Talk:Baltic languages

Prussian

“ 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 'recently' means?

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

Christian Europe had a higher literacy rate than pagan Europe. (Not that Medieval serfs were all that literate.) Lithuania was one of the last places in Europe to become officially Christian, in 1387. In actual practice, the conversion of the populace did not begin in earnest until Lutheran missionaries arrived. Then the Catholic Church played catch-up. If we equate Christianization with the advent of literacy, then Lithuania at least got off to a late start. Zyxwv99 (talk) 22:22, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

First conquest attempts

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

A reference indicating written Lithuanian/Baltic prior to the 10th century is needed. I don't beleive such a reference exists: lack of written Lithuanian of this date, much less 1000BC or 2000BC is one of the stumbling blocks to the study of archaic Baltic and Indo-European. user: Linas —Preceding unsigned comment added by Linas (talk • contribs) 18:12, 30 December 2004

It Was, Just not in Lithuanian

Muonium777 (talk) 13:03, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

The "Baltic" group of Indo-Europeans does not exist

"The Western Balts used the word "PANU", whereas the Central Balts used the word (Lith.) "UGNIS". Both words have cognates in other ancient Indo-European languages. That such archaic diversity existed within Proto-Baltic presents some interesting issues." (from http://www.geocities.com/Athens/Ithaca/6623/proto.htm ; the external link provided in the article)

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)

It's nonsense that Latvian and Lithuanian made the "union". Latvian and Lithuanian departed from the same language about 5th century. Lithuanian and Latvian have the same roots. One problem is that Finno-Ugric Lybian (Lyvian) language influenced Latvian phonetics. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.135.132.159 (talk • contribs) 18:47, 10 July 2004

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

It is interesting, how many guys feel obliged to serve their private opinion here, without giving (or even knowing?) the least serious source. This is against all wiki standards and helps nobody! 195.4.79.154 (talk) 09:29, 11 February 2014 (UTC)

Does Balto-Slavic exist?

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

i know both latvian(baltic language) and russian(slavic language)and i'd say that they share great similariness both in grammar structures and vocabulary,much greater one than between german and latvian. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 159.148.18.129 (talk • contribs) 03:43, 31 March 2007

I'm happy to say that on the proto-Balto-Slavic page, which is now excellent, this point is amply discussed and the results are perfectly clear. To suggest that the Baltic languages might be more closely related to Germanic is simply ridiculous and not the point of view of any serious scholar. As a trained linguist and non-native speaker of both Latvian and Russian, their relationship to each other is as obvious to me as it is to the learned author(s) of that page; and those differences are less still if you strip out the Finno-Ugric substrate of Latvian and compare it to old slavonicFbunny (talk) 23:11, 7 February 2009 (UTC)

I agree with the view that there is no such thing as "Balto-Slavic". I know Latvian, Russian and Portuguese, and I can tell you that there are more similarities between Portuguese and Russian, than between Russian and Latvian. The fact that Latvians use Russian swear words doesn't mean they are in the same language family. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 46.109.91.203 (talk) 07:58, 20 February 2011 (UTC)

After reading the back issues of the Journal of Indo-European Studies (JIES) going back to volume 1, number 1, 1973, plus a huge number of books on the subject, I am happy to report that there is a near-consensus among linguists that there no such thing as Balto-Slavic. Main exception: Russian and Belarussian ultra-nationalists for whom this is political.

As for the connection between Baltic and German, the current view is that the Celtic, Italic, Germanic, Baltic, and Indo-Iranian branches of the Indo-European language family were once part of a language continuum stretching across Europe. This would have about 3000-2500 BCE. Proto-Slavic appeared much later, in the Iron Age, as a hybrid of a North-Iranian language (e.g., Scythian) and a West-Central Baltic language (something between Old-Prussian and Lithuanian). — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zyxwv99 (talk • contribs) 20:51, 3 December 2011 (UTC)

That is not entirely correct. Firstly, you yourself say that slavic emerged out of the baltic branch, which actually is contrary to your first statemant. Second, the two standard works that i have available now says different: "the Indo-European Languages" by Anna Giacalone Ramat and Paolo Ramat states: "The baltic and slavic languages appear to form a single subgroup within Indo-European, though some scholars would keep them apart." This book was printed in 1993. Benjamin Fortsons "Indo-European language and culture" from 2004 says: "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 are deserved to be grouped together, though some dispute remains about the exact degree and nature of their affinity". To me this seems like the situation is quite opposite to what you claim. Amilah (talk) 10:08, 9 December 2011 (UTC)

Why do you make a major change to this article, then disappear (as in your username is in red)? Zyxwv99 (talk) 00:18, 20 December 2011 (UTC)

I've been here all the time. My user page is red because it hasn't been 'created', i suppose. My talk page is available if you need to contact me directly. I view these talk pages as open discussions, so I don't think that it should be necessary for me to personally defend my edits as long as they are reasonably sourced. Amilah (talk) 17:18, 9 February 2012 (UTC)

By the way, I apologise for answering so late. I thought that I had put the page on my watch list, but I must have done something wrong. Amilah (talk) 19:57, 10 February 2012 (UTC)

Thanks for clarifying that. As you can probably guess, I'm still comparatively new to the Wikipedia. Zyxwv99 (talk) 16:19, 11 February 2012 (UTC)

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)

Temporary copy

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)

My rewrite is done, although more historical information is still needed. I think I have addressed the various conflicting viewpoints regarding history and genetic relationship. Unless objections are voiced here, I will replace the original article with the new one soon.--Theodore Kloba 21:14, 2005 Jan 6 (UTC)

I made a few tweaks and completed the copy.--Theodore Kloba 22:38, Jan 7, 2005 (UTC)

Category

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)

Deletion

A deletion discussion is taking place for a related article linked from this one:

• Wikipedia:Votes for deletion/Samples_of_Baltic:_Old_Prussian,_Latvian,_Lithuanian_compared_to_Slavic:_Polish_Language_(2nd_nomination) --Tony Sidaway^Talk 06:22, 2 August 2005 (UTC)

Inaccurate Map

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)

Wends were livonians, as people who lived where wends settled, were named Wendian livonians. According to chronicles wends settled first in lower Daugava and then part of them relocated to Cēsis(Wenden), because curonians attacked them there as well. This question about their other identity has to be stopped, because wends were expelled livonians from lower part of Venta(or Wenta, if you pronounce V as F and the only mix there seems, that germans used name Windau for it, so according to their naming standart they would have called them Windau). They have no relation to Wends - just a coincidence of similar naming, quirk of history.

Rest of livonians on the right side of Riga gulf arrived AFTER wend livonians moved to Wenden and were also expelled by curonians(in 11th century) and biggest difference between these two groups were that wends of Wenden by the time of arrival of livs were already more mixed and dispersed among locals, than livs. And Wends of Daugava apparently mixed with livonians, because they were related - if wends were slavs, they certainly would have their distinct ethnicity preserved up till the arrival of germans, but that is not the case.

As for the map and grasp of local history - livonians arrived and settled among other people - including semigallians(who had forthills on Gauja, that predated arrival of livonians by 1000 years). Also there are sources that mentions selonians, who were also present in lower part of Daugava, so IMO any maps, that paints the area where livonians were present as monocultural are wrong, because the area on Daugava was mixed and germans establishing trading colony did not made this mix less. Rivers were not obstacles in ancient times, but transportation highways. And making area as 30-50km wide for livonians makes absolutelly no grounds, as they lived in settlements and these settlements are known and most of these settlements were near sea. Classical unasimilated livonians were mainly sea people and their main occupation was all things related to sea. Livonians in Courland call themselves randalist - that means shore people(liiv means sand). It is doubtful, that they had widespread culture of agriculture(where would they do that - on the sandy shore of sea, because that would require horses and digging sand is not great for turnips and grain. Most likely because of marriage to local non-sea people, livonians had cows(probably - as part of dowry) and over time they became adapted to life near sea.195.147.206.144 (talk) 10:11, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Place name distribution

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)

The map is copyvio. And you can use commons images just like images on WP. Just type [[Image:commons image.png]]! Renata 01:03, 11 March 2006 (UTC)

I know that, I think I messed something else. As for the image - are you sure it is copyvio ? I read coment in commons - if image is summary of three diferent works it could be crated exclusively for that journal and isn't copyrighted. -- Xil/talk 20:46, 20 March 2006 (UTC)

Agh, it is a complicated matter. This user, Turbo, has been very disruptive on Lithuanian wiki and got banned several times. But then things started to look normal again. And - bam - there are these images (more on lt wiki). He says they are from a journal that he worked for and that the journal did not place any copyrights on anything. But then he refuses to provide any evidence for the claims. Then he made all those personal attacks agains lt wiki admins. And he got banned again, this time looks like for good. So... who knows. Renata 03:46, 21 March 2006 (UTC)

I have the question. Was it necessary to make some copy of journal page with nocopyright and send somwhere to you or was it necessary to scan that page and place in wikipedia? Maybe if there was some accusement, then accusors first must have a glance at this journal?. Now, there is no map of Baltic names spreading - this seems to be disruptive. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 78.62.22.250 (talk • contribs) 06:33, 17 July 2007

Discussion with administrator Dbachmann

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 administrator Dbachmann pushes the old hypothesys based on ideas of some polish historicians (Henryk Lowmianski. Studja nad początkami spoleczenstwa i panstwa Litewskiego. T I-II.Wilno, 1931-32.) - According to one old theory from 50-60ties of XX age, the Indo-European tribes speaking the dialects that would become the Baltic languages probably settled in the area South of the Baltic coast in about the 13th Century B.C. and later migrated towards the coast where they met an indigenous population of subsistence fishermen and farmers speaking a proto-Finnic language.

