The Baltic languages are a branch of the
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
language family
A language family is a group of languages related through descent from a common ''ancestral language'' or ''parental language'', called the proto-language of that family. The term "family" reflects the tree model of language origination in h ...
spoken natively by a population of about 4.5 million people mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the
Baltic Sea
The Baltic Sea is an arm of the Atlantic Ocean that is enclosed by Denmark, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Russia, Sweden and the North and Central European Plain.
The sea stretches from 53°N to 66°N latitude and ...
in
Northern Europe. Together with the
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the ...
, they form the
Balto-Slavic
The Balto-Slavic languages form a branch of the Indo-European family of languages, traditionally comprising the Baltic and Slavic languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European bran ...
branch of the Indo-European family.
Scholars usually regard them as a single
subgroup
In group theory, a branch of mathematics, given a group ''G'' under a binary operation ∗, a subset ''H'' of ''G'' is called a subgroup of ''G'' if ''H'' also forms a group under the operation ∗. More precisely, ''H'' is a subgroup ...
divided into two branches:
Western Baltic (containing only
extinct language
An extinct language is a language that no longer has any speakers, especially if the language has no living descendants. In contrast, a dead language is one that is no longer the native language of any community, even if it is still in use, l ...
s) and
Eastern Baltic
The Eastern Baltic languages are a group of languages that along with the extinct Western Baltic languages belong to the branch of the Baltic language family. The Eastern Baltic branch has only two living languages— Latvian and Lithuanian. In s ...
(containing at least two
living languages,
Lithuanian,
Latvian, and by some counts including
Latgalian and
Samogitian as separate languages rather than dialects of the two aforementioned languages). The range of the Eastern Baltic linguistic influence once possibly reached as far as the
Ural Mountains
The Ural Mountains ( ; rus, Ура́льские го́ры, r=Uralskiye gory, p=ʊˈralʲskʲɪjə ˈɡorɨ; ba, Урал тауҙары) or simply the Urals, are a mountain range that runs approximately from north to south through western ...
, but this hypothesis has been questioned.
Old Prussian
Old Prussian was a Western Baltic language belonging to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European languages, which was once spoken by the Old Prussians, the Baltic peoples of the Prussian region. The language is called Old Prussian to avoid con ...
, a Western Baltic language that became extinct in the 18th century, has possibly
retained
In the United Kingdom and Ireland, a retained firefighter, also known as an RDS Firefighter or on-call firefighter, is a firefighter who does not work on a fire station full-time but is paid to spend long periods of time on call to respond to em ...
the greatest number of properties from
Proto-Baltic
Proto-Baltic (PB, PBl, Common Baltic) is the unattested, reconstructed ancestral proto-language of all Baltic languages. It is not attested in writing, but has been partly reconstructed through the comparative method by gathering the collected dat ...
.
Although related, Lithuanian, Latvian and particularly Old Prussian have lexicons that differ substantially from one another and so the languages are not
mutually intelligible. Relatively low mutual interaction for neighbouring languages historically led to gradual erosion of mutual intelligibility; development of their respective linguistic innovations that did not exist in shared
Proto-Baltic
Proto-Baltic (PB, PBl, Common Baltic) is the unattested, reconstructed ancestral proto-language of all Baltic languages. It is not attested in writing, but has been partly reconstructed through the comparative method by gathering the collected dat ...
, the substantial number of
false friend
In linguistics, a false friend is either of two words in different languages that look or sound similar, but differ significantly in meaning. Examples include English ''embarrassed'' and Spanish ''embarazada'' 'pregnant'; English ''parents'' ...
s and various uses and sources of
loanwords from their surrounding languages are considered to be the major reasons for poor mutual intelligibility today.
Branches
Within Indo-European, the Baltic languages are generally classified as forming a single family with two branches: Eastern and Western Baltic. However, these two branches are sometimes classified as independent branches of
Balto-Slavic
The Balto-Slavic languages form a branch of the Indo-European family of languages, traditionally comprising the Baltic and Slavic languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European bran ...
itself.
History
It is believed that the Baltic languages are among the
most conservative of the currently remaining Indo-European languages, despite their late
attestation.
