West Baltic languages explained

West Baltic
Region:In the northeast of Central Europe, western parts of Baltic region
Familycolor:Indo-European
Fam2:Balto-Slavic
Fam3:Baltic
Child1:Prussian
Child2:Old Curonian
Child3:Sudovian
Child4:Pomeranian Baltic † (?)
Child5:Skalvian † (?)
Child6:West Galindian † (?)
Map:West Baltic languages.svg
Mapcaption:Former extent of West Baltic languages (including disputed ones) in 11–12th century Europe. Diagonal lines represent territories shared with other tribes.
West Baltic languages
Iso5:bat
Glottorefname:West Baltic
Lingua:54=

The West Baltic languages are a group of extinct Baltic languages that were spoken by West Baltic peoples. West Baltic is one of the two primary branches of Baltic languages, along with East Baltic. It includes Old Prussian, Sudovian, West Galindian, possibly Skalvian and Old Curonian.[1] [2]

Attestation

The only properly attested West Baltic language of which texts are known is Old Prussian, although there are a few short remnants of Old Curonian and Sudovian in the form of isolated words and short phrases.[3] Many West Baltic languages went extinct in the 16th century while Old Prussian ceased to be spoken in the early 18th century.[4]

Classification

The only languages securely classified as West Baltic are Old Prussian and West Galindian, which could also be a dialect of Old Prussian.[5]

Most scholars consider Skalvian to be a West Baltic language or dialect. Another possible classification is a transitional language between West and East Baltic.[6]

Sudovian is either classified as an Old Prussian dialect,[7] [8] a West Baltic language[9] [10] or a transitional language between West and East Baltic.[11] The former two options would leave Sudovian in the West Baltic phylum.

Old Curonian is the least securely classified language. It is argued to be either West Baltic with significant East Baltic influence,[12] or East Baltic.[13]

History

West Baltic was presumably native to the north of Central Europe, especially modern Poland, and the western Baltic region, which includes parts of modern Latvia and Lithuania. The West Baltic branch probably fully separated from East Baltic around the 4th–3rd century BCE, although their differences go as far as the middle of the last millennium BC.[6]

Linguistic features

The West Baltic languages were more archaic. Unlike their Eastern counterparts, West Balts retained the diphthong *ei (e.g. deiws 'god', () deinan 'day'), palatalized consonants pronounced as //kʲ//, pronounced as //gʲ// (they are preserved also in the Lithuanian language), and compounds pronounced as //tl//, and pronounced as //dl//. They also preserved three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter. Sudovian and Old Curonian shared the suffix -ng-, which can be observed in various hydronyms and oeconyms (e.g. Apsingė, Nedzingė, Pilvingis, Suvingis, Palanga, Alsunga) found in southern Lithuania, western Lithuania and Latvia. West Balts possessed double-stemmed personal names with distinct compounds (e.g. Net(i)-, Sebei-), which are unusual to the anthroponymy of the East Balts.[14]

West Baltic languages are traditionally characterised by having at least few of the following six key linguistic features: 1 – primordial diphthong *ei, 2 – equivalents to IE velars *k and *g, 3 – *AN type compounds, 4 – equivalents to palatals *k‘ and *g‘, 5 – equivalents to Baltic consonant compounds *tj and *td, 6 – equivalents to Baltic vowels and . Based on the degree of consensus existing in the academic community, the first two points are sometimes regarded as strong features whereas the remaining four are identified as weak features.[15] There are differences in vocalic variations in the root (aR / eR and a / e) between East and West Baltic languages that possibly emerged due to development of Baltic phonology, categories of word-formation, categorical semantics of the verb or traces of IE perfect.[16]

Findings on the Lithuanian Zatiela subdialect in present-day Dyatlovo suggest that it had preserved certain linguistic traits associated with West Baltic languages, primarily Sudovian, such as the incomplete transition of diphthong ei to ie (e.g. sviekas ‘hello’, sviekata ‘health’, pasviek ‘get well’), turn of vowel u into i before consonant v (e.g. brivai ‘eyebrows’, liživis ‘tongue’, živis, ži ‘fish’), use of diphthong ai instead of a (e.g. dailyti ‘distribute’), shortening of nominal singular endings (e.g. arkluks ‘little horse’, dieus, dies ‘god’, niks ‘nothing’, vaiks ‘child’), use of consonant z instead of ž (e.g. ząsis, ząsė ‘goose’, zvėris, zvėrys ‘beast’, zvaiždė ‘star’). The said subdialect is believed to have retained an archaic feature from the Sudovian language — the usage of compound consonants šč, št, žd and st without inserting consonants k, g (e.g. auštas ‘high, tall’, pauštė ‘bird’, spiūsna ‘feather’, žvirždos ‘sand, pebble’) — which also corresponds to examples found in Old Prussian (e.g. aūss ‘gold’, rīsti ‘whip’). Personal pronoun forms have also been noted for possessing features found in West Baltic languages, such as the turn of consonant v into j when applying instrumental or adessive singular cases (e.g. sajim (), sajip, savip () ‘with oneself’, tajim (), tajip () ‘with you’). Old literary Lithuanian texts from Lithuania Minor attest the use of the third person singular past tense form bit(i) ‘was’ as well as prefix–preposition sa(-), which are most likely linguistic features inherited from West Baltic languages.[17]

