Talk:Proto-Baltic language

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Untitled

Then hypothetically and theoretically there was a Proto-Baltic people (Proto-Balts).

I've got to do more research on the Baltic region, peoples, and languages.... Gringo300 12:23, 21 October 2005 (UTC)[reply]

The late Marija Gimbutas wrote a book called The Balts that gives a pretty good overview of the subject. The scholarly consensus is that Proto-Baltic peoples probably existed, arriving in the Baltic region around 2500 BCE. I've seen articles about this in the back issues of the Journal of Indo-European Studies (JIES) and various archaeology journals.

On the other hand, there also seems to be an emerging consensus that there was never any such thing as Balto-Slavic. Proto-Slavic is very recent (Iron Age) and is apparently a hybrid of North Iranian (e.g., Scythian) and some variety of west-central Baltic. However, the subject is also political. Russian nationalists, etc., keep insisting Proto-Balto-Slavic must have existed so that they justify their annexation of Lithuania and Latvia. Zyxwv99 (talk) 20:30, 3 December 2011 (UTC)[reply]

There's no Proto-Baltic language

that is reconstructable by comparative method. Almost all the isoglosses that connect Baltic languages, and that leave Slavic languages aside are either 1) trivial 2) provably secondary development among already differentiated Baltic dialects after the separation of Slavic 3) do not display any kind of relative chronology (the most important thing!). There's just too much mismatch between Western and Eastern Baltic - their common ancestor must necessarily go all the way to Balto-Slavic period. No wonder this article is a two sentence stub ^_^ --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 12:04, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Ambiguity

Old Prussian and Latvian share more commonalities with Slavic languages than Lithuanian.

I'm guessing this means, Old Prussian and Latvian share more commonalities with Slavic languages than Lithuanian does.

But it could also be taken to mean, Old Prussian and Latvian share more commonalities with Slavic languages than with Lithuanian. Koro Neil (talk) 14:20, 10 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Koro Neil: the correct sentence would be Old Prussian and Latvian share more commonalities with Slavic languages than Lithuanian does.--Ed1974LT (talk) 20:43, 12 April 2024 (UTC)[reply]

Shared archaism

However, critics point out that the phonology and morphology, which is shared by all known Baltic languages, is much more archaic than that of Proto-Slavic, retaining many features attributed to other attested Indo-European languages roughly 3000 years ago.

Shared archaisms are not evidence of a close taxonomic connection. Archaisms can be shared by languages quite distant from each other on a linguistic family tree. It is shared innovations that determine taxonomic relationships, particularly when they are numerous. The question is, what innovations do the Baltic languages share that can be determined to be absent in Proto-Balto-Slavic? Koro Neil (talk) 23:07, 5 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Koro Neil: We are talking about the entire phonological and morphological system of the Baltic languages, and not about individual archaisms, i.e. about the preservation of unreduced endings, the preservation of the compounds a, e, i, u + r, l, m, n, the preservation of the contrast between long and short vowels etc. The sentence you cited says nothing about the Proto-Balto-Slavic language. If you raise the question of the very existence of the Proto-Baltic language, I will not discuss it, prove anything and enter into an endless discussion. The article indicates points of view on this issue; at least 6 points of view on this matter have been identified.--Ed1974LT (talk) 22:54, 13 June 2024 (UTC)[reply]

@Ed1974LT I'm not in a position to be anything but neutral on the existence of Proto-Baltic as a thing distinct from an earlier Proto-Balto-Slavic. I'm guessing they were distinct, since that seems to be the majority opinion. I'm just aware that there has been a question, and I'm curious about the issues that make it a question.

But even if Slavic split off from BS later than some of the innovations took place that differentiate the branches of Baltic, it doesn't invalidate the concept of Proto-Baltic.

The New Zealand Māori language has some dialects that share features with the distinct but closely related Cook Island Māori language - features that are not shared by all NZ Māori dialects. And these are not the result of independent parallel development, but represent dialect differentiation in the common ancestral language that developed before the ancestors of the NZ Māori left the Cook Islands for New Zealand. But these NZ Māori dialects have far more in common with the rest of NZ Māori dialects than with Cook Island Māori, so that it is still valid to talk about Proto-NZ-Māori as a distinct thing from Proto-NZ-Cook-Island-Māori.

Similarly, it would not invalidate the concept of Proto-Baltic if some Baltic languages/dialects shared features with Slavic (as a common inheritance) that they don't share with other Baltic languages. It would just mean that certain dialect variations that existed in PBS may have been inherited in Slavic, and in some but not all Baltic languages. Whether that's actually the case, I don't know. It's a question I'm asking, not a position I hold. Koro Neil (talk) 15:14, 31 July 2024 (UTC)[reply]