Although the Baltic
Aesti
The Aesti (also Aestii, Astui or Aests) were an ancient people first described by the Roman historian Tacitus in his treatise ''Germania'' (circa 98 AD). According to Tacitus, the land of ''Aesti'' was located somewhere east of the ''Suiones'' (p ...
tribe was mentioned by
ancient historians
Ancient history is a time period from the beginning of writing and recorded human history to as far as late antiquity. The span of recorded history is roughly 5,000 years, beginning with the Sumerian cuneiform script. Ancient history cove ...
such as Tacitus as early as 98 CE, the first attestation of a Baltic language was 1369, in a Basel
epigram of two lines written in Old Prussian. Lithuanian was first attested in a printed book, which is a
Catechism by
Martynas Mažvydas
Martynas Mažvydas (1510 – 21 May 1563) was a Protestant author who edited the first printed book in the Lithuanian language.
Variants of his name include Martinus Masvidius, Martinus Maszwidas, M. Mossuids Waytkūnas, Mastwidas, Mažvyda ...
published in 1547. Latvian appeared in a printed Catechism in 1585.
One reason for the late attestation is that the Baltic peoples
resisted Christianization longer than any other Europeans, which delayed the introduction of writing and isolated their languages from outside influence.
With the establishment of a
German
German(s) may refer to:
* Germany (of or related to)
** Germania (historical use)
* Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language
** For citizens of Germany, see also German nationality law
**Ge ...
state in Prussia, and the mass influx of Germanic (and to a lesser degree Slavic-speaking) settlers, the Prussians began to be assimilated, and by the end of the 17th century, the Prussian language had become extinct.
After the
Partitions of Poland, most of the Baltic lands were under the rule of the
Russian Empire
The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
, where the native languages or alphabets were sometimes prohibited from being written down or used publicly in a
Russification effort (see
Lithuanian press ban for the ban in force from 1864 to 1904).
Geographic distribution
![Baltiškos kilmės vandenvardžių paplitimas](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/0b/Balti%C5%A1kos_kilm%C4%97s_vandenvard%C5%BEi%C5%B3_paplitimas.svg)
Speakers of modern Baltic languages are generally concentrated within the borders of
Lithuania and
Latvia, and in emigrant communities in the
United States
The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 states, a federal district, five major unincorporated territori ...
,
Canada
Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...
,
Australia and the countries within the former borders of the
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...
.
Historically the languages were spoken over a larger area: west to the mouth of the
Vistula
The Vistula (; pl, Wisła, ) is the longest river in Poland and the ninth-longest river in Europe, at in length. The drainage basin, reaching into three other nations, covers , of which is in Poland.
The Vistula rises at Barania Góra in ...
river in present-day
Poland
Poland, officially the Republic of Poland, is a country in Central Europe. It is divided into 16 administrative provinces called voivodeships, covering an area of . Poland has a population of over 38 million and is the fifth-most populou ...
, at least as far east as the
Dniepr
}
The Dnieper () or Dnipro (); , ; . is one of the major transboundary rivers of Europe, rising in the Valdai Hills near Smolensk, Russia, before flowing through Belarus and Ukraine to the Black Sea. It is the longest river of Ukraine and ...
river in present-day
Belarus
Belarus,, , ; alternatively and formerly known as Byelorussia (from Russian ). officially the Republic of Belarus,; rus, Республика Беларусь, Respublika Belarus. is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by ...
, perhaps even to
Moscow
Moscow ( , US chiefly ; rus, links=no, Москва, r=Moskva, p=mɐskˈva, a=Москва.ogg) is the capital and largest city of Russia. The city stands on the Moskva River in Central Russia, with a population estimated at 13.0 millio ...
, and perhaps as far south as
Kyiv
Kyiv, also spelled Kiev, is the capital and most populous city of Ukraine. It is in north-central Ukraine along the Dnieper River. As of 1 January 2021, its population was 2,962,180, making Kyiv the seventh-most populous city in Europe.
Kyi ...
. Key evidence of Baltic language presence in these regions is found in
hydronym
A hydronym (from el, ὕδρω, , "water" and , , "name") is a type of toponym that designates a proper name of a body of water. Hydronyms include the proper names of rivers and streams, lakes and ponds, swamps and marshes, seas and oceans. As ...
s (names of bodies of water) that are characteristically Baltic. The use of hydronyms is generally accepted to determine the extent of a culture's influence, but ''not'' the date of such influence.