This 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)

Prehistory?

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)

The ethnogenesis of the polyethnic Middle Dnieper Culture has been covered in The Horse, The Wheel, and Language, by David W. Anthony, Princeton University Press, ISBN10: 0691058873. The offshoots which evolved regional subcultures spoke inherited languages contributing to modern Baltic and Slavic. The mythical propaganda is melting away fast. People lie. The evidence doesn't lie - Grissom. Sudowite (talk) 02:21, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

Quote needed

I want to see an original quote from presented sources, which supported thesis, that According to most linguists, the Baltic languages show.... Thanks. M.K. (talk) 13:47, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

That's the truth: most (if not all) modern linguists accept not only the "close relationship", but the Balto-Slavic genetic clade as a matter of fact. The only ones who don't, from my knowledge, are some amateurs publishing in Baltic supremacist magazines like lituanus.org. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 11:54, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

As WP:NOR still rulez on WP, we need precise source supporting According to most linguists, especially that those "most linguist" support thesis of common Proto-Balto-Slavic. M.K. (talk) 12:13, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

As I said, most specialists in the field take PBSl. as a fact, save the nationalism-motivated minority of obnoxious Balticists. That statement you dispute is but a mere synthesis of the opinions of the majority of specialists, which are endorsed in the referenced works written by renowned scholars. There is no publication which surveys how many linguistis favours or does not favour a particular theory, hence your request is pointless. If you have doubts or sources which corroborate the opposite, i.e. Baltic and Slavic not being 2 most closely related IE subbranches, of PBSl. not being a genetic clade, feel free to present them, otherwise don't think of touching that sentence. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 12:59, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

First of all read WP:OWN. M.K. (talk) 13:02, 20 March 2009 (UTC)P.S. By There is no publication which surveys how many linguistis favours or does not favour a particular theory therefore you personally admitted that current sentence is pure original research.

No, it's common sense. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 13:07, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Will bring up some sources to cite specifically, but it will take some time. M.K. (talk) 14:44, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, for the delay, I had unexpected departure, so only sources that I have at the moment E. Bojtár. Foreword to the Past: A Cultural History of the Baltic People 1999. p 70-77 (overview of the problem). Z. Zinkevičius. Lietuvių kalbos istorija. T1. Vilnius, 1984. As the material was removed, so the issue is solved. M.K. (talk) 13:15, 24 March 2009 (UTC)

It's easier to just remove the "according to most linguists" part. —Angr 16:45, 20 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)

Gotho-Baltic, please also see my comments on Balto-Slavic talk. For those of us eager to revel in the ancient roots of the surviving Baltic languages (as far as I'm aware, Albanian is the only other competitor in the "oldest surviving" Indo-European arena), there is an elegance and ancientness in the latest scholarship: Baltic roots go back to proto-Balto-Slavic which then split off a language which develops into proto-Slavic. One can easily interpret that as Balto-Slavic is the trunk of the tree from whence descends Baltic with proto-Slavic branching off--rather contrary to the historical pictures of Baltic being the offshoot (and, IMHO, such interpretations leading to contentions of proto-Balto(-no Slavic) linguistic ancestry).

   The bottom line is that jettisoning non-Slavic proto-Baltic essentially brings the Baltic languages back to roots which pre-date Slavic. So, in an interesting turnabout if you will, supporting proto-Balto-Slavic can be interpreted (according to the latest linguistic innovations) as pan-Baltic, not pan-Slavic. (!) PetersV       TALK 17:25, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Exactly - the article on Balto-Slavic languages actually says that in Ivanov-Toporov model Proto-Slavic is an offshoot of a peripheral Balto-Slavic dialect that, resulting from some historical circumstances (today usually connected with the formation of Avar khaganate and its expansion), has spread over immense territory (and changed quite a bit in the process). If you try to reconstruct ancestor language of all Baltic languages (modern and extinct) today, you call it e.g. Proto-Baltic, you end up with the same proto-language that can be used to derive Proto-Slavic. You can even derive Common Slavic words from modern Baltic ones (given they're archaic enough) by applying usual sound changes, e.g. Lithuanian ranka "hand" > Common Slavic & OCS rǫka (with an yielding nasal vowel ǫ), Lithuanian būti "to be" > CS & OCS byti (PIE/PBSl. *ū regularly yields y), Lithuanian ėsti "to eat" > CS *ěsti (OCS jasti, SCr. and Slv. jesti, PIE/PBSl. ē regularly yields Common Slavic yat sound), Lithuanian galva "head" > CS *golva (South Slavic glava, East Slavic golova, Polish głowa, by pleophony/liquid metathesis, with the change of Early Proto-Slavic *a to Late Proto-Slavic *o). It's very fun!

The problem is mostly in terminology such as "Baltic" and "Slavic" which have some identity and ethnical connotations which were non-existing in the y. 1000 BCE and before, where such Balto-Slavic dialect continuum existed. Baltic and Slavic identities emerged much, much later (Slavic approx. in the 5th century CE, Baltic even later). Speaking of "Balts" and "Slavs" before that period in any sense other than "speakers of Baltic or Slavic languages" is pointless and misleading. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 21:25, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

I think it would be helpful to reconcile the linguistic time-line with the historical one which puts the Baltic peoples in their current territories for three to four millennia, the Finno-Ugrians for five millennia. "Ancient Culture" here is a perfect example.

   And your list, in Latvian: roka, būt, ēst, galva. For such fundamental things as what you call your head, common sense dictates common ancestry, not cross-cultural adoption. PetersV       TALK 22:50, 22 March 2009 (UTC)

Balto-Slavic is a lie

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)

It is legitimate to have both a Baltic branch and a Slavic branch of the Indo European Language tree, but their combination is outright false. I won't claim a "conspiracy" but Soviet "academics" during the occupation of the Baltic States did a great deal of damage to linguistic research which remained unchallenged long enough--it is often taken as the base assumption.

If you look into the genetics of the Baltic peoples, they have their own haplogroup--which suggests enough unity of peoples to be distinct from other peoples and languages (not proof, but certainly a consideration). Dubois Cowboy (talk) 17:43, 8 October 2024 (UTC)

WHATS WRONG WITH YOU?!?!?!?!

Muonium777 (talk) 13:06, 3 February 2021 (UTC)

Fortunately, linguistics is not driven by nationalistic ideals or denial for political expediency. "Balto-Slavic is defined by at least three unique phonological features in Indo-European: the development of a distinction between rising and falling pitch accents; the change of the syllabic resonants typically to resonants preceded by i; and the change of *VRHC to *V:RC" (Benjamin W. Fortson IV, Indo-European language and Culture, an introduction, 2004, pg. 365). Both the so-called Pennsylvania family tree and the so-called New Zealand family tree link Baltic and Slavic as more closely related to each other than either is to any other Indo-European group (James Clackson, Indo-European Linguistics, An Introduction, 2007, pp. 11-12). No politics, no hysteria, no nationalistic pride involved. Just cold, hard linguistic facts. (Taivo (talk) 02:22, 19 April 2009 (UTC))

And especially, no "Soviet propaganda" involved. While it's true most Russian Indo-Europeanists of both the Soviet and the post-Soviet era believe in Balto-Slavic, so do most non-Russian Indo-Europeanists (except for those who are Latvian or Lithuanian). Balto-Slavic is pretty much as well established as any sub-branch of Indo-European can be, perhaps slightly more controversial than Indo-Iranian, but more plausible (and more widely believed) than other proposed subgroupings like Italo-Celtic or Greco-Armenian, and far more plausible (and far more widely believed) than any attempt to link the Baltic languages with the Germanic, Celtic, or Italic languages at a post-PIE date. Linking Baltic and Slavic languages is in no way disrespectful to anyone, but refusing to believe an objectively well-supported theory for no better reason than that you hate Slavs is disrespectful, and very poor scientific practice. —Angr 11:38, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Having been lumped with the ethno-fascist über-nationalist Russo- Slavo-phobic subhuman WP hordes, that's as reasonable a barometer as any measuring the defense of one's nation and people. That said, Baltic root words (like Volga) stretch into Russia, nowhere near the Goths/Germans/et al. It is the German that has come into Latvian by proximal association (pardon my not using the proper linguistic term)--clearly visible in comparing Latvian, Latgalian dialect, and Lithuanian--not the Slavic. And in the latest theory, it is not Baltic that is some orphan offshoot of Slavic, it is Slavic that is the offshoot of the parent Balto-Slavic, ergo, Latvian and Lithuanian are surviving parents, and the Slavic languages the offshoots. So, it is the Slavic that branched off from the Baltic, not the other way around--which portrayal, an anathema to many Baltic nationalists, was a theory likely driven more by current numbers of speakers as opposed to scientific linguistic research. PetersV       TALK 17:17, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

While I might use a different analogy, I tend to agree with Vecrumba/PetersV. The divisions between the different Slavic languages are relatively shallow while the divisions between the three attested Baltic languages are deep. That implies that the differentiation of Proto-Slavic is more recent than the differentiation of Latvian and Lithuanian. So the image is one of Proto-Balto-Slavic breaking into (perhaps) four parts--Pre-Lithuanian, Pre-Latvian, Pre-Prussian, and Proto-Slavic. Proto-Slavic then embarked on its own history of spread and diversification. Even if the initial break was between Proto-Slavic and Proto-Baltic, Proto-Baltic diversified long before Proto-Slavic did. (Taivo (talk) 17:43, 19 April 2009 (UTC))

I should mention, that personally once I (Latvian) manage to deal with Latgalian, Lithuanian is not much further off, many root words are similar if not identical. Where Germanisms have crept into Latvian, the original root word is still found in other related words in Latvian--or is simply a secondary choice. Personally I think there's a lot of latitude as to when the Baltic languages branched off from each other, as everything else, a topic for further scholarship and debate. :-) PetersV       TALK 19:59, 19 April 2009 (UTC)

Proto Balto-slavic language is not a lie, but there are two different classifications in east Europe (where Baltic and Slavic languages are native) and in the Western World. In Russia, Ukraina, Poland (tree biggest slavic-speaking countries - I dont know about others), Latvia (baltic-speking country) - there are no term Balto-Slavic in classification - there are: Indoeuropian-->Baltic and Indoeuropian-->Slavic, but in english there are Indoeuropian-->Balto-Slavic--> and then Baltic and Slavic. I dont know why there are 2 different classifications, but in my opinion there (in this article) is worth to admit it. When I tried to correct, admin deleted it and called "POW" and "political reasons"--Riharcc (talk) 10:31, 20 April 2009 (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.

