Baltic or Slavic without taking into account the other language group. The goal of the workshop therefore is to bring together scholars with expertise in Baltic and in Slavic and to find some new answers to the old question about the existence of a Balto-Slavic unity. http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/curric/colloq2.htm
Now, what did they say about Baltic and Slavic? Look up Andersen, H. Slavic and the Indo-European migrations. In “Language contacts in prehistory: studies in stratigraphy”, 2003, p.50 (via Google Books). I think you better get busy with your "Modern interpretation" section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gotho-Baltic ( talk • contribs) 23:15, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
The whole chapter dedicated to those Ivanov-Toporov is ridiculous from any point. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
194.242.102.250 (
talk) 12:02, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Someone templated the section Proto-Balto-Slavic language to be splitoff from the article? The answer should be: of course, go ahead! The reasons are:
... said: Rursus ( mbork³) 16:39, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
I support this proposal, but something on PBSl. language should also be left in this article for illustration. I suggest that that be the list of basic isoglosses and a few sentences on shared accentual laws. -- Ivan Štambuk ( talk) 12:24, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
The article now contains this claim: ...around AD 600, uniform Proto-Slavic with no detectable dialectal differentiation was spoken from Thessaloniki in Greece to Novgorod in Russia... -- which, as far as the language spoken in the area of the then non-existent city of Novgorod of a then non-existent country which has only later become known as Russia, seems, diplomatically speaking, dubious. 3 Löwi ( talk) 10:27, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
I have split off the very lengthy discussion about the term "Serbo-Crotian" to a separate subpage so as to not clog this page with very large charts and tables. Please continue the discussion there. (This action should not be construed as my involvement in the actual discussion or as support for any given side of the argument.) — Gordon P. Hemsley→ ✉ 09:42, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
Folks, this kind of attitude [7] (and I mean both summaries) makes me sorry that I edit Wikipedia. I'm far from an expert on the Balto-Slavic languages, and not really a linguist, but from what I gathered from the literature, all I can say is that what is in the lede: "Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European branch, which points to the period of common development. However, there is an ongoing debate on the nature of that relationship: Some claim they were genetically related, and others explain similarities by prolonged language contact." And that debate can indeed be rather harsh even in the real world (selected exchange of fire [8] [9]). Now, can you work on improving the citations and hashing out the differences, rather than calling each other vandals? I also added {{ No footnotes}}, because the article sorely lacks them, despite volumes of available material on the subject. No such user ( talk) 12:52, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
Kursis ( talk) 21:41, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
So let us, piece by piece, again see what you reverted here and where is that "junk":
So, I don't see anything substantial left from Kursis' original "vandalism" (though I also highly disagree with your characterization of it) For the last time, I will fix what I think should be fixed according to the analysis above, and remove this stuff from my watchlist so that you can have it your way. I will also spare you moral sermons in the future, except for the last one: you are knowledgeable in this stuff, and it's too bad that you're such a jerk. No such user ( talk) 07:03, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
When users, such Kursis, make claims of pan-Slavism against well intentioned and well informed editors, they only unmask their own bias. Whichever way one looks at it, Baltic and SLavic formed a late PIE macrodialectical group that partially disintegrated but still underwent a highly significant number of common innovations Hxseek ( talk) 11:11, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
I find Ivan Štambuk edit comment "Balto-Slavic is generally established genetical node, we've been over this countless times, spare us of your Baltic nationalism and separatism - it's fringe and it doesn't belong to the lead" when he reverts something sourced to Encyclopaedia Britannica [10] rather odd, because:
BTW, what's the difference between Balto-Slavic languages and Proto-Balto-Slavic languages, Wikipedia seems to be unique in making such a distinction. -- Martin ( talk) 11:44, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
The vast majority of Indo-Europeanists accept Baltic as a valid single clade within Indo-European (see the various stammbaum offered in all the modern introductory texts on Indo-European--Fortson, Clackson, etc.). The notion that there was no Baltic clade is not supported within the mainstream Indo-European literature. The whole section "Modern interpretation" is not based on modern, accepted Indo-European scholarship, but is a WP:FRINGE position from the 1960s. It is not accepted in the 21st century by the vast majority of Indo-Europeanists. 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 support Baltic as a clade. This is the mainstream position and the "Baltic is not a clade" is a minority view and to give it an entire section violates WP:UNDUE. -- Taivo ( talk) 17:38, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
In the article on Winter's Law, it is said that it operated "prior to" /o/ to /a/. In the article on Proto-Balto-Slavic, it has "1. .../o/ to/a/" and "4.Winter's Law...". The lower number "1." implies that the shift /o/ to /a/ was earlier than the operation of Winter's law. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.148.116.161 ( talk) 16:54, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
The text says, "...close...exclusive...most important...". I want all these isoglosses, not just the most important.
It is said that "relative chronology" is "most important". It is not clear why this is so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.157.131.67 ( talk) 15:49, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
See Talk:Lithuanian language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.193.97.141 ( talk) 11:37, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
The article repeatedly uses the phrasing "descended from", as in "Russian descended from Proto-Slavic". This seems incorrect to me as it would imply that this relationship held true at a time, but does not anymore, which is patent nonsense: Descent is an unchanging property (as opposed to the consensus regarding hypotheses about descent, of course). Correct phrasings are "Russian descends from Proto-Slavic" or "Russian is descended from Proto-Slavic". I'm bringing up this point on the talk page because the mistake may be found in other articles as well, and because I'm not sure if I'm not being overly pedantic here. -- Florian Blaschke ( talk) 19:46, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
It's just a difference in POV. I prefer the present tense myself. But the past tense does not imply that it is no longer true, only that we view historical developments as occurring in the past. (Taivo, this is just the opposite of our other debate, where I wanted to put extinct languages in the past tense, and you wanted the present.) — kwami ( talk) 20:05, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
Gentlemen!