The eventual expansion of the use of
Slavic languages
The Slavic languages, also known as the Slavonic languages, are Indo-European languages spoken primarily by the Slavic peoples and their descendants. They are thought to descend from a proto-language called Proto-Slavic, spoken during the ...
in the south and east, and
Germanic languages
The Germanic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 515 million people mainly in Europe, North America, Oceania and Southern Africa. The most widely spoken Germanic language, E ...
in the west, reduced the geographic distribution of Baltic languages to a fraction of the area that they formerly covered. The Russian geneticist Oleg Balanovsky speculated that there is a predominance of the assimilated pre-Slavic substrate in the genetics of East and West Slavic populations, according to him the common genetic structure which contrasts East Slavs and Balts from other populations may suggest that the pre-Slavic substrate of the
East Slavs
The East Slavs are the most populous subgroup of the Slavs. They speak the East Slavic languages, and formed the majority of the population of the medieval state Kievan Rus', which they claim as their cultural ancestor.John Channon & Robert H ...
consists most significantly of Baltic-speakers, which predated the Slavs in the cultures of the
Eurasian steppe according to archaeological references he cites.
Contact with Finnic languages
Though
Estonia
Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
is geopolitically included among the
Baltic states due to its location,
Estonian is a
Finnic language
The Finnic (''Fennic'') or more precisely Balto-Finnic (Balto-Fennic, Baltic Finnic, Baltic Fennic) languages constitute a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by the Baltic Finnic peoples. There are around 7 mi ...
and is not related to the Baltic languages, which are
Indo-European
The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
.
The
Mordvinic languages
The Mordvinic languages, also known as the Mordvin, Mordovian or Mordvinian languages (russian: мордовские языки, ''mordovskiye yazyki''),
are a subgroup of the Uralic languages, comprising the closely related Erzya language and Mok ...
, spoken mainly along western tributaries of the
Volga
The Volga (; russian: Во́лга, a=Ru-Волга.ogg, p=ˈvoɫɡə) is the longest river in Europe. Situated in Russia, it flows through Central Russia to Southern Russia and into the Caspian Sea. The Volga has a length of , and a catchm ...
, show several dozen loanwords from one or more Baltic languages. These may have been mediated by contacts with the Eastern Balts along the river
Oka
Oka or OKA may refer to:
Cars
* Oka (automobile), a small car designed by AvtoVAZ and produced by ZMA and SeAZ
* OKA 4wd, a large 4-wheel-drive vehicle made in Western Australia by OKA
Military
* 2B1 Oka, Soviet 420 mm self-propelled mor ...
. In regards to the same geographical location,
Asko Parpola
Asko Parpola (born 12 July 1941, in Forssa) is a Finnish Indologist, current professor emeritus of South Asian studies at the University of Helsinki. He specializes in Sindhology, specifically the study of the Indus script.
Biography
Parpola i ...
, in a 2013 article, suggested that the Baltic presence in this area, dated to c. 200–600 CE, is due to an "elite superstratum". However, linguist argued that the Volga-Oka is a ''secondary'' Baltic-speaking area, expanding from East Baltic, due to a large number of Baltic loanwords in Finnic and
Saami.
Finnish scholars also indicate that Latvian had extensive contacts with
Livonian, and, to a lesser extent, to
Estonian and
South Estonian
South Estonian, spoken in south-eastern Estonia, encompasses the Tartu, Mulgi, Võro and Seto varieties. There is no academic consensus on its status, as some linguists consider South Estonian a dialect group of Estonian whereas other linguist ...
. Therefore, this contact accounts for the number of Finnic hydronyms in Lithuania and Latvia that increase in a northwards direction.
Parpola, in the same article, supposed the existence of a Baltic substratum for Finnic, in Estonia and coastal Finland. In the same vein, Kallio argues for the existence of a lost "North Baltic language" that would account for loanwords during the evolution of the Finnic branch.
Comparative linguistics
Genetic relatedness
![The epigram of Basel - oldest known inscription in Prussian language and Baltic language in general, middle of 14th c](https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/4/4f/The_epigram_of_Basel_-_oldest_known_inscription_in_Prussian_language_and_Baltic_language_in_general%2C_middle_of_14th_c.jpg)
The Baltic languages are of particular interest to linguists because they retain many archaic features, which are thought to have been present in the early stages of the
Proto-Indo-European language
Proto-Indo-European (PIE) is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family. Its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. No direct record of Proto-Indo-E ...
.
However, linguists have had a hard time establishing the precise relationship of the Baltic languages to other languages in the Indo-European family.
Several of the extinct Baltic languages have a limited or nonexistent written record, their existence being known only from the records of ancient historians and personal or place names. All of the languages in the Baltic group (including the living ones) were first written down relatively late in their probable existence as distinct languages. These two factors combined with others have obscured the history of the Baltic languages, leading to a number of theories regarding their position in the Indo-European family.