The languages which became Celtic, Albanian, Germanic, Slavic, Baltic, were derived from a mixing of various indigenous European people and IE steppe immigrants - with their descendants migrating to mix with other indigenous groups later in different locations. Balto-Slavic was rather brief period in various regions where IE Satem speakers mixed with various indigenous people ( Tripolye C2, Lengyel, and TRB cultures ) and with IE Centum speakers ( Globular Amphora and Catacomb cultures ) in diferent degrees. Balto-Slavic is accurate as a generic generalization of such a multi-ethnic convergence, but can be viewed in a way like Celto-Italic is. Cool, huh? Sudowite (talk) 02:54, 9 June 2011 (UTC)

New Prussian

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)

Never heard of it. Sounds like a conlang to me, probably not notable enough for mention in this article, or indeed at Wikipedia at all. +Angr 15:20, 7 July 2009 (UTC)

New Prussian is definitely not a conlang , it is based on the historical Sembian Prussian of the Catechisms, as opposed to the West Baltic Pomesian of the Elbing Vocabulary. The scholastic integrity of their Language publications eclipse most Wiki dribble. New Prussian is progressing well with language revitalization in a way similiar to the Miami-Illinois language and as the successful Hebrew language. + Sudowite 15:20, 15 January 2010 (UTC)

Oh yes it is. 95% of vocabulary of this New Prussian are neologisms, which have absolutely nothing to do with the really attested Old Prussion, of which nobody has a clue how it sounded like (written in terrible orthography, in several dialects). --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 03:32, 17 January 2010 (UTC)

New Prussian has high scholastic standards, but also needs to adapt to modern life, hence the neologisms (which are in fact few). Ivan will calm down when he comprehends that धेना is a legacy of the Abashevo culture by the Urals. + Sudowite 19:46, 31 March 2010 (UTC)

Baltic as a valid IE group

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)

Fortson:2010 - Baltic is mentioned as a branch of Balto-Slavic, in a chapter of Balto-Slavic. However, no Proto-Baltic reconstructions are given, and no non-trivial sound changes specific to Baltic languages only are given (only shared archaisms are listed, as opposed to more innovative Slavic). Balto-Slavic is specifically mentioned as a genetic clade, as is Slavic. Baltic is nowhere mentioned as a genetic clade.

Mallory&Adams 2006, quoting from page 77: Although there are still some (more often Balticists than Slavicists) to contest the close association of Baltic and Slavic, majority opinion probably favours a common proto-language between Proto-Indo-European and the Baltic and Slavic languages, i.e. during or after the dissolution of Proto-Indo-European there was a stage of Proto-Balto-Slavic before the separation of the two language groups. This proto-language may not have undergone a simple split into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic. Another possibility often put forward is that Balto-Slavic became divided into three subgroups: East Baltic (Lithuanian and Latvian), West Baltic (Old Prussian), and Slavic. In any case the two groups (Baltic and Slavic) or the three groups (East Baltic, West Baltic, and Slavic) remained in close geographical and cultural contact with one another..

Szemerényi:1990 - don't have access to it. Note that this is an English translation of the work originally published in German in 1970, and is as such woefully obsolete (e.g. Winter's law wasn't even discovered back then).

Beekes:1995 - Balto-Slavic is specifically mentioned as a separate clade (p. 30), as is Slavic. Baltic is only mentioned as a grouping of Baltic languages. No Baltic-specific sound changes or reconstructions are given, nor is the statement that Baltic branch represents a genetic clade mentioned.

Schmalsteig:1998 - don't have access to it

Clackson:2007 - Baltic is mentioned as a sub-group of Balto-Slavic, but there is no discussion as to the nature of the grouping.

OTOH we have:

• Kortlandt:2009, Baltica & Balto-Slavica, page 5: "Though Prussian is undoubtedly closer to the East Baltic langauges than to Slavic, the characteristic features of the Baltic langauges seem to be either retentions or results of parallel development and cultural interaction. Thus I assume that Balto-Slavic split into three identifiable branches, each of which followed its own course of development."
• Rick Derksen:2008, Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, page 20: "I am not convinced that it is justified to reconstruct a Proto-Baltic stage. The term Proto-Baltic is used for convenience’s sake.". Derksen is also writing a Baltic counterpart book within the scope of IEED project, where he is likely to embrace the same viewpoint and parts of which can be read online (note the absence of Proto-Baltic field in the form)
• Petri Kallio:2008, On the "early Baltic" loanwords in Common Finnic (in: Evidence and Counter-Evidence - Essays in honour of F. K.), p. 265:: "Although many Fenn(o-Ugr)icists speak of Proto-Baltic loanwords, there did not necessarily even exist any Proto-Baltic stage, but it was already Proto-Balto-Slavic that simultaneously split up into at least three dialects, namely West Baltic (> Old Prussian), East Baltic (> Lithuanian and Latvian), and Slavic. Thus, unless the concepts of ‘Proto-Baltic’ and ‘Proto-Balto-Slavic’ are considered synonymous, we should in fact talk about Proto-Balto-Slavic loanwords."

So we have either 1) sources which are silent on the topic, mentioning Baltic merely as a subgroup of Balto-Slavic, but do not explicitly reconstruct Common Baltic phase, or mention Baltic as being anything other than a "leftover", i.e. a conventional groupingn of Balto-Slavic dialects other than Slavic, and 2) sources which mention Baltic as a subgroup of Balto-Slavic, but explicitly state that it's not a genetic clade. Since 2) is a stronger statement than 1), you cannot use 1) to refute 2). Absence of refutation of the claim that "Baltic languages do not represent a genetic grouping" is not the same as the explicit refutation thereof. Additionally, specialized and current sources from the linguists working in the field take precedence over the obsolete and general works by linguists not working in this specific field of IE studies. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 14:59, 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 provided multiple citations above in my retort to Taivo, while simultaneously dismissing all of his sources allegedly being in favor of the Baltic group as a genetic node, which none was. Everything you wrote above is just nonsense - you lack both knowledge and impartiality to sufficiently assess the matter. There are no "various positions" - there is just a single position that has been accepted for 50 years now (ever since Ivanov&Toporov:1961). --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 17:00, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

As you seem to be able to perform a single one in your array of reverts without leaving an insult in the edit summary, you are definitely not the one to teach impartiality to other editors. Take care.Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 17:39, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Ivan, your entire "rebuttal" consists of WP:OR and WP:SYN, both inappropriate in Wikipedia. Not a single one of my sources support a removal of Baltic as a clade and your sources, rather than solidly supporting that removal, are simply making suggestions. And even if a few linguists object to Baltic as a clade, they are a minority and therefore pushing that POV is WP:UNDUE. --Taivo (talk) 17:43, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

There is no original research or synthesis in my retort. What I did was 1) inspected the works you listed as alleging the grouping of Baltic as a genetic node, which they in fact were not and you were blindly tossing worthless references without reading/understanding them 2) provided specific citations refuting grouping of Baltic languages as genetic node, by relevant specialists such as Rick Derksen who writes etymological dictionaries of Balto-Slavic languages, and Frederik Kortlandt who has been dealing the with the topic of Balto-Slavic reconstruction for decades. Beside "Leiden" school, the Ivanov-Toporov model of West Baltic, East Baltic and Slavic all being equally valid nodes in the Balto-Slavic branch of Indo-European is also, naturally, embraced by the "Moscow" school headed by Vladimir Dybo.

Not a single one of my sources support a removal of Baltic as a clade - But they do not support the grouping as a genetic node either. They are simply silent on the topic. They just mention "Baltic branch consists of Eastern and Western Baltic languages" and that's it. They do not reconstruct Proto-Baltic language, or list Common-Baltic isoglosses, as they usually do for any other branch. Baltic group is imaginary and conventional - if one reconstructs Proto-Baltic on the basis of comparative evidence of Baltic languages, one gets the same language out of which Proto-Slavic can be easily derived. There is really no Common Baltic innovation. I've listed explicit claims by specialists in the field mentioning exactly that. What you're doing is confronting these explicit claims with vague, between-the-lines interpretations of Baltic as being a genetic clade in some general-purpose IE works who deal with the topic in barely a few paragraphs.