Apparently the debate is highly emotional. As a non-linguist and interested layman not having a stake in either the Slavs' being grouped together with the Balts or in their not being so grouped, I should humbly like to ask what you think that the theoretical advantages of accepting the Balto-Slavic theory (or hypothesis, if you prefer) are. Is fighting over it really worth so much while? It is clear that the Baltic and the Slavic languages are appreciably close to each other, perhaps more so than either is to say Germanic or Iranian, and it is also clear that they are different: Polish and Macedonian are, methinketh, considerably more like each other than either is like Lithuanian. Que diable, then? What would it change if the existence of a Proto-Balto-Slavic language is asserted or not (and common Indo-European dialects are assumed to have existed, instead)? Thank you in advance. 78.49.0.151 ( talk) Wojciech Żełaniec —Preceding undated comment added 09:39, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Someone need to add words - Ekran (screen) same in LT, LV, RUS and Зубы (Russian) the same as PL-zęby, LV-zobi, CZ-zuby)
more: ekran-экран reklama-Реклама akcia-акция — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.109.65.175 ( talk) 16:09, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
The current introductory part states that One particularly innovative dialect separated from the Balto-Slavic dialect continuum and became ancestral to the Proto-Slavic language, from which all Slavic languages descended. It doesn’t make sense since it implies that the formation of Slavic branch kept Balto-Slavic group intact. It also directly contradicts to the illustrative scheme.-- Ąžuolas ( talk) 20:06, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
Love how kwami put it! @ Ąžuolas the visual schemes could perhaps be considered outdated by today's standards. What seems to be gaining currency is that Slavic was an innovative, "explosive" offshoot from West Baltic (from what I've seen.) In light of this the current name is a bit of an anachronism. If one would want a non-anachronistic name and avoid such circular sentences the thing should be named "Baltic" and Slavic should be renamed Neo Baltic or something (well, if you want to follow a super-strict chronological order.) Goes without saying that no one is going to do that (well, at least not yet.) Secondly "Proto-Baltic" (by its earlier definition) goes into the trash (the distance between Lith. and Prus. is as big as it is between Lith. and Slav. – that's what they mean with "equidistant.") Instead you would get Proto-East Baltic (parent of Lithuanian) and Proto-West Baltic (parent of Slavic at some point and later Prussian) but then given the fact that people might be hesitant to rename Slavic languages "Neo Baltic" or something to that effect you would need to stick "Slavic" in all of those names even though East Baltic (according to some people's theories) is a "Slav-free" branch chronologically. And then there's the issue that all of this stuff is from 21st century. How long does it take to come up with a protolanguage? Probably quite some time, so it might be a while before Lithuanian gets a "Proto-East Baltic" protolanguage. OK, kwami was much more eloquent, lol, but this is my explanation to the rather valid concern raised here and the reasons why you might have trouble finding a "Baltic-Baltic" instead of a Balto-Slavic protolanguage for Lith./Latv. Neitrāls vārds ( talk) 00:26, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
Note that Proto-Balto-Slavic_language#Developement_from_Proto-Indo-European_to_Proto-Baltic says correctly that only one sound law is held in common by Baltic and Slavonic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.126.73.168 ( talk) 12:52, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
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“ | It seems, therefore, to be securely established that pre-Proto-Balt *-os is reflected as Proto-Balt *-as
and Proto-Balt *-us at one and the same time in the same way as pre-Proto-Slav *-os is reflected as Proto-Slav *-o and Proto-Slav *- ŭ. |
” |
My native language is Lithuanian, I hope you understand my English. This guy comes to this conclusion because of existence of u-stem adjectives beside o-stem ones in Lithuanian, e. g. status 'vertikal' /stačias 'verical; upstanding' (Latvian stats < *statas), and because of the adjectives like brandus 'mature' formed from verb brendau 'I ripened', and he takes some other examples like that. No, this is total nonsense to come to this conclusion! E. Hill is either an ignoramus or a bold liar in Baltistics. He ignores both history of u-stem adjective development in Lithuanian and all researches that have been done about the subject. Lithuanian linguist Zigmas Zinkevičius has collected the most essential information of Lithuanistics and Baltistics into 5-9 books that are a ground of studies at universities. I refer to his books below my comment.
u-stem adjectives get more and more frequent in Lithuanian. In the written sources, we can see both wide spread of u-stem adjectives and lost of original u-stem endings in u-stem adjective paradigm. During last centuries (16th-), u-stem paradigm has got (j)o-stem endings and it became a subclass of jo-stem adjectives, it preserved a few u-stem endings only. There is a mix of two paradigms now, and this phenomenon is result of the last centuries, there is nothing to say about Proto-Baltic times. In Old Lithuanian literature and in the dialects, lots of modern u-stem adjectives originally were o-stem ones, e. g. bjauras 'disgusting', stipras 'strong', aštras 'sharp', pigas 'cheap', puikas 'wonderful', smulkas 'little', romas 'quiete' and more and more others. In modern Lithuanian, those adjectives have got sing. nominative u-stem ending -us. We have many doublets with -as / -us in modern Lithuanian: blaivus / blaivas 'sober', smailus/ smailas 'pointed', status/ stačias 'vertical; upstanding', žydrus /žydras 'sky-blue' etc. But u-stem nouns don't show the spread, they are rare. What is a reason?
Adjectives are matched with nouns in genders, and feminine of u-stem adjectives has jā-stem endings, as well as feminine adjectives of jo-stem. There is the only one case with different ending, it's sing. nominative. Every nominal with -i in sing. nominative belongs to jā-stem declension. So, we have platus (u-stem) 'broad' : plati (jā-stem) and gulsčias (jo-stem) 'lying; horizontal' : gulsčia (jā-stem). Pronominal, or definite, forms of feminine adjectives both with -ia (gulsčia) and -i (plati) have the same ending: gulsčioji and plačioji. So, feminine adjectives of u- and jo-stems have the same inflection. That is why u-stem adjectives (masculine) were transformed to jo-stem except 3 endings in singular (nominative platus, genitive plataus, accusative paltų) and 1 in plural (nominative platūs). u-stem adjectives became productive when they started to work as a subclass of jo-stem paradigm. In standard Lithuanian, pronominal u-stem adjectives have only 2 original endings: in sing. nominative (platusis) and in sing. accusative (platųjį). In Western dialects, the only 1 u-stem ending preserved (sing. nominative platus). In Western dialects, whole pronominal u-stem paradigm merged into jo-stem (sing. nominative plačiasis, sing. accusative plačiąjį), here is no pronominal u-stem inflection. In Old Lithuanian, u-stem adjectives preserved their original endings, and u-stem adjectives weren't so much productive like now because u- and jo-stems didn't overlap. So, it's a lie that "*-os is reflected as Proto-Balt *-as and Proto-Balt *-us.-- Ed1974LT ( talk) 20:02, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
Do you need I refer to the pages? This isn't WP:OR.-- Ed1974LT ( talk) 20:56, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
"Raising of stressed *o to *u in a final syllable". In the article, doubtful theory like a true thing is presented. There are lots of clear evidences, e. g. PIE. r, l, m, n, > Proto-Baltic, Proto-Slavic *ir, *il, *im, *in (*ur, *ul,*un, *um). But stressed PIE. *o > Proto-Baltic > *u is highly weak conclusion and it isn't recognized as a true fact in the linguists' debates.
I have been asked to provide a third opinion. I'm honored, but I'm not sure if I'm the right person, since I know practically nothing about Baltic languages (except for a question about Lithuanian vocative, which may have earned me the request). I am certain that there are others more qualified than me on Wikipedia, but I'll try my best.