References

  1. Book: Gimbutas, Marija. Marija Gimbutas. 1963. The Balts. Ancient peoples and places. London. Thames and Hudson. 33.
  2. Book: Zinkevičius, Zigmas . Zigmas Zinkevičius . The History of the Lithuanian Language . 1996 . Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla . Vilnius . 9785420013632 . 51 . Ramutė. Plioplys.
  3. Book: Dini, Pietro U.. Foundations of Baltic languages. Milda B.. Richardson. Robert E.. Richardson. Vilniaus universitetas. Vilnius. 2014. 978-609-437-263-6.
  4. Book: Young, Steven . 2008 . Baltic . Kapović . Mate . The Indo-European Languages . London . Routledge . 486–518. 978-03-6786-902-1.
  5. The Balts in the migration period. Iliya. Tarasov. 95–124. Istoričeskij Format . ru:Исторический Формат. 3-4. January 2017. ru.
  6. Book: Rinkevičius, Vytautas. Prūsistikos pagrindai. Fundamentals of Prussian linguistics. Vilniaus universitetas. Vilnius. 2015. lt. 978-609-417-101-7.
  7. Book: Būga, Kazimieras. Kalba ir senovė. Language and the Antiquity. lt. Švietimo Ministerijos leidinys. 1. Vilnius. 1922. 78–83.
  8. Book: Gerullis, Georg. Festschrift Bezzenberger. Zur Sprache der Sudauer-Jatwinger. de. About the Language of the Sudovians-Yatwingians. 1921. Göttingen. Vandenhoek & Ruprecht. 44–51.
  9. Mažiulis. Vytautas. Vytautas Mažiulis. 1966. Jotvingiai. The Jatvingians. lt. Mokslas ir gyvenimas. Vilnius. 11. 32–33.
  10. Book: Zinkevičius, Zigmas. Zigmas Zinkevičius. 267. Lietuvių kalbos istorija. The origin of the Lithuanian language. Lietuvių kalbos kilmė. 1. 1984. Mokslas. Vilnius. 978-54-2000-102-8.
  11. Book: Otrębski, Jan Szczepan. Namen von zwei Jatwingerstämmen. 1963. Slawische Namenforschung, Vorträge auf der II. Arbeitskonferenz. The names of two Yatwingian tribes. Akademie Verlag. Berlin. 204–209.
  12. Book: Mažiulis, Vytautas. Iš lietuvių etnogenezės. Apie senovės vakarų baltus bei jų santykius su slavais, ilirais ir germanais. Mokslas. lt. 1981. Vilnius.
  13. Book: The Circum-Baltic Languages: Typology and Contact . 2001 . John Benjamins Publishing . Dahl . Östen . 1: Past and Present . Amsterdam . en . Koptjevskaja-Tamm . Maria. 9789027230577.
  14. Zinkevičius, Zigmas. "Lietuviai ir krikščionybė" [Lithuanians and Christianity] (in Lithuanian). XXI amžius. Archived from the original on 16 November 2012. Retrieved 7 August 2023.
  15. Kardelis, Vytautas (2016). Mažosios baltų kalbos? [Minor Baltic Languages?]. In (Eds.), Kalbotyra [''Linguistics''] (in Lithuanian, abstract available in English). Vilnius: Vilnius University Press. p. 50. ISSN 1392-1517.
  16. Pakalniškienė, Dalia (2007). Bendroji baltų kalbų leksika: šaknies morfonologijos skirtumai [Common Baltic Vocabulary: Differences in Root Morphonology]. In (Eds.), Rex Humanitariae (in Lithuanian, abstract available in English). p. 103. Vilnius: Lituanistika Database. ISSN 1822-7708; 2538-922X.
  17. Vidugiris, Aloyzas (1996). Kai kurie vakarų baltų kalbos reiškiniai pietinėse lietuvių tarmėse [''Certain West Baltic Language Traits in Southern Lithuanian Dialects''] (in Lithuanian, abstract available in German). pp. 33–36. Baltistica.