And even if a few linguists object to Baltic as a clade, they are a minority and therefore pushing that POV is WP:UNDUE - No, they're the majority of those that are relevant. My sources are specialists working in the field, and yours is all based on obsolete and misinterpreted scholarship. It's pathetic that you choose to side yourself with those Baltic nationalists bigots who don't have a clue on the matter, removing entire paragraphs that were in the article for years. I'm going to report you all for nationalist POV-pushing. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 18:52, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Feel free to report your own one-against-all edit warring and the childish name-calling you subject anyone who just happens to be connected with the Baltic states and at the same time dare to challenge your POV pushing. For your reference: Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard/Edit warring. Tough luck.Miacek and his crime-fighting dog (woof!) 19:13, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

One more uncivil comment, Ivan, and I'll report you for incivility. And I don't "side with those Baltic nationalists". Balto-Slavic is a valid node and I have not said otherwise. But the majority of Indo-Europeanists do not yet accept the "deconstruction" of Baltic as a valid node--whether as part of Balto-Slavic or as part of Indo-European directly. There is a minority at this time based on your sources, and that should (and is now) mentioned. But to claim that view as being the majority view of I-Eists is not accurate. --Taivo (talk) 21:22, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

This is more of an observation: I notice that this particular article lacks any links to information on Proto-Baltic or reconstructions (the most that it has is a link to Proto-Balto-Slavic with the attendant reconstructions and isoglosses). Based on what I've read so far (not just on Wikipedia), I'm being led to believe that Baltic is indeed a term of convenience in a similar way that "South Slavic" is a term of convenience since I'm not aware of any reconstruction of "Proto-Baltic" or "Proto-South-Slavic". It also reminds me a bit of the grouping "Paleosiberian" which is a geographically-based group but encompasses languages that to date have not been demonstrated to be convincingly related to each other. Again that's just a grouping for convenience's sake rather than one built on testable research/analysis by professionals. Despite my apparent siding with Štambuk (i.e. it's highly dubious given all evidence to-date for a distinct Proto-Baltic tongue), I actually don't see any problem with this article since it makes it clear enough (at least for me), that the notion of Proto-Baltic is highly contentious and not backed up by comparative linguists having succeeded in reconstructing something by analyzing the evolution of Latvian, Lithuanian and/or Old Prussian. Arguably the only thing that could be added is the non-linguistic element of the dispute if we go by the equation of language with ethnicity. By this equation, it's understandable politically/socially/psychologically why a dispute over something as boring as language classifications can touch a lot of raw nerves. However, an article on language, I wouldn't want to let this one get sidetracked by feelings, emotions and approach that contributions from native-speakers of Latvian and Lithuanian should trump those by others who have no connection to the Baltic states. Carry on... Vput (talk) 22:21, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

Vput, I think the primary issue here is the absolutist stance that the article had formerly--"Linguists have dismissed 'Baltic'" as a genetic group. While that may be true of some linguists, it is certainly not a universal position and it's all about reliable sources. My reliable sources all list Baltic as a node in the Stammbaums and they are fairly mainstream, including the major textbooks in the subject. 10 years from now the introductory textbooks may state otherwise, but for now, that's the way it is. Some specialist literature may, indeed, be moving in another direction, but it is not reflected in the majority of sources at this point. --Taivo (talk) 22:34, 1 May 2011 (UTC)

West Baltic, East Baltic, and Slavic are languages evolved from the multi-cultural polyethnic Middle Dnieper culture, becoming even more polyethnic upon settling in their later locations. Thus they share a commonality AND a distinctiveness due to their different mixture of contributing cultures. Ruki, a long root in preterites, and vocabularies illustrate this. There is nothing "nationist" about discussing linguistic perspectives openly. Finno-Ugric has loanwords from East Baltic such as žalga, dagla, gentar, kela, ratas, tilta, kār'as, deivas, but does Slavic have any close cognates? This is not ethnocentric "Nationalistic" ranting, just a review of linguistic information which may let someone draw their own conclusions. A Freedom of Information Act, if you will. Sudowite (talk) 00:37, 8 June 2011 (UTC)

The never ending story of subgrouping

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)

Separate family.

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)

The source currently cited specifically states that nationalism does not invalidate scholarship, so let's leave the lede as it is. The lede puts the "separate branch" into the minority view, there is no undue weight here or "relegating" Baltic-Slavic to an afterthought. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 14:21, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Yeah, and see that is exactly the problem - this view is promoted by and to only people who are interested in these languages and article. I actually checked everything Google had to offer on respective term in Latvian - from what came up I doubt people even understand what it means. So you are effectively introducing a time bomb - eventually somebody will come by and start correcting it, probably rooting out the scientific view altogether. Trust me, I have javascript with changes related to Latvia on my watchlist - always, always somebody has to remove Balto-slavic. So why the hell not present it in article to keep it neutral? If you say it is a minority view get a source that says so, write so in the article, but leave that view there so that readers don't get confused ~~Xil (talk) 15:00, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

The big problem with your version was the way that it was written, as it mentioned the minority view prominently first, and relegated the majority view to an afterthought. There were weight problems, too. If you can rewrite it the other way around, be my guest, as long as you don't violate WP:GEVAL. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 15:20, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

What's wrong with Vecrumba's current version? If it does explicitly say so, does it matter which comes first? ~~Xil (talk) 16:30, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Yes, it matters which comes first. Encyclopedic writing requires the majority position to precede a minority position because the reader is looking for what is widely known and not minority positions. I've rewritten Vercumba's text to get rid of the overly argumentative "some scholars, other scholars" structure and replaced them with "probably" and "may" and have reordered to put the majority position first. That is standard scientific and encyclopedic writing practice. The ordering majority to minority should remain, but if other editors prefer that "scholars" are mentioned, then we can replace that separately. But it DOES make a difference and majority views should always precede minority views in an encyclopedia. --Taivo (talk) 16:40, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

@Xil: Surely you're joking? April Fool's was yesterday. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 16:46, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

Okay. But with "probably" it just looks ridiculous - like Wikipedia isn't sure, not that there are two different positions ~~Xil (talk) 17:51, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

@Taivo. I agree with Xil. "Probably" is bad because that's not what the sources say. I'd remove it per synth. I'd also remove all mention of the minority position from the lede because it is not discussed in the article at all, so it shouldn't be mentioned in the lede. Besides, we don't start out the "Evolution" article with "Evolution is probably XYZ, but maybe GodDidIt". See my point? We have to have some way of judging the weight of the minority position before including it, and we have no source to do that. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 17:56, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with removing the minority position, since it is not, as you say, discussed in the article. The lead would then simply say, "The Baltic languages are part of the Balto-Slavic branch of Indo-European". My only major point was that if the minority position is included, it must be second. --Taivo (talk) 18:58, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

I have a problem (per above). Also the source doesn't really say it is a minority view, but rather that the issues is controversial and briefly reflects both views, so as far as that goes there is no probably, minority, majority or what not, so if you remove it, might as well remove both (as far as I am concerned just saying "Baltic languages is a group of related IE languages" is enough and satisfies both views, but I doubt you will agree). The article is start class there is a potential for such discussion appearing under relationship with other IE languages. Obviously plenty of sourced discussion going on here on talk, some of the facts probably could be added in the article ~~Xil (talk) 19:16, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

It's not very hard to show that Baltic-Slavic is the mainstream position with sourcing. "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..." (Benjamin W. Fortson IV, Indo-European Language and Culture, An Introduction (2nd ed., 2010, Wiley-Blackwell), pg. 414. Separating them is clearly the minority view and is partly political in nature. Per WP:LEDE the lead paragraph should reflect the contents of the article, so adding mention of the controversy in the lead before explicating it in the text is not the right direction. Adding a paragraph in the body and than including it in the lead is the correct order of things. And, no, I do not agree with "Baltic is a group of Indo-European languages". That is simply pushing the minority view. The majority view is "Balto-Slavic" and that's what the lead should present. Once a paragraph on the minority view has been added, then a comment in the lead following the majority view can be added. --Taivo (talk) 19:31, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

If at all. Fringe and tiny minority views do not get mentioned in the lede. You would have to establish that it is more than a fringe or tiny minority view before you could mention it there. The Fortson source says that "all major Indo-Europeanists are agreed that Baltic and Slavic deserve to be grouped together...". This strongly suggests that "Baltic alone" is a fringe or tiny minority view. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 19:43, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

No it not pushing anything - if I said that English is IE language it would not be incorrect, would it? Now Baltic languages have about 4 million speakers most of which probably haven't heard anything about all the major Indo-Europeanists and their Balto-slavic classification and every single one of this supposed minority will jump in action to correct the article. Also I think it goes to show something that I didn't find a single scientific source in Latvian discussing Balto-slavic - research on particular languages usually is centered around the community which speaks it (Lithuanians seem equally at loss at what is going on here, so I assume it is not a well known concept in their community either). And in any case all I want is for both views to be included and that you reword it a little so it doesn't sound as if somebody is uncertain - clearly both sides are very certain in their views :) ~~Xil (talk) 22:49, 2 April 2012 (UTC)

It's not about the certainty of the practitioners, it's about the fact that outside the Baltic republics, Indo-Europeanists almost universally link Baltic and Slavic. Politics is a very strong component of the anti-Balto-Slavic position. Baltic is a Balto-Slavic group within Indo-European. Saying that "Baltic is an Indo-European group" is simply thinly disguising the anti-Balto-Slavic position that there is no Balto-Slavic group. If we mention the anti-Balto-Slavic position at all in the lead depends on if and how it is presented in the article itself. It is a minority view with a significant political component. Wikipedia doesn't play politics. --Taivo (talk) 04:08, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

Man, I am not questioning anything - I don't understand how comparative linguistics work. I just request that both views are represented as one of them is virtually unheard of in Baltic States where the languages are spoken. And if you are so sure why do you write "probably"? We are wasting time here talking about nothing, I am just going to change it myself so you can then correct it if you find that wording could be more academic in some way ~~Xil (talk) 07:43, 3 April 2012 (UTC)