I would boil down the main question this discussion revolves around as: Should the "Two laws of final syllables in the common prehistory of Baltic and Slavonic" be presented in the article as undisputed?
To this, our policies have a clear answer: If there is no reliable source that says the Two Laws are disputed, they we can't claim that they are disputed, in other words, we must treat them as undisputed.
That said, I want to take into account the intention of Ed1974LT, who disagrees with the Two Laws. One can boil down Ed's line of argument to a series of logical premises and conclusions. The policy WP:OR does not allow logical conclusions, but it does allow Routine calculations. Since I don't know why simple logic is not explicitly allowed, I will now consider a syllogism a form of a routine calculation.
The parts of Ed's argument are:
To Ed, it seems that the above is simple logic. However, at least one step appears to be not as clear cut, as shown by CodeCat's assertion that "Hill and Zinkevičius can both be right". Obviously, judging this requires more knowledge in the area than I have, so I can neither confirm nor refute Ed's chain of argument.
Instead, I have to fall back to the following consideration: This line of argument is at least easy enough to occur to scholars of the topic. The Two laws of final syllables in the common prehistory of Baltic and Slavonic were first presented in 2009 in what appears to be, judging by List of linguistics conferences#International, the international conference on historical linguistics. So they had enough visibility and scholars had enough time for any criticism to be published. Since that apparently hasn't happened, I conclude that the line of argument isn't as simple as Ed makes it out, and the Two Laws must remain as undisputed in this article. — Sebastian 21:19, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
References
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We only get three words in the shared vocabulary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.141.100.176 ( talk) 11:47, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
The claim that Baltic is especially close to Slavonic needs careful study. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.141.100.176 ( talk) 11:48, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
The number of phonetic features is variously said to be 9, 10 and 12. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.141.100.176 ( talk) 11:51, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
To the IP editor: The addition of the label "hypothetical" is unnecessary and potentially misleading. Every linguistic relationship is based on hypotheses, except for rare cases where the the evolution from a common source is documented (such as the emergence of the Romance languages from Latin, or the Indo-Aryan languages from Sanskrit). Baltic is also "hypothetical", since there is no documented source from which the East and West Baltic languages have emerged, so why not add it there too?
The politicizing of the topic is not helpful either ("Russian politics" [16]). It betrays a deplorable unfamiliarity with the topic. Our sources which support the Balto-Slavic unity are written by American, British, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, and German scholars. What on earth has this to do with politics? – Austronesier ( talk) 18:03, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
...the academic background of these authors is mostly Slavonic studies– No. – Austronesier ( talk) 17:37, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
I have heard from some that calling Balto-Slavic a hypothesis is ‘not worth mentioning’ because it is self-evident. Very well. In that case, why mention in the Italo-Celtic article that it's a ‘hypothetical grouping’ then, it's self-evident, isn’t it? Can we stop with the double standards for once and apply the same principle to all the articles? — Preceding unsigned comment added by SeriousThinker ( talk • contribs) 14:43, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
"The notion of a single Balto-Slavic speech community has been controversial in some circles, in part because of political tensions. But all major Indo-Europeanists are agreed that Baltic and slavic deserve to be grouped together, though some dispute remains about the exact degree and nature of their affinity (p. 364)."
"These shared features have led many Indo-Europeanists to posit an "Italo-Celtic" subgroup or dialect area of Indo-European. However, the hypothesis of an Italo-Celtic unity has never gained universal approval (p. 247)."
"The Baltic and the Slavic languages were originally one language and so form one group (p.22)."[...]
"The supposed unity of the Balto-Slavic group is often disputed, but it is really above all doubt. Both language groups share a host of developments in common, es pecially with respect to the accent (p. 31)."
"The Italo-Celtic unity is a much more difficult one to prove. In any case, the basis for such a supposition are only a few sound changes and perhaps also a morphological (i.e. form) development (p. 31)."
"There are a number of other proposed relationships. Some argue that similarities between Greek and Armenian are such that there was a common Graeco-Armenian, while Italo-Celtic has been another long suggested and just as frequently rejected proposition. In both of these cases, we do not require a proto-language between Proto-Indo-European and the individual languages as we do with Indo-Iranian, and so the case for these other sets is simply not as strong as it is for Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic (p. 78, emphasis added)."
"Although some groups seem to be presently beyond doubt (e.g. Balto-Slavic), some are still hotly disputed (e.g. Italo-Celtic) (p. 23)."
"That Indic and Iranian together constitute an Indo-Iranian clade has not been seriously questioned; the languages share more than enough striking innovations to show that they developed as a single language for some time after losing touch with the ancestors of other surviving IE languages. Though Baltic and Slavic are not so closely related, the evidence for a Balto-Slavic clade likewise seems secure [...] The existence of an Italo-Celtic clade has also been suspected, but it is much harder to validate and remains problematic (p. 63)."
"However, unlike some other Indo-European subgroups such as Indo-Iranian or Balto-Slavic, the existence of Italo-Celtic has never reached the status of established fact. (p. 2030)."
"The ten principal IE branches are as follows. [...] 4. Italic [...] 5. Celtic [...] 9. Balto-Slavic... (p. 4–5)."
More modern-day high-quality sources:
"It would be fair to say that Italo-Celtic is more debatable than any other higher order subgrouping, certainly much more so than Balto-Slavic."
"Throughout the twentieth century, the matter remained controversial [...] During the last quarter of a century, the communis opinio appears to have moved firmly in favour of the idea that there was indeed a period of shared innovations between Baltic and Slavic directly following the disintegration of the Proto-Indo-European parent language (p. 269) [...] All linguistic evidence points to a Balto-Slavic proto-language that must have existed for a significant period after the disintegration of Proto-Indo-European (p. 285).
I regard Balto-Slavic unity as completely certain [...] The best characterization of the Balto-Slavic question I can think of is that it was an important 20th century topic that is no longer current in the 21st century (recent, detailed defenses of an anti-Balto-Slavic position are indeed nonexistent). In my view, the cumulative evidence in favor of Balto-Slavic unity is simply overwhelming (p. 5).
This has direct bearings for the over-detailed section "Criticism" that dwells on points that have become long settled in the last decades. Giving too much space to a position that is virtually non-existent among present-day mainstream scholars with an expertise in Indo-European linguistics (including those specialized in Balto-Slavic linguistics, Baltic linguistics or Slavic linguistics) violates WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV. I invite all editors with a genuine (not ideologically driven) interest in historical linguistics to tackle this problem. – Austronesier ( talk) 21:18, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
"None of these features seriously precludes the reconstruction of a Balto-Slavic stage.",
"Such divergences must, of course, not be overestimated. It would be unwise to use them as pieces of evidence against the reconstruction of a Balto-Slavic common proto-stage."). And needless to say, his exposition of the historical material comes after the section that presents the common features of Balto-Slavic.
More than a month has passed since the above proposals were made, without any counterargument(s). Austronesier, if you also agree, you can go ahead and make the aforementioned changes. Specifically, to remove § Criticism altogether, move § Historical dispute where the former was (under § Shared vocabulary), and expand it with information from the chapters of Petit (2018) and Pronk (2022); however, the extent and details of what is to be included, still remain to be decided. Ideally, we shouldn't make any changes until we also have the aforementioned summary; though, personally I don't mind moving forward with the removals either. Demetrios1993 ( talk) 14:20, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
The file in question is claimed to be a derivative of the file "IndoEuropeanTree.svg", however, that file clearly shows that Ukrainian, Rusyn and Belarusian are descended from the dead Ruthenian language, which is in turn descended from Old East Slavic. The "Slavic_languages_tree.svg" file shows that Russian, Ukrainian, Rusyn and Belarusian are descended directly from Old East Slavic, parallel to the "Old Ruthenian Language", which is shown as dead and without no descendants - this goes against both the original file of which it is derivative of, and it also goes against the contemprorary understanding of the classification Slavic languages.
I suggest a new file be made to match the "IndoEuropeanTree.svg" file closely.
Mnohohrishnyi (
talk) 09:18, 12 April 2023 (UTC)
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Just found this book partially available on-line on Google Books:
Foreword to the Past: A Cultural History of the Baltic People By Endre Bojtár Published by Central European University Press, 1999 ISBN 9639116424, 9789639116429 419 pages
The reason I was looking for a reference was my initial suspicion that the Wiki pages on the Baltic and Slavic languages and cultural history are very much confusing because of the Slavic POV on one hand, and the lack of good summaries in English on the other. After having read the chapters about the research on the Proto-Baltic-Slavic in that excellent book, I just can confirm, unfortunately, that the Balto-Slavic language page is a collection of selected/preferred topics, nationalistic views, hasty conclusions (such as the recent methodological tests of computational analysis in the IE language genetics), amateurish experiments rather than a broad perspective of a difficult and constantly developing research field. It is ridiculous that the same editors who’ve been constructing the Balto-Slavic language article took their freedom to come up even with a separate article about Balto-Slavic peoples, a topic, which is close to science fiction (there has been found no archaeological culture that could be identified as a trace left by those language speakers, and the population genetics data shows a clear difference in the genetic substrate of the existing Slavic and Baltic peoples). Also, in the main IE language article, the same author(s) are dominant, and no surprise that there have been overlooked some “small” peculiarities that the modern Lithuanian with its dialects is one of the last reflections of the old IE, that the Baltic and Slavic are also close to Germanic, that Germanic made a strong influence on Western Baltic. Finally, in the comparative linguistics table as a representative of the “Baltoslavic” is given, of course, Russian, although, as far as I understand, the most innovative product of that branch.
I want to make my point clear- the articles about IE, Slavic, Baltic and- perhaps- Germanic languages and peoples need to be examined by experts like the author of the above-mentioned book. Other vice, they’ll remain childish playground for self-interested, or specific POV promoting individuals. 22:39, 26 December 2008 (UTC)Gotho-Baltic Gotho-Baltic 18:00, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Balto-Slavic is a somewhat less "sturdy" hypothesis than Indo-Iranian, as is made perfectly clear in the article. It is still clearly the mainstream view. -- dab (𒁳) 20:40, 29 December 2008 (UTC)
Well, E Britannica is hardly a specialist source, if we are going to discuss the finer points of proto-Balto-Slavic theory. Hxseek ( talk) 11:05, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
There is an English review of Pietro Dini's "Le lingue baltiche" in Lituanus: http://www.lituanus.org/1998/98_4_06.htm And it's written not by a Lithuanian.Gotho-Baltic 22:12, 30 December 2008 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gotho-Baltic ( talk • contribs)
Ivan Stambuk certainly knows what he is writing. Let's not start charging accusations of pan-Slavic propaganda against their powerless Baltic cousins. (Its OK, the USSR is gone). The article states that the issue has debates, as all language theories do. Hxseek ( talk) 11:12, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
Dude, I'm not pan-Slavic propagandist (in fact I hate it as much as I hate every other pan-*, the whole idea of "one language, one people" being a result of someone's sick imagination). You yourself cited sources several times very selectively, without interpreting them (i.e. not understanding what that mean), which is esp. illustrative in Novotná & Blažek (2007) paper this vry article cites wherefrom you quote a sentence "15/14th cent. BC – crystalization of the proto-Slavs in the southern periphery of the proto-Baltic continuum, localized from Silesia to Central Ukraine (Trziniec-Komarov culture).”, and 1 sentence further the paper says: ""These results represent unambiguous evidence for Balto-Slavic unity.". Sapienti sat.
Again, I repeat: it's pointless to speak of "Balts" or "Slavs" in the period before the Balto-Slavic split (Late PIE c. 4000 BCE - 1500-1000 BCE). The ethnocultural traits that define Slavs and Balts are all results of later development (few paganic deities here and there aside), as opposed to e.g. Indo-Iranian branch where Old Indic (Vedic Sanskrit) and Old Iranian (Avestan) documents speak of very long stage of shared common social and religious development. That paper you quote just uses the term Baltic in 1500 BCE synonymously with Balto-Slavic, as Ivanov&Toporov have originally suggested. It would be insane POV to call Proto-Balto-Slavic "Old Balic". Linguistic evidence shows that there is no significant difference between the Proto-Baltic one can reconstruct on the basis of comparative Baltic evidence, and Proto-Balto-Slavic one can reconstruct on the basis of comparative Slavic and Baltic evidence - they refer to the same chronological sage. In fact, hundreds of Proto-Slavic words can be derived from Baltic by application of regular sound laws. I can imagine that "Slavs descending from Balts" fits into some crazy nationalist scheme of yours, but that is far from truth, esp. because most of the modern-they Slavic speakers have very little with the Proto-Slavic speakers of the 6th century (pre-expansion), but that's another problem to deal with. -- Ivan Štambuk ( talk) 13:11, 7 February 2009 (UTC)
I think you misinterpreted what I wrote. I stated that some of the (apparently Baltic) editors were implying that the proto-Balto-Slavic linguistic theorem is a Soviet era, pan-Slavist propaganda. I'm saying its not, but based on some good, objective evidence. ? or was that directed at Gotho-Baltic ? Hxseek ( talk) 04:37, 8 February 2009 (UTC)
Summary. As can be judged from available references, Baltic-Slavic is just a hypothetical IE language group, and the existence of proto-Balto-Slavic is a subject of ongoing debate. This should be explicitly stated in this article, and the decisive statements like “… prevalent scholary opinion is that there is very little doubt that Baltic and Slavic languages experienced a period of common development” should be toned down. Here I list my references once again:
1. Maziulis article “Baltic languages” in E. Britannica.
2. Pietro Dini's "Le lingue baltiche", a review available in Lituanus:
http://www.lituanus.org/1998/98_4_06.htm
3. Foreword to the Past: A Cultural History of the Baltic People By Endre Bojtár. Central European University Press, 1999. Chapter 2, p 70-77. Accessible via Google Books.