I don't want to be rude, but wikipedia, (and science-related matters in general), would be better off if people who have no clue about the scientific proceedings would take the time to at least read a little bit in an introductory book of some kind before attempting to write about the subject. At least read the relevant part in the only recent book that is presented as support against the Balto-Slavic view, since the author seems to have changed his mind. Yes, he still mentions an uncertainty, but then he goes on to list a lot of shared innovations (even missing one of the more important) without presenting any counter-evidence, and in other parts of the book Balto-Slavic is treated as a branch. Don't read the rest of the book if you are interested in historical or IE linguistics, it is not very good and the project itself is absurd. Moreover, what most people using a language thinks about it is not a scientific argument. Amilah (talk) 19:26, 11 April 2012 (UTC)

You completely missed the point - nobody is questioning that view, just that it is ignored to the point that this seeming scientific consensus isn't even mentioned anywhere, if you look in languages discussed in the article. Virtually any article on scientific matter that is doubted by masses mentions the opposing views e.g. somebody here mentioned Evolution - that article has whole section discussing creationism, so does article on Global warming. But here you can't humor the opposition with one line in the lead (which should summarize contents of the article, so no reason not to mention it there anyways, if it is mentioned later on). Plus, Amilah, you never mention what book you are talking about ~~Xil (talk) 13:24, 12 April 2012 (UTC)

My bad. I was talking about the book by Quiles, but I see now that it has been removed as a reference, so it doesn't matter anymore. However, in the field of IE studies, there are all sorts of minority views, and a genereal public that doesn't know anything and doesn't really care. In the case of evolution, there are many people who dipute it even after reading through a lot of research, and thus the subject may be called controversial and motivate a mention in the lede, but when it comes to historical lingustics and subgrouping, you might expect people to read the entire article and hopefully take a glance at the references before making up their minds and start editing the post. Then it might be worthwile to include it in the lede, but if people cannot even bother to learn some basics of historical linguistics or even read through the entire article before shouting "impossible", then their opinions is more about politics than science and really nothing to bother about, regadless of what language they speak. Amilah (talk) 09:19, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Relationship with other Indo-European languages & Finnic

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)

The Baltic and Finno-Ugric tribes were culturally distinct. While my short nose and dark hair speak to myself having Liv (i.e., Finno-Ugric) roots amongst my Latvian, I don't see that biological considerations necessarily affect cultural ones, given that the geographic boundaries of Estonian, Latvian, and Lithuanian culture have been stable for millennia. I completely agree that borrowings (Finnic, German, Russian, etc.) should be treated separately. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 20:49, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

The material was basically irrelevant. Population genetics says nothing about how languages are related. Baltic and Finnic languages are completely unrelated. Dominus Vobisdu (talk) 20:58, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

(ec) IMO, if Estonians, Latvians, and Lithuanian populations are all 40% of "X", then since there was never that level of intermarriage between them to create that level of homogeneity amongst the three, the "40%" is just another statistic searching for a raison d'être. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 21:01, 16 April 2012 (UTC)

There is though major Finnic influence, especially in some dialects of Latvian, thus a mention would be warranted. It is unclear though what is the text about - do genetic linguistics consider genetic relations in population good enough reason to consider strong relationship between languages? ~~Xil (talk) 14:54, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

"Finnic influence in Latvian" is not relevant to this article. Historical linguists accept the fact that languages borrow from other languages--no news here. But you don't understand that "genetic" in linguistics is not the same as "genetic" in biology--they are completely separate things. My ancestors spoke Celtic languages and you'd find lots of Celtic DNA in my family, but we don't speak a Celtic language, we speak a Germanic language. Language is not transferred through DNA, thus it wouldn't matter if the Latvians were 99% Finnic--their language is 100% Indo-European, it is descended from Proto-Indo-European, not from Finnic. --Taivo (talk) 16:33, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

I said "especialy", not "exlusively". Now my question was is this considered to be a field of research in linguistics, which maybe provides different findings, but is still relevant to some extent, or is it purely genetic thing, not relevant to linguistics? ~~Xil (talk) 19:33, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Genetics is not linguistics and vice versa; there are no "different findings" in linguistics based on DNA. The methodology of historical linguistics has nothing whatsoever to gain from DNA research. Once a language family has been determined by purely linguistic means, on some occasions DNA research can point to directionality of movement or a homeland, but DNA is completely irrelevant for determining linguistic relationships. --Taivo (talk) 20:48, 20 April 2012 (UTC)

Archaic features

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

Do a web search there are plenty of good sources on this. The book quoted also is found online. Here, I guess, Proto-Balto-Slavic language might discuss them to some extent ~~Xil (talk) 06:11, 27 March 2013 (UTC)

Removal of Balto-Slavic

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)

What you think isn't really relevant. The important thing is what the sources say (see WP:RS), and the majority of sources say that Proto-Balto-Slavic is a valid and accepted concept. It's fine if you do not agree with this, but it should not be removed from the article as Wikipedia is not about truth but about verifiable sources. See WP:TRUTH. There is also WP:UNDUE, which states that the article must give each viewpoint attention in accordance with how much weight that position has in actual scientific discourse. Minority views should not be treated as if they are the majority view or even the only possible view, every view must be given as much attention as the sources give it, so that majority views get more attention than minority views. This is done to keep the article neutral and so that it reflects the reality of the sources as well as it can, as Wikipedia articles must always follow sources. So if you want this removed from the article, then you would have to find sources that not only agree with your position (which I am sure do exist), but also sources that suggest that the majority of linguists holds that position (which I doubt exist). CodeCat (talk) 18:07, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

I am not saying what I think, I'm saying what I know. I also know that the two surviving Baltic states (Lithuania and Latvia) are small and the rest of the world including wiki staff don't care about their position and think it's meaningless because it's a MINORITY. Yes, these two countries are a minority in comparison with the rest of the world. This doesn't mean they are wrong. And as for the linguists - as I mentioned before, I don't think they care (if they dare to say that Baltic and Slavic languages belong to the same branch.. That's just plain stupid :). I am from Lithuania myself, I know the language and the history, as well as the occupation by the soviets. That had some influence on Lithuania of course, but it doesn't make these two completely different languages related. Do some research. Now this is just offensive. But as you said, wikipedia is not about the truth. I guess that explains a lot :) You also said: "This is done to keep the article neutral and so that it reflects the reality of the sources as well as it can" - excuse me, but this article is NOT neutral now, and it does NOT reflect the reality. It reflects ignorant propaganda. It's really stupid to publish lies just because they are the majority's opinion. Pathetic. Now I am completely sure wikipedia cannot be trusted, and it's really disappointing. 78.61.79.213 (talk) 19:15, 6 September 2013 (UTC)

You need to chill. The very idea of language families is to prove that once upon a time everyone spoke one language, which then split into several languages. They are not saying that modern Balts speak Russian, but that, say, ten thousands years ago people might have spoken one language, which later split into various languages, but maybe languages of one group remained similar for some time longer and then split into Baltic and Slavic languages. Do you know what happened thousands of years ago? It is reflected in the article that linguists have various views on this. If you think view you support is under represented, you can expand the article with sourced information on that view. You cannot, however, delete the opposing view altogether and, if it is a majority view, it does need to be said clearly even, if you think it is wrong ~~Xil (talk) 01:57, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Maybe what you know needs further examining? It's not the first time people find scientific knowledge uncomfortable, and feel that it doesn't fit "their" view of the world. Just think of the article Evolution, which many people also think is not neutral because it doesn't mention "their" views. However, the Baltic languages are a scientific construct and so this article is not about your own view of the Baltic languages, but the scientific view which is found in sources. Most linguists believe that Proto-Balto-Slavic is valid and they have their reasons for believing that. I don't see how it could be propaganda when it's just a matter of fact; it would be a lie to say that a majority of linguists does not support Balto-Slavic, so it should be in this article. You don't have to believe it, or like it, as long as you follow Wikipedia's rules while editing articles.

Personally, I wonder why you feel the occupation of the Soviets is relevant. I also wonder why you feel that linguists don't care. Linguists follow the scientific method and judge the facts objectively. The Baltic and Slavic languages have many more similarities with each other than they have with other Indo-European languages. Linguists have concluded that the existence of a common Balto-Slavic language explains these similarities the best. A minority of linguists says that Balto-Slavic did not exist, but have not yet been able to find explanations for the similarities, which the Balto-Slavic theory does. That is why the majority follows it; it "works" best, and it explains the most. This is how science works. So it's not about "caring" but about finding explanations for the facts. There is no emotion in it, no right or wrong, only trying to find the best explanations for the reality we see. CodeCat (talk) 02:03, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

You call it 'scientific knowledge'? Maybe it's scientific in some parts of the world, here it's not. You are so sure about it just because the linguists are telling you so. And that's the only reason for calling it 'scientific'. I, and a lot of other people, as well as linguists, also have reasons for believing that Baltic and Slavic languages are not related. You can find similarities between any languages if you really want to, however, comparing these two is just ridiculous. I speak both Lithuanian and Russian, I can see that there are no similarities. Scientists do not know how to explain the evolution of these languages, where they originated from, but they had to fill this gap somehow, so they found it convenient to relate these different branches of languages. As for the soviet occupation, it's kind of obvious I think, unless you don't know the history. Russian language was forced on Lithuania, students were taught Russian at school, so it expanded, and maybe Lithuanian language adopted some of its words, but now it's mostly slang though. And the same thing happened in all of the countries occupied by Soviets. Especially in Latvia, as it still has lots of Russian inhabitants and nearly every Latvian speaks Russian. So that's the reason - influence, not relation. Take Poland for example, and compare it with Russian. Now compare it with Lithuanian or Latvian. There are no similarities, it's simple, because these languages come from completely different branches, and both of them originated from the same Indo-European language family. There might be some tiny similarities but just as I mentioned before, they could be found between any two languages if you really wanted to. But the so called 'proto-balto-slavic' is a complete nonsense, I'm sorry but that's just obvious. It's not just my point of view, I am being objective. Local linguists from Latvia or Lithuania would tell you the same, because they know the situation better than someone from another continent. So we might be unable to explain everything in history, but we are not picking a ridiculous explanation just because we need to explain it. 78.61.79.213 (talk) 18:46, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Local linguists from Latvia or Lithuania would tell you the same, because they know the situation better than someone from another continent. This doesn't justify removing views held by scientific community on "another continent" and you should come up with sources to back this statement (about views of local scientific community) up, if you want to see changes in article. Besides the theory has been around since 19th century, well before Soviet Union even emerged and of any real languages it is much more likely to based on comparisons with Old Church Slavonic, than on modern Russian.