If this is not enough, here is one more:
4. Reconstructing Prehistorical Dialects: Initial Vowels in Slavic and Baltic, by Henning Andersen. Mouton de Gruyter, 1996. See for example p.187- 190. Accessible via Google Books. Just one citation:
p.188; “..there is evidence internal to the inherited lexicon of the Slavic and Baltic languages which speaks against this previously hypothesized, more or less distant, unified language stage”.
This WP article and Baltic and Slavic-related parts of the Indo-European languages article should be cleaned to reach NPOV [1]. Other vice, they deserve to be warned of original research [2].Gotho-Baltic 11:16, 21 March 2009 (UTC) —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gotho-Baltic ( talk • contribs)
(od) Thanks for the new sources. I just wanted to mention regarding my comment earlier, "The current article gives a bit WP:UNDUE to Soviet scholarship and feels a bit more like an inventory of the synthesized Proto-Balto-Slavic than a story." When I made that observation it was based on the impression the article made in terms of sources and narrative. When it comes to linguistics, I personally have no nationalistic agenda seeking to promote proto-Baltic (intended to bypass proto-Balto-Slavic, denying common ancestry, etc.).
It might be worthwhile to include a tail section somewhere on "==Proponents of proto-Baltic==" (as an alternative to proto-Balto-Slavic) so specific claims can be outlined and laid to rest. To the various points made above, I think we can agree that a simple redirect of proto-Baltic to the article here is not sufficient and leaves the article open to interpretations of pan-Slavism.
PetersV
TALK 16:53, 22 March 2009 (UTC)
It is not necessary to call Lituanus a crackpot magazine. A Balto-Slavic protolanguage is untenable. The assessment that there was no singular "Proto" Baltic dialect appears to debunk a Balto-Slavic protolanguage. The Γαλίνδαι and Σουδινοί of the Greek geographer Ptolemy in the 2nd Century A.D. resurface again in the historical record one millennium later, as Galindians and Sūdovians, inhabiting the same geographic location during the European Papal Christian Crusades against Baltic peoples. The "unconnected paganic tribes", with their allies, defeated the Papal Crusaders of Western Europe in 1410 and established Freedom of Religion in the Duchy of Lithuania. The archaeological record has hemp and wheat seeds in the Lithuanian area around 3,100 BCE and agriculture record intensifying in the centuries following. The genetic legacy of early contacts of that period is reflected in the allele DYS19*15 in relation to N1c [old name N3] in Baltic population. Is Slavic at Pre-Komarov ethnic or multi-ethnic as perhaps Chernoles culture? A Balto-Slavic area-language would be defacto multi-ethnic, more so than an earlier Pre-Baltic/PreThracian. -- We could split hairs here until we're bald. Of course Baltic & Slavic are related - they're I.E. As the West-Baltic greeting " Kailas " connotates - We are all One Sudowite ( talk) 04:20, 23 April 2009
New perspectives on Baltic, Slavic and Balto-Slavic Workshop to be held within the XIXth International Conference on Historical Linguistics in Nijmegen, 10-15 August 2009 Conveners: Imke Mendoza (Salzburg), Eugen Hill (München). E-mail: eugen.hill (at) lrz.uni-muenchen.de
Key-note speakers: Henning Andersen (UCLA), Johannes Reinhart (Universität Wien)
The diachronic relationship between the Baltic and the Slavic languages is one of the most intriguing puzzles of Indo-European linguistics. Although these groups of languages constitute two separate branches of Indo-European, they share an unusually high number of common innovations concerning the inflectional, derivational and accentual system. Despite many years of research, the reason for the striking similarity remains unclear. There are two competing, although not mutually exclusive hypotheses. One assumes an intermediate Balto-Slavic stage after the break up of Proto-Indo-European. The other hypothesis seeks to explain the similarities within the framework of language contact, i.e as a result of their longstanding geographic relationship. Both positions have been argued, but neither has been generally accepted. During the last few decades, international research has concentrated on particular grammatical features of Baltic and Slavic. Most of these studies while useful, however, focused on either Baltic or Slavic without taking into account the other language group. The goal of the workshop therefore is to bring together scholars with expertise in Baltic and in Slavic and to find some new answers to the old question about the existence of a Balto-Slavic unity. http://titus.uni-frankfurt.de/curric/colloq2.htm
Now, what did they say about Baltic and Slavic? Look up Andersen, H. Slavic and the Indo-European migrations. In “Language contacts in prehistory: studies in stratigraphy”, 2003, p.50 (via Google Books). I think you better get busy with your "Modern interpretation" section. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Gotho-Baltic ( talk • contribs) 23:15, 28 August 2009 (UTC)
The whole chapter dedicated to those Ivanov-Toporov is ridiculous from any point. —Preceding
unsigned comment added by
194.242.102.250 (
talk) 12:02, 23 March 2010 (UTC)
Someone templated the section Proto-Balto-Slavic language to be splitoff from the article? The answer should be: of course, go ahead! The reasons are:
... said: Rursus ( mbork³) 16:39, 26 October 2009 (UTC)
I support this proposal, but something on PBSl. language should also be left in this article for illustration. I suggest that that be the list of basic isoglosses and a few sentences on shared accentual laws. -- Ivan Štambuk ( talk) 12:24, 16 December 2009 (UTC)
The article now contains this claim: ...around AD 600, uniform Proto-Slavic with no detectable dialectal differentiation was spoken from Thessaloniki in Greece to Novgorod in Russia... -- which, as far as the language spoken in the area of the then non-existent city of Novgorod of a then non-existent country which has only later become known as Russia, seems, diplomatically speaking, dubious. 3 Löwi ( talk) 10:27, 13 November 2009 (UTC)
I have split off the very lengthy discussion about the term "Serbo-Crotian" to a separate subpage so as to not clog this page with very large charts and tables. Please continue the discussion there. (This action should not be construed as my involvement in the actual discussion or as support for any given side of the argument.) — Gordon P. Hemsley→ ✉ 09:42, 23 May 2010 (UTC)
Folks, this kind of attitude [7] (and I mean both summaries) makes me sorry that I edit Wikipedia. I'm far from an expert on the Balto-Slavic languages, and not really a linguist, but from what I gathered from the literature, all I can say is that what is in the lede: "Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European branch, which points to the period of common development. However, there is an ongoing debate on the nature of that relationship: Some claim they were genetically related, and others explain similarities by prolonged language contact." And that debate can indeed be rather harsh even in the real world (selected exchange of fire [8] [9]). Now, can you work on improving the citations and hashing out the differences, rather than calling each other vandals? I also added {{ No footnotes}}, because the article sorely lacks them, despite volumes of available material on the subject. No such user ( talk) 12:52, 10 June 2010 (UTC)
Kursis ( talk) 21:41, 11 June 2010 (UTC)
So let us, piece by piece, again see what you reverted here and where is that "junk":
So, I don't see anything substantial left from Kursis' original "vandalism" (though I also highly disagree with your characterization of it) For the last time, I will fix what I think should be fixed according to the analysis above, and remove this stuff from my watchlist so that you can have it your way. I will also spare you moral sermons in the future, except for the last one: you are knowledgeable in this stuff, and it's too bad that you're such a jerk. No such user ( talk) 07:03, 30 July 2010 (UTC)
When users, such Kursis, make claims of pan-Slavism against well intentioned and well informed editors, they only unmask their own bias. Whichever way one looks at it, Baltic and SLavic formed a late PIE macrodialectical group that partially disintegrated but still underwent a highly significant number of common innovations Hxseek ( talk) 11:11, 4 November 2010 (UTC)
I find Ivan Štambuk edit comment "Balto-Slavic is generally established genetical node, we've been over this countless times, spare us of your Baltic nationalism and separatism - it's fringe and it doesn't belong to the lead" when he reverts something sourced to Encyclopaedia Britannica [10] rather odd, because:
BTW, what's the difference between Balto-Slavic languages and Proto-Balto-Slavic languages, Wikipedia seems to be unique in making such a distinction. -- Martin ( talk) 11:44, 23 April 2011 (UTC)
The vast majority of Indo-Europeanists accept Baltic as a valid single clade within Indo-European (see the various stammbaum offered in all the modern introductory texts on Indo-European--Fortson, Clackson, etc.). The notion that there was no Baltic clade is not supported within the mainstream Indo-European literature. The whole section "Modern interpretation" is not based on modern, accepted Indo-European scholarship, but is a WP:FRINGE position from the 1960s. It is not accepted in the 21st century by the vast majority of Indo-Europeanists. 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 support Baltic as a clade. This is the mainstream position and the "Baltic is not a clade" is a minority view and to give it an entire section violates WP:UNDUE. -- Taivo ( talk) 17:38, 1 May 2011 (UTC)
In the article on Winter's Law, it is said that it operated "prior to" /o/ to /a/. In the article on Proto-Balto-Slavic, it has "1. .../o/ to/a/" and "4.Winter's Law...". The lower number "1." implies that the shift /o/ to /a/ was earlier than the operation of Winter's law. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.148.116.161 ( talk) 16:54, 3 May 2011 (UTC)
The text says, "...close...exclusive...most important...". I want all these isoglosses, not just the most important.
It is said that "relative chronology" is "most important". It is not clear why this is so. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.157.131.67 ( talk) 15:49, 9 May 2011 (UTC)
See Talk:Lithuanian language. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.193.97.141 ( talk) 11:37, 16 August 2012 (UTC)
The article repeatedly uses the phrasing "descended from", as in "Russian descended from Proto-Slavic". This seems incorrect to me as it would imply that this relationship held true at a time, but does not anymore, which is patent nonsense: Descent is an unchanging property (as opposed to the consensus regarding hypotheses about descent, of course). Correct phrasings are "Russian descends from Proto-Slavic" or "Russian is descended from Proto-Slavic". I'm bringing up this point on the talk page because the mistake may be found in other articles as well, and because I'm not sure if I'm not being overly pedantic here. -- Florian Blaschke ( talk) 19:46, 15 October 2012 (UTC)
It's just a difference in POV. I prefer the present tense myself. But the past tense does not imply that it is no longer true, only that we view historical developments as occurring in the past. (Taivo, this is just the opposite of our other debate, where I wanted to put extinct languages in the past tense, and you wanted the present.) — kwami ( talk) 20:05, 19 October 2012 (UTC)
Gentlemen!
Apparently the debate is highly emotional. As a non-linguist and interested layman not having a stake in either the Slavs' being grouped together with the Balts or in their not being so grouped, I should humbly like to ask what you think that the theoretical advantages of accepting the Balto-Slavic theory (or hypothesis, if you prefer) are. Is fighting over it really worth so much while? It is clear that the Baltic and the Slavic languages are appreciably close to each other, perhaps more so than either is to say Germanic or Iranian, and it is also clear that they are different: Polish and Macedonian are, methinketh, considerably more like each other than either is like Lithuanian. Que diable, then? What would it change if the existence of a Proto-Balto-Slavic language is asserted or not (and common Indo-European dialects are assumed to have existed, instead)? Thank you in advance. 78.49.0.151 ( talk) Wojciech Żełaniec —Preceding undated comment added 09:39, 3 November 2012 (UTC)
Someone need to add words - Ekran (screen) same in LT, LV, RUS and Зубы (Russian) the same as PL-zęby, LV-zobi, CZ-zuby)
more: ekran-экран reklama-Реклама akcia-акция — Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.109.65.175 ( talk) 16:09, 3 September 2014 (UTC)
The current introductory part states that One particularly innovative dialect separated from the Balto-Slavic dialect continuum and became ancestral to the Proto-Slavic language, from which all Slavic languages descended. It doesn’t make sense since it implies that the formation of Slavic branch kept Balto-Slavic group intact. It also directly contradicts to the illustrative scheme.-- Ąžuolas ( talk) 20:06, 28 March 2015 (UTC)
Love how kwami put it! @ Ąžuolas the visual schemes could perhaps be considered outdated by today's standards. What seems to be gaining currency is that Slavic was an innovative, "explosive" offshoot from West Baltic (from what I've seen.) In light of this the current name is a bit of an anachronism. If one would want a non-anachronistic name and avoid such circular sentences the thing should be named "Baltic" and Slavic should be renamed Neo Baltic or something (well, if you want to follow a super-strict chronological order.) Goes without saying that no one is going to do that (well, at least not yet.) Secondly "Proto-Baltic" (by its earlier definition) goes into the trash (the distance between Lith. and Prus. is as big as it is between Lith. and Slav. – that's what they mean with "equidistant.") Instead you would get Proto-East Baltic (parent of Lithuanian) and Proto-West Baltic (parent of Slavic at some point and later Prussian) but then given the fact that people might be hesitant to rename Slavic languages "Neo Baltic" or something to that effect you would need to stick "Slavic" in all of those names even though East Baltic (according to some people's theories) is a "Slav-free" branch chronologically. And then there's the issue that all of this stuff is from 21st century. How long does it take to come up with a protolanguage? Probably quite some time, so it might be a while before Lithuanian gets a "Proto-East Baltic" protolanguage. OK, kwami was much more eloquent, lol, but this is my explanation to the rather valid concern raised here and the reasons why you might have trouble finding a "Baltic-Baltic" instead of a Balto-Slavic protolanguage for Lith./Latv. Neitrāls vārds ( talk) 00:26, 20 April 2015 (UTC)
Note that Proto-Balto-Slavic_language#Developement_from_Proto-Indo-European_to_Proto-Baltic says correctly that only one sound law is held in common by Baltic and Slavonic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 194.126.73.168 ( talk) 12:52, 20 September 2015 (UTC)
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Kosovo should be gray in the map. Bunker92 ( talk) 20:07, 21 March 2017 (UTC)
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“ | It seems, therefore, to be securely established that pre-Proto-Balt *-os is reflected as Proto-Balt *-as
and Proto-Balt *-us at one and the same time in the same way as pre-Proto-Slav *-os is reflected as Proto-Slav *-o and Proto-Slav *- ŭ. |
” |
My native language is Lithuanian, I hope you understand my English. This guy comes to this conclusion because of existence of u-stem adjectives beside o-stem ones in Lithuanian, e. g. status 'vertikal' /stačias 'verical; upstanding' (Latvian stats < *statas), and because of the adjectives like brandus 'mature' formed from verb brendau 'I ripened', and he takes some other examples like that. No, this is total nonsense to come to this conclusion! E. Hill is either an ignoramus or a bold liar in Baltistics. He ignores both history of u-stem adjective development in Lithuanian and all researches that have been done about the subject. Lithuanian linguist Zigmas Zinkevičius has collected the most essential information of Lithuanistics and Baltistics into 5-9 books that are a ground of studies at universities. I refer to his books below my comment.