Personally, I wonder why you feel the occupation of the Soviets is relevant. [..] Linguists follow the scientific method and judge the facts objectively. don't be naive ~~Xil (talk) 20:10, 7 September 2013 (UTC)

Exactly, it's a 'theory', not a 'fact' and these two terms shouldn't be confused. Besides, I think science should have improved since the 19th century :) Anyway, Lithuania and Russia have always been close due to the geography, so yeah there could be something 'similar' in their languages but once again, it's because of the influence and not relation. Today all of the Slavic languages look similar if you compare them, it's easy to tell they are related.. But not in this case, obviously because they are from a different branch. I explained the soviet occupation in my previous post. I didn't understand what you meant in your last sentence about the suppressed research in the soviet union... 78.61.79.213 (talk) 14:28, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

You say it's not because of relation, but where are your reliable sources? We can't just add it to the article because you say so. This really isn't so much about the "truth" but about information that is confirmed by sources and so far you haven't provided any. Are we supposed to just take your word for it? That's how the truth gets distorted in the first place on Wikipedia, and that's why sources are so important. I'm sure if your views have widespread support in Lithuania, there should be no problem providing sources for them? I'm sure there is room in this article to discuss the disparate views, maybe even possible motivations for the views of each side if the sources make any mention of that. However, that doesn't change the fact that, for the majority of linguists, the Baltic languages are part of Balto-Slavic. Personally, I also hold this view because there are too many similarities between them to just say it's "coincidence". But my views don't matter either for the article, only sources do. CodeCat (talk) 17:38, 9 September 2013 (UTC)

I would give you 'sources' if I had enough time to spend in front of my computer or in libraries, someday I surely will. But where are your sources too? You say you can't add it to the article because I say so, but when some questionable 'scientists' say so, you take it as a fact. Also could you please name those 'similarities' because now they're kind of obscure..? 78.61.79.213 (talk) 17:30, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

To me it seems that the view is widespread in popular knowledge in Latvia and, evidently, in Lithuania, thus I think it definitely should be mentioned (it currently is, though) and find that other editors taking firm stance on the matter and attempting to remove it as pure nationalism is not very helpful and even slightly offensive - this just leads to repeat vandalism, especially since it can be seen as remains of Soviet propaganda, which attempts to prove that Balts speak Slavic languages (actually it is more like the other way around) and therefore seen as offensive. In other articles I've seen no such inclination to reflect only consensus held within scientific community e.g the article on Evolution, mentioned previously, has a whole section discussing other views, even though those are regarded as fringe views by majority of society and it seems to me it is possible to prove something in biology with greater degree of certainty than in linguistics. However, I am not convinced that this indeed is majority view of linguists in Baltic States. I found two Lithuanian journals on linguistics found online Baltistica and Lituanius, both have no issues to mention and discuss the possibility of such grouping, so there certainly is no basis for removing it as fringe view. The later has a number of articles on topic, however the majority of them are published some twenty years ago - the lack of continuous discussion would suggest some sort of consensus has been reached. I also happen to own a book on Baltic languages by an Italian author that summarizes that many Lithuanian linguists accept Ivanov's and Toprov's hypothesis ~~Xil (talk) 08:36, 10 September 2013 (UTC)

Isn't that ironic that your mentioned 'Ivanov and Toprov' are Russian? :) Now tell me who the nationalists are.. I'm arguing not because of nationalism, heck I'm German in the first place - I'm arguing because I want truth. 78.61.79.213 (talk) 17:30, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Lituanus is a Lithuanian nationalist magazine, and their articles on Balto-Slavic are full of obscure and fringe theories that nobody accepts. Comparing it to Baltistica (a real journal) is like comparing piss to champagne.

Slavs do not speak a "Baltic", because in the period that Balto-Slavic speech community is speculated to have existed (the second millennium BCE) neither Baltic nor Slavic identities or cultures existed. "Balts" were a bunch of unrelated tribes all the way until the recent history. The compounded term Balto-Slavic is specifically neutral not to insinuate that neither component has some kind of precedence.

Of all the major IE branches, Baltic and Slavic are the most closely related. Yes, there are open questions in the reconstruction of Proto-Balto-Slavic left (even the traditional reconstruction of Proto-Slavic seems to be very wrong with the advent of Old Novgorod birch bark letters and recent research on onomastics), but that doesn't mean that the grouping itself is controversial. All of the arguments that IP has reduce to "I know both Russian and Lithuanian, and they don't appear to be related". Who cares. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 08:04, 13 September 2013 (UTC)

Please provide serious evidence of relation between Baltic and Slavic. It's easy to think of something universal. Sorry but this theory of Proto-Balto-Slavic is pure bullshit. And yes, I know both Lithuanian and Russian, and I don't see any similarities. Problem? You could provide some 'arguments' on your theory too, you know. 78.61.79.213 (talk) 17:30, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I'm not here to tutor you. Study the articles (and their references!) Proto-Balto-Slavic language and Balto-Slavic languages, and papers from IWoBA. For starters, you should learn that linguists don't group languages on the basis of phonetic similarities, but on the basis of regular sound correspondences which are then explained as chronologically arranged sound changes. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 18:45, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

I don't see any point in studying bullshit. Those who write those articles can keep their opinions to themselves. I'm intelligent enough to have my own views reflecting the reality, not someone else's uneducated mind. You should also study some articles that support the opposite opinion, to keep balance, otherwise it's not really objective :) 78.61.79.213 (talk) 15:06, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

(Edit conflict) The article is not arguing for Balto-Slavic so it's not required to give any evidence for it. Rather, it is only detailing what others have argued, and we give sources to that. In any case, any arguments concerning Balto-Slavic should not be in this article nor on its talk page, but on the Balto-Slavic languages article. And it appears that quite a lot of information is there already; I presume you have already read it? CodeCat (talk) 18:53, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Yes it is required to give evidence and to argue, because this theory is not a fact, and therefore only providing one sided articles and sources is not objective and that forms wrong beliefs in people who read it. 78.61.79.213 (talk) 15:06, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

You do realize that argument that somebody is Russian is really poor, especially given that Lithuanian linguists, who according to somebody here write nationalist piss, agree with them (contrary to what you claimed)? ~~Xil (talk) 20:13, 16 September 2013 (UTC)

Oh that was not an argument, it's just a funny fact that adds to what I've said so far :) Ever heard of irony? Different linguists in Lithuania have different opinions. Maybe not all of them are right. Anyway, if I say that Balto-Slavic doesn't exist, that doesn't make me a nationalist - that's just ridiculous - I'm only saying the truth as it actually is. What's nationalist about it? People should see the difference between the Balts and the Slavs and their languages, that's all. I don't see how separating these two branches makes me a nationalist :) Or am I supposed to agree with the wrong opinion? 78.61.79.213 (talk) 15:06, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

If it's the truth, then back it up with reliable sources. Otherwise, this discussion is pointless. CodeCat (talk) 15:33, 29 September 2013 (UTC)

If this is a free encyclopedia, it would include others' opinions as well. Some people say it's Baltic, some say it's Balto-Slavic. Since this is a controversy, include both versions. Here's a source to support the idea of Baltic group: [2]. Henkt (talk) 02:51, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

There is a mention of this in the "Relationship with other Indo-European languages" section further down the page. We should represent all points of view, yes, but we should do so in accordance to their relative weight (see WP:UNDUE). People who do not support Balto-Slavic are a distinct minority, so we likewise give a minority of the total space on the page to their point of view. That's the official Wikipedia policy. CodeCat (talk) 02:56, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

But haven't the linguists figured that Lithuanian resembles some of the Slavic languages because, I don't know, LITHUANIA WAS DOMINATED BY THEM? This is where historical documents of Lithuanian languages/Slavic languages in the 10th-11th century would help.

This is a common misconception. The resemblances between Baltic and Slavic are of a nature that is very unlikely to be the result of influence between the two at a later stage, and strongly suggests a period of common development. The article Balto-Slavic languages (the section "Shared features of the Balto-Slavic languages") gives some of these shared features. CodeCat (talk) 03:39, 6 December 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)

Yes, let us be neutral.

I'm not suggesting it for neutrality. BS is the neutral POV. I'm suggesting it for accessibility: People who don't know what the Baltic languages are certainly don't know what the Balto-Slavic languages are, so including that in the lead sentence is IMO a bad way to write the article, and would be even if there were universal agreement on BS. — kwami (talk) 03:47, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

I don't understand. It currently says "The Baltic languages are part of the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family". It includes both. I don't think we should be limiting the lede to what people are likely to know about. English language includes West Germanic languages in the first sentence, but I'm sure people who don't know what English is won't know what West Germanic is either. CodeCat (talk) 03:59, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

Well, I wouldn't include West Germanic either, as it's of relatively little importance, and is covered in the info box and classification section. Removing BS from the opening sentence would still leave it in the info box and classification section here. But that's just my approach. — kwami (talk) 04:33, 6 December 2013 (UTC)

If Baltic is paraphyletic, Baltic and Balto-Slavic are essentially synonymous, just like Finno-Ugric and Uralic or Mon–Khmer and Austroasiatic are now suspected to be. Then, in this sense, yes, Slavic is part of Baltic, and Russian is a Baltic language. Sounds funny, but then, "birds are dinosaurs" or "ants are wasps" sounds funny too. Otherwise, if Slavic is expressly excluded, "Baltic" is simply an areal group, a label without any phylogenetic significance. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 14:36, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Not areal, which means a Sprachbund, but paraphyletic. — kwami (talk) 22:14, 9 January 2014 (UTC)

Fatyanovo

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)

A Balto-Slavic Note

“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.

What is this nonsense? No sources, POV and pretty much imaginary in every single way. This doesn't belong here at all. – Sabbatino (talk) 14:27, 29 February 2016 (UTC)

Baltic languages connection with Greek

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)

You need to read some actual books on Indo-European. The Centum and Satem hypotheses were abandoned long ago. Yes, Greek is distantly related to the Balto-Slavic languages, just as are English, Hindi, Persian, Hittite, Spanish, Irish, Albanian, etc. --Taivo (talk) 20:41, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

More specifically, it was the idea that they are branches. The satem change is now considered an areal change that spread through a late PIE continuum. CodeCat (talk) 23:23, 15 March 2016 (UTC)

What defines the East and West Baltic groups?

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)

CodeCat, West Baltic languages (Old Prussian) preserved neuter nouns, there were no africates like in East baltic tj, dj > č, dž; š, ž; diphthongs an, en, in, un were unchanged (Lith. an, ą, un, ų, en, ę, in, į; Latvian uo, ie, ī, ū); long vowel o didn't turn in diphthong uo; some cases had another endings (Pruss. genetive singular -as - East Baltic -ā), possessive pronouns were different than in East Baltic l.-es (Pruss. mais 'my', twais 'your', swais 'his' - East Baltic *menas, *tevas, *sevas) and so on.--Ed1974LT (talk) 17:00, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Strictly speaking the branching of current baltic languages into west and east is based solely as living - lithuanian and latvian vs dead(and the ones, that have historical records and names) baltic languages located west from them(among them - also prussian languages). Semigallian/žemaitian(lowlanders) and selonian/augšzemnieki/aukstaitian(uplanders) are more related to each other and they in turn are more related to rest of west baltic languages, than to eastern(latvian-lithuanian) group. Curonians are not only west baltic, but they are even more related to prussian languages. This does not apply to modern latvian/lithuanian dialects, which are eastern baltic. This distinction is not pointed out.

Both of latvian and lithuanian came from one source mostly east of modern Latvian and Lithuanian borders around 500AD and migrated and mixed with lowlanders(aukstaitians and augszemnieki/selonians), who were spread over larger area, than it is considered as theirs.

If we disregard any saam(uralic) and later german and slavic influences, then baltic language that was formed as latvian and lithuanian was hybrid of eastern lat/lit and local baltic languages. To make matters more complicated, eastern baltic languages contains historical linguistical changes, like vowel shifts(according to those, historical form of Diewas would be as Deiwas/Dewas - just as in prussian languages). If original eastern baltic language had these changes not because of hybridization of local language, then eastern baltic(latvian and lithuanian) originally were part of western baltic linguistical group.

Anyway, this article doesn't seem to differentiate between these nuances, so we have semigallian, selonian(both of them went extinct around 16th century) and even curonian language(which has origins from prussians) as eastern baltic. Besides, grouping of prussian languages into one happy western family also is dubious, as they had some distinctions and their commonality should be regarded as baltic with possible unknown branches.

And most of all - placing eastern galindian(goledj) under Dniepr Baltic really shows how useless is this whole article and understanding about baltic, because goledj were located on Protwa river(triburary to Oka, which is triburary to Volga) and Dniepr(which is not naturally connected to Volga at all) balts were different people. Ironically, Dniepr baltic also lived in area that is regarded as proto-slavic origin. And if we have to be consistent, then eastern galindians should be regarded also as western balts, because even if they migrated to east, they didn't magically became eastern balts.195.147.206.144 (talk) 09:07, 5 May 2018 (UTC)

Article "Proto-Baltic language"

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)

I'm not sure if there is a consensus that Proto-Baltic even existed as a distinct branch. What differences are there between it and Proto-Slavic, that are attributable to common innovations in Proto-Baltic? CodeCat (talk) 17:08, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

If you visited both Proto-Slavic and Proto-Baltic articles in the Wiki projects, you could see the differences in the tables, though. The stuff is too big to discuss about that, if you are not familiar with the subject.--Ed1974LT (talk) 17:27, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Can you give a summary? CodeCat (talk) 17:30, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

My English is weak, you can see it. Some scholars considered Proto-Slavic to be the modernized Proto-Baltic language. Proto-Slavic had palatalization for 3 times that changed its consonants pronunciation. Proto-Baltic language didn't had it. In comparison, Proto-Baltic flexion was very near to PIE but Proto-Slavic flexion was reduced, all endings were shortened. Proto-Slavic lost long vowels, short and long diphthongs, short vowels u, i turn in reduced unclear pronounced ъ, ь satemizated palatal PIE consonants k, g > š (sh), ž (zh) became s, z. It all didn't happen in Proto-Baltic. Proto-Baltic PIE *o turned in a, so PIE *a and *o coincided in one *a. In Proto-Slavic, both vowels fell into *o. In Proto-Slavic j dispersed after consonant everywhere. In Proto-Baltic "consonant +j" retained before front vowels. 2 accentuations are reconstructed for Proto-Baltic but 3 for Proto-Slavic. Proto-Slavic had sigmatic aorist. Proto-Baltic hadn't it. Proto-Baltic had sigmatic future tense, but Proto-Slavic hadn't it - in Proto-Slavic, future tense was formed in periphrastic way. Proto-Slavic had new-formed imperfect but Proto-Baltic hadn't it. Proto-Baltic verb of 3th person (she, he, it) had the same form in all 3 grammatical numbers. Proto-Slavic had difference in this. So, you can find difference everything, not the coincidence only, and there are not all differences I mentioned.

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

1 lentelė. Tematinių (balsinių) kamienų linksniavimas

		*-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

That's not what I'm asking about. Of course Proto-Slavic is quite different and rather innovative. What I asked about is any innovations specific to Proto-Baltic alone, that did not occur in Proto-Slavic. In other words, points where Proto-Baltic differs from Proto-Balto-Slavic. Many linguists regard Proto-Baltic as the same as Proto-Balto-Slavic, so there has to be evidence that they're different. CodeCat (talk) 18:50, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

I'm not sure, I understand your question, because existence of Proto-Balto-Slavic is highly arguable by many linguists. I read an article about "Proto-Balto-Slavic language" now. I don't know why for this common language is reconstructed a, o > proto-balto-slavic *a , because Slavic languages show reflexes of o here only, and Baltic languages of a and nothing alse. Winter's low doesn't work the same in Baltic and Slavic languages. Consonants table includes palatalized ones, but this thing doesn't occur with Proto-Baltic. Even Russian Wikipedia contains an article about common Balto -Slavic language with two equal parts: against and for existing of those languages's commonness. Proto-Baltic have no innovations in phonology, morphology comparing with Proto-Slavic, but Proto-Baltic is innovative in the verb tenses only. I don't know why innovations are important thing in this case, because existence of common Proto-Balto-Slavic language is arguable (Pisani, Toporev, Ivanov, Zeps and other) and Proto-Slavic can be described as innovative model of Proto-Baltic.--Ed1974LT (talk) 19:32, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Most linguists accept Balto-Slavic as a valid family; very few doubt that the Baltic and Slavic families descend from a common source that is not Proto-Indo-European. There is only a small minority that thinks they split apart from each other already in Indo-European times. Our articles on Balto-Slavic languages and Proto-Balto-Slavic reflect this.

Proto-Slavic had a change o > a in Balto-Slavic, and then a > o again in late Proto-Slavic itself. We can actually tell that this was a rather late change that happened when Proto-Slavic was already diversifying into dialects, because there are different outcomes in some cases. In South Slavic, there is the change of ol and or to lā and rā, which shows that Slavic o was still very open and close to a, and didn't become a real o until later. In early Proto-Slavic, it was still a. CodeCat (talk) 20:31, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

The terms "very few" and "most" linguists are very relative concepts. This question is open since 19th c. till now, and I don't have to convince anyone that Proto-Slavic, Proto-Baltic or Proto-Balto-Slavic language exactly did exist or didn't. It's possible to argue both points and every argument against and for it. In Wikipedia, there are the articles of Proto-Slavic about in 30 languages, and only in 3 languages about Proto-Baltic language. Users of Russian Wikipedia were the first who created article about Proto-Baltic. Who think that this isn't important and necessary, just don't do it.--Ed1974LT (talk) 13:23, 16 July 2016 (UTC)

I was always wondering how the Balto-Slavic theory proponents explain the fact that the reconstructed Proto-Baltic has merged all verbal 3rd person forms into one (as all known Baltic languages do, including Prussian), a phenomenon that is unknown in the Slavonic branch that has clearly retained the distinction until this day. Do they claim that is was not present in the Proto-Balto-Slavic stage, but later developed independantly in the Slavonic branch?--Ąžuolas (talk) 21:04, 27 July 2016 (UTC)

South Baltic

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 https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/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)

Update:I didn't check extensively the publication of the Bulgarian linguist Duridanov. He actually states that the ancestor of Thracian are the Baltic languages. "Thracian language is genetically linked to the Baltic languages" (Ivan Duridanov. Thraco-Dacian studies. XIII., 2, 1969. Sofia), free link [3]. This is logical, given the parallels provided later by him in 1985, whose reconstruction is the latest improved version of Thracian dictionaries.