u-stem adjectives get more and more frequent in Lithuanian. In the written sources, we can see both wide spread of u-stem adjectives and lost of original u-stem endings in u-stem adjective paradigm. During last centuries (16th-), u-stem paradigm has got (j)o-stem endings and it became a subclass of jo-stem adjectives, it preserved a few u-stem endings only. There is a mix of two paradigms now, and this phenomenon is result of the last centuries, there is nothing to say about Proto-Baltic times. In Old Lithuanian literature and in the dialects, lots of modern u-stem adjectives originally were o-stem ones, e. g. bjauras 'disgusting', stipras 'strong', aštras 'sharp', pigas 'cheap', puikas 'wonderful', smulkas 'little', romas 'quiete' and more and more others. In modern Lithuanian, those adjectives have got sing. nominative u-stem ending -us. We have many doublets with -as / -us in modern Lithuanian: blaivus / blaivas 'sober', smailus/ smailas 'pointed', status/ stačias 'vertical; upstanding', žydrus /žydras 'sky-blue' etc. But u-stem nouns don't show the spread, they are rare. What is a reason?
Adjectives are matched with nouns in genders, and feminine of u-stem adjectives has jā-stem endings, as well as feminine adjectives of jo-stem. There is the only one case with different ending, it's sing. nominative. Every nominal with -i in sing. nominative belongs to jā-stem declension. So, we have platus (u-stem) 'broad' : plati (jā-stem) and gulsčias (jo-stem) 'lying; horizontal' : gulsčia (jā-stem). Pronominal, or definite, forms of feminine adjectives both with -ia (gulsčia) and -i (plati) have the same ending: gulsčioji and plačioji. So, feminine adjectives of u- and jo-stems have the same inflection. That is why u-stem adjectives (masculine) were transformed to jo-stem except 3 endings in singular (nominative platus, genitive plataus, accusative paltų) and 1 in plural (nominative platūs). u-stem adjectives became productive when they started to work as a subclass of jo-stem paradigm. In standard Lithuanian, pronominal u-stem adjectives have only 2 original endings: in sing. nominative (platusis) and in sing. accusative (platųjį). In Western dialects, the only 1 u-stem ending preserved (sing. nominative platus). In Western dialects, whole pronominal u-stem paradigm merged into jo-stem (sing. nominative plačiasis, sing. accusative plačiąjį), here is no pronominal u-stem inflection. In Old Lithuanian, u-stem adjectives preserved their original endings, and u-stem adjectives weren't so much productive like now because u- and jo-stems didn't overlap. So, it's a lie that "*-os is reflected as Proto-Balt *-as and Proto-Balt *-us.-- Ed1974LT ( talk) 20:02, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
Do you need I refer to the pages? This isn't WP:OR.-- Ed1974LT ( talk) 20:56, 7 August 2017 (UTC)
"Raising of stressed *o to *u in a final syllable". In the article, doubtful theory like a true thing is presented. There are lots of clear evidences, e. g. PIE. r, l, m, n, > Proto-Baltic, Proto-Slavic *ir, *il, *im, *in (*ur, *ul,*un, *um). But stressed PIE. *o > Proto-Baltic > *u is highly weak conclusion and it isn't recognized as a true fact in the linguists' debates.
I have been asked to provide a third opinion. I'm honored, but I'm not sure if I'm the right person, since I know practically nothing about Baltic languages (except for a question about Lithuanian vocative, which may have earned me the request). I am certain that there are others more qualified than me on Wikipedia, but I'll try my best.
I would boil down the main question this discussion revolves around as: Should the "Two laws of final syllables in the common prehistory of Baltic and Slavonic" be presented in the article as undisputed?
To this, our policies have a clear answer: If there is no reliable source that says the Two Laws are disputed, they we can't claim that they are disputed, in other words, we must treat them as undisputed.
That said, I want to take into account the intention of Ed1974LT, who disagrees with the Two Laws. One can boil down Ed's line of argument to a series of logical premises and conclusions. The policy WP:OR does not allow logical conclusions, but it does allow Routine calculations. Since I don't know why simple logic is not explicitly allowed, I will now consider a syllogism a form of a routine calculation.
The parts of Ed's argument are:
To Ed, it seems that the above is simple logic. However, at least one step appears to be not as clear cut, as shown by CodeCat's assertion that "Hill and Zinkevičius can both be right". Obviously, judging this requires more knowledge in the area than I have, so I can neither confirm nor refute Ed's chain of argument.
Instead, I have to fall back to the following consideration: This line of argument is at least easy enough to occur to scholars of the topic. The Two laws of final syllables in the common prehistory of Baltic and Slavonic were first presented in 2009 in what appears to be, judging by List of linguistics conferences#International, the international conference on historical linguistics. So they had enough visibility and scholars had enough time for any criticism to be published. Since that apparently hasn't happened, I conclude that the line of argument isn't as simple as Ed makes it out, and the Two Laws must remain as undisputed in this article. — Sebastian 21:19, 10 August 2017 (UTC)
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We only get three words in the shared vocabulary. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.141.100.176 ( talk) 11:47, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
The claim that Baltic is especially close to Slavonic needs careful study. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.141.100.176 ( talk) 11:48, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
The number of phonetic features is variously said to be 9, 10 and 12. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.141.100.176 ( talk) 11:51, 2 October 2017 (UTC)
To the IP editor: The addition of the label "hypothetical" is unnecessary and potentially misleading. Every linguistic relationship is based on hypotheses, except for rare cases where the the evolution from a common source is documented (such as the emergence of the Romance languages from Latin, or the Indo-Aryan languages from Sanskrit). Baltic is also "hypothetical", since there is no documented source from which the East and West Baltic languages have emerged, so why not add it there too?
The politicizing of the topic is not helpful either ("Russian politics" [16]). It betrays a deplorable unfamiliarity with the topic. Our sources which support the Balto-Slavic unity are written by American, British, Croatian, Danish, Dutch, and German scholars. What on earth has this to do with politics? – Austronesier ( talk) 18:03, 22 April 2022 (UTC)
...the academic background of these authors is mostly Slavonic studies– No. – Austronesier ( talk) 17:37, 24 April 2022 (UTC)
I have heard from some that calling Balto-Slavic a hypothesis is ‘not worth mentioning’ because it is self-evident. Very well. In that case, why mention in the Italo-Celtic article that it's a ‘hypothetical grouping’ then, it's self-evident, isn’t it? Can we stop with the double standards for once and apply the same principle to all the articles? — Preceding unsigned comment added by SeriousThinker ( talk • contribs) 14:43, 7 May 2022 (UTC)
"The notion of a single Balto-Slavic speech community has been controversial in some circles, in part because of political tensions. But all major Indo-Europeanists are agreed that Baltic and slavic deserve to be grouped together, though some dispute remains about the exact degree and nature of their affinity (p. 364)."
"These shared features have led many Indo-Europeanists to posit an "Italo-Celtic" subgroup or dialect area of Indo-European. However, the hypothesis of an Italo-Celtic unity has never gained universal approval (p. 247)."
"The Baltic and the Slavic languages were originally one language and so form one group (p.22)."[...]
"The supposed unity of the Balto-Slavic group is often disputed, but it is really above all doubt. Both language groups share a host of developments in common, es pecially with respect to the accent (p. 31)."
"The Italo-Celtic unity is a much more difficult one to prove. In any case, the basis for such a supposition are only a few sound changes and perhaps also a morphological (i.e. form) development (p. 31)."
"There are a number of other proposed relationships. Some argue that similarities between Greek and Armenian are such that there was a common Graeco-Armenian, while Italo-Celtic has been another long suggested and just as frequently rejected proposition. In both of these cases, we do not require a proto-language between Proto-Indo-European and the individual languages as we do with Indo-Iranian, and so the case for these other sets is simply not as strong as it is for Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic (p. 78, emphasis added)."
"Although some groups seem to be presently beyond doubt (e.g. Balto-Slavic), some are still hotly disputed (e.g. Italo-Celtic) (p. 23)."
"That Indic and Iranian together constitute an Indo-Iranian clade has not been seriously questioned; the languages share more than enough striking innovations to show that they developed as a single language for some time after losing touch with the ancestors of other surviving IE languages. Though Baltic and Slavic are not so closely related, the evidence for a Balto-Slavic clade likewise seems secure [...] The existence of an Italo-Celtic clade has also been suspected, but it is much harder to validate and remains problematic (p. 63)."
"However, unlike some other Indo-European subgroups such as Indo-Iranian or Balto-Slavic, the existence of Italo-Celtic has never reached the status of established fact. (p. 2030)."
"The ten principal IE branches are as follows. [...] 4. Italic [...] 5. Celtic [...] 9. Balto-Slavic... (p. 4–5)."
More modern-day high-quality sources:
"It would be fair to say that Italo-Celtic is more debatable than any other higher order subgrouping, certainly much more so than Balto-Slavic."
"Throughout the twentieth century, the matter remained controversial [...] During the last quarter of a century, the communis opinio appears to have moved firmly in favour of the idea that there was indeed a period of shared innovations between Baltic and Slavic directly following the disintegration of the Proto-Indo-European parent language (p. 269) [...] All linguistic evidence points to a Balto-Slavic proto-language that must have existed for a significant period after the disintegration of Proto-Indo-European (p. 285).
I regard Balto-Slavic unity as completely certain [...] The best characterization of the Balto-Slavic question I can think of is that it was an important 20th century topic that is no longer current in the 21st century (recent, detailed defenses of an anti-Balto-Slavic position are indeed nonexistent). In my view, the cumulative evidence in favor of Balto-Slavic unity is simply overwhelming (p. 5).
This has direct bearings for the over-detailed section "Criticism" that dwells on points that have become long settled in the last decades. Giving too much space to a position that is virtually non-existent among present-day mainstream scholars with an expertise in Indo-European linguistics (including those specialized in Balto-Slavic linguistics, Baltic linguistics or Slavic linguistics) violates WP:UNDUE and WP:NPOV. I invite all editors with a genuine (not ideologically driven) interest in historical linguistics to tackle this problem. – Austronesier ( talk) 21:18, 25 November 2023 (UTC)
"None of these features seriously precludes the reconstruction of a Balto-Slavic stage.",
"Such divergences must, of course, not be overestimated. It would be unwise to use them as pieces of evidence against the reconstruction of a Balto-Slavic common proto-stage."). And needless to say, his exposition of the historical material comes after the section that presents the common features of Balto-Slavic.
More than a month has passed since the above proposals were made, without any counterargument(s). Austronesier, if you also agree, you can go ahead and make the aforementioned changes. Specifically, to remove § Criticism altogether, move § Historical dispute where the former was (under § Shared vocabulary), and expand it with information from the chapters of Petit (2018) and Pronk (2022); however, the extent and details of what is to be included, still remain to be decided. Ideally, we shouldn't make any changes until we also have the aforementioned summary; though, personally I don't mind moving forward with the removals either. Demetrios1993 ( talk) 14:20, 5 January 2024 (UTC)
The file in question is claimed to be a derivative of the file "IndoEuropeanTree.svg", however, that file clearly shows that Ukrainian, Rusyn and Belarusian are descended from the dead Ruthenian language, which is in turn descended from Old East Slavic. The "Slavic_languages_tree.svg" file shows that Russian, Ukrainian, Rusyn and Belarusian are descended directly from Old East Slavic, parallel to the "Old Ruthenian Language", which is shown as dead and without no descendants - this goes against both the original file of which it is derivative of, and it also goes against the contemprorary understanding of the classification Slavic languages.
I suggest a new file be made to match the "IndoEuropeanTree.svg" file closely.
Mnohohrishnyi (
talk) 09:18, 12 April 2023 (UTC)