Duridanov's classification is quoted here as follows:"the Thracian language formed a close group with the Baltic (resp. Balto-Slavic), the Dacian and the „Pelasgian" languages. More distant were its relations with the other Indo-European languages, and especially with Greek, the Italic and Celtic languages, which exhibit only isolated phonetic similarities with Thracian; the Tokharian and the Hittite were also distant"

Also another new three authors are found that make classification of Dacian or Thracian in a Baltic family, the total observed by me are more than five:

The Czech Kristian Turnvvald, the Romanian Mircea M. Radulescu and the Venezuelian-Lithuanian Jurate Statkute de Rosales, these names and their views are stated in page 51 in this link: JŪRATĖ STATKUTĖ DE ROSALES EUROPOS ŠAKNYS IR MES, LIETUVIAI, pp. 43-70. The link is a publication of Rosales, in which she claims that Dacian and Thracian were Baltic languages, while Radulescu compared names of rivers and personal names in Dacian and concluded a Baltic classification of Dacian, while Tarvvald classified the Danubian languages(at least Dacian) as Baltic.

The strong support for the theory is also mentioned in the most extensive study on reconstructing Thracian of Duridanov and the claim that the theory is a fringe view was a mere nonsense, but at the early stage I didn't provide enough sources, so the suspicion was justified.--46.10.61.81 (talk) 20:59, 21 May 2017 (UTC)

Then all of this text would be better represented at "Dacian language" or "Thracian language" articles. – Sabbatino (talk) 05:10, 22 May 2017 (UTC)

This didn't seem as an objection. The content may be indeed represented at other articles. At the same time the content seem to me to be correctly presented and justified inclusion here. If something you deem to be written incorrectly, I propose you try to change something in the section instead of removing the whole addition? I would like to be noticed if there is something like that written there. This is how an agreement may be seeken. --46.10.61.81 (talk) 00:56, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

First of all, there is no separate language as "Žemaitijan/Samogitian" as you indicated. It is just a dialect of Lithuanian language like American English is a dialect of English or Austrian German is a dialect of German. It is already in the list and is indicated as a dialect. Secondly, Dacian and Thracian are not Baltic languages. They just have a connection, but they are not Baltic. By that logic, you could say that Slavic languages are also Baltic, because there are many words of Baltic origin. Thirdly, there could be a paragraph describing similarities between the Baltic languages and these two, but it most certainly does not belong where you inserted it. You should also refrain from using such words as "Patriarch of Lithuania", which is not encyclopedic and instead use "by Lithuanian scholar Jonas Basanavičius", which would be neutral and would not give the wrong impression to people. – Sabbatino (talk) 06:42, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

As for the second, the view you stated seems like a personal opinion not backed by a source. This is not what the classification of the languages is and should be presented in a neutral manner and in the way regarded by the significant part of the authors themselves. Some papers conclude that the Baltic connection is a genetic link and classify the language in the Baltic family. As for the rest - have it your way.--46.10.61.81 (talk) 14:23, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

How is my view "personal opinion"? Since when do I need sources to say that Samogitian is a dialect of Lithuanian and not a separate language? Wherever you will look, you will see that it is in fact just a dialect. As for "the theory should be presented" – you do know what "theory" means? Even your added sources do not clarify what you want to add as you just added books without specifying the exact pages, which would back up your claim. The accepted references all group Baltic languages to articles current classification. There is even a chart, which is there for a reason. And writing stuff like "Patriarch of Lithuania Jonas Basanavičius" is most certainly non-neural POV and is biased. – Sabbatino (talk) 15:48, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

As for the first and third of all- agreed, thanks for noticing the wrong. As for the second, the section may be moved to other articles, but disputed classifications may also be mentioned in the article in a special section as there is a sufficient number of adherents of this classification. Pages will be provided where missing. Everybody may have a different opinion as yours is that they just have a connection as much as Slavic, but they are not Baltic. Adding different views and classifications to it may also help a better presentation anyway if this connection is described in the article as you suggested with the third statement.--46.10.61.81 (talk) 16:05, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

I did not say that your additions do not belong in the article. You completely misunderstood. What I meant was that your additions do not belong in the "Branches" paragraph as theories should be separated from the accepted classifications. Your additions could have their own paragraph and could be titled "Relations to Dacian and Thracian languages" or similar, but I will repeat again that these are just theories from a very small number of scholars and they could be classified as fringe theories. More people are needed at this discussion and I will notify the WikiProjects, which might take interest in this. – Sabbatino (talk) 16:47, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

I indeed mischose the section. If seen from one point of view the other classifications of Dacian and Thracian do not have any much different number of adhering scholars, so the title of the section may be "Languages of disputed classification". If seen form another point Dacian and Thracian are often excluded from the list of Baltic languages. The latter may influenced by the fact that they are ancient languages, which may be of low importance attempting to classify and mention. They are extinct languages for a much longer time unlike the West Baltic languages. The title of the proposed paragraph may be "Paleo-Balkan" or "Balkan" because one publication lists parallels between Baltic and other languages, e.g. Albanian.--46.10.61.81 (talk) 17:09, 24 May 2017 (UTC)

Edit needed

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 whole section should be moved after the subsequent one and definitely needs serious copy-editing, not just the Toparov part. VєсrumЬа ►TALK 04:54, 21 June 2017 (UTC)

ISN'T IT ALL POLITICAL?

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.

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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: What is your statement? Trying to troll? Do you have better hypothesis, arguments against it? Balts obviously are separate linguistic, and cultural group, without a doubt. Ke an (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 19:36, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

   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? 

See WP:NOTFORUM. Unless there are specific suggestions to improve the article, it's best to hat this section. Valenciano (talk) 20:30, 28 November 2018 (UTC)

   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?

Regarding (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), that's exactly the case, yes. The section I've linked to says: "bear in mind that 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 per the talk page guidelines."

Regarding (If so, then every one who has made comments here should be censored. Including you. Agreed?) No. I've made no comments here other than pointing out the rules to you, which clearly is permitted. Free speech has limitations and no, you're not free to always say what you want, where/when you want, especially on a private website. If you don't believe me, try standing up in a church service and arguing that God doesn't exist and see how long it takes before the cops show up and your protests of censorship fall on deaf ears.

  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? 

If you have a specific suggestion about adding, removing or amending text in the article, make that suggestion, please. Valenciano (talk) 09:11, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

PS looking at your original comments, you say: "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." Schmid says nothing of the sort. The only thing in the article from him is a geographic representation of where Baltic languages are: Iranian languages are to the east of that group, Celtic languages to the west, Greek languages to the south east. You only have to look at a map to see that that's true. Valenciano (talk) 09:24, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

 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.

Regarding "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" No rights are absolute and they all need to be balanced against each other. The UN declaration makes that clear when it says free speech "carries with it special duties and responsibilities. It may therefore be subject to certain restrictions." You don't seem to get that. Your right to free speech, for example, does not give you the right to come into my house at 2am and shout conspiracy theories. Same as with the church example, where the right to private property trumps that. Following on from that, you don't have the right to break the rules on a private website such as Wikipedia e.g. WP:NOTFORUM and if you don't get your head round that very soon, your time here will be shortlived. Now I will ask again: do you have a specific suggestion about adding, removing or amending text in the article? If so, make that suggestion, please. Valenciano (talk) 12:34, 29 November 2018 (UTC)

  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) 

Wikipedia articles work best when they have different viewpoints. Your viewpoint is one of those. I'm more than willing to help you express that, but you need to drop the hostility. Just claiming that articles are biased, written by racists etc achieves nothing and is a waste of your time and everyone else's and will get you blocked sooner or later on grounds of personal attacks / WP:NOTFORUM or WP:SOAPBOX. You need to make specific suggestions for changes to the article: amendments, removals, additions or whatever. If you can't do that and just want to complain here then we're not going to achieve anything. Valenciano (talk) 19:49, 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) 

Wasn't me who restored it, as you can see from the page history, but since you have no suggestions related to improving the article, despite being asked 4 times, I'm going to hat this section. Valenciano (talk) 08:24, 30 November 2018 (UTC)

The discussion above 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.

AREN'T THE LANGUAGES AND SPEAKERS BASED IN EASTERN EUROPE?

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)

It seems that the UN considers the Baltic states to be in Northern Europe, rather than eastern Europe, although this may not always have been the case Emmy571 (talk) 22:24, 26 July 2022 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• The epigram of Basel - oldest known inscription in Prussian language and Baltic language in general, middle of 14th c.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 17:22, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Baltic branches

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)

Yes, this should be cleaned up. Only East and West Baltic (@Emmy571: you wrote "Slavic") are attested; a distinct Dnieper Baltic branch is postulated by Dini based on toponyms and East Baltic words which might go back a Dnieper Baltic substratum. But this is speculative and should not appear in the tree diagram as an established fact. –Austronesier (talk) 20:49, 27 July 2022 (UTC)

Thank you for your explanation. Yes, you're right, of course I meant Baltic not Slavic, I should have proofread my comment before posting it. Thank you for pointing it out, I'll edit it Emmy571 (talk) 17:26, 28 July 2022 (UTC)

Hypothetical scope of Baltic in the lead

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:

• Based on hydronymic evidence, scholars agree that the Baltic speech area covered a much wider area than today, ranging from the Vistula to the Dnieper (or even further on both ends, although this remains controversial).

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)