The Baltic languages show a close relationship with the Slavic languages, and are grouped with them in a
Balto-Slavic
The Balto-Slavic languages form a branch of the Indo-European family of languages, traditionally comprising the Baltic and Slavic languages. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European bran ...
family by most scholars. This family is considered to have developed from a common ancestor,
Proto-Balto-Slavic
Proto-Balto-Slavic (PBS or PBSl) is a reconstructed hypothetical proto-language descending from Proto-Indo-European (PIE). From Proto-Balto-Slavic, the later Balto-Slavic languages are thought to have developed, composed of sub-branches Baltic ...
. Later on, several lexical, phonological and morphological dialectisms developed, separating the various Balto-Slavic languages from each other.
Although it is generally agreed that the Slavic languages developed from a single more-or-less unified dialect (
Proto-Slavic
Proto-Slavic (abbreviated PSl., PS.; also called Common Slavic or Common Slavonic) is the unattested, reconstructed proto-language of all Slavic languages. It represents Slavic speech approximately from the 2nd millennium B.C. through the 6th ...
) that split off from common Balto-Slavic, there is more disagreement about the relationship between the Baltic languages.
The traditional view is that the Balto-Slavic languages split into two branches, Baltic and Slavic, with each branch developing as a single common language (Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic) for some time afterwards. Proto-Baltic is then thought to have split into East Baltic and West Baltic branches. However, more recent scholarship has suggested that there was no unified Proto-Baltic stage, but that Proto-Balto-Slavic split directly into three groups: Slavic, East Baltic and West Baltic. Under this view, the Baltic family is
paraphyletic, and consists of all Balto-Slavic languages that are not Slavic. In the 1960s
Vladimir Toporov
Vladimir Nikolayevich Toporov (russian: Влади́мир Никола́евич Топоро́в; 5 July 1928 in Moscow5 December 2005 in Moscow) was a leading Russian philologist associated with the Tartu-Moscow semiotic school. His wife was ...
and
Vyacheslav Ivanov made the following conclusions about the relationship between the Baltic and Slavic languages:
* the Proto-Slavic language formed out of peripheral-type Baltic dialects;
* the Slavic linguistic type formed later from the structural model of the Baltic languages;
* the Slavic structural model is a result of the transformation from the Baltic languages structural model.
These scholars' theses do not contradict the close relationship between Baltic and Slavic languages and, from a historical perspective, specify the Baltic-Slavic languages' evolution.
Finally, a minority of scholars argue that Baltic descended directly from Proto-Indo-European, without an intermediate common Balto-Slavic stage. They argue that the many similarities and shared innovations between Baltic and Slavic are caused by several millennia of contact between the groups, rather than a shared heritage.
Thracian hypothesis
The Baltic-speaking peoples likely encompassed an area in eastern Europe much larger than their modern range. As in the case of the
Celtic languages
The Celtic languages ( usually , but sometimes ) are a group of related languages descended from Proto-Celtic. They form a branch of the Indo-European language family. The term "Celtic" was first used to describe this language group by Edwar ...
of Western Europe, they were reduced by invasion, extermination and assimilation. Studies in
comparative linguistics point to
genetic relationship between the languages of the Baltic family and the following extinct languages:
*
Dacian[Schall H. "Sudbalten und Daker. Vater der Lettoslawen". In: ''Primus congressus studiorum thracicorum. Thracia II''. Serdicae, 1974, pp. 304, 308, 310.][Radulescu M. ''The Indo-European position of lllirian, Daco-Mysian and Thracian: a historic Methodological Approach''. 1987. ]
*
Thracian
The Thracians (; grc, Θρᾷκες ''Thrāikes''; la, Thraci) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied ...
The Baltic classification of Dacian and Thracian has been proposed by the Lithuanian scientist
Jonas Basanavičius
Jonas Basanavičius (, pl, Jan Basanowicz; 23 November 1851 – 16 February 1927) was an activist and proponent of the Lithuanian National Revival. He participated in every major event leading to the independent Lithuanian state and is often give ...
, who insisted this is the most important work of his life and listed 600 identical words of Balts and
Thracians
The Thracians (; grc, Θρᾷκες ''Thrāikes''; la, Thraci) were an Indo-European speaking people who inhabited large parts of Eastern and Southeastern Europe in ancient history.. "The Thracians were an Indo-European people who occupied t ...
. His theory included
Phrygian in the related group, but this did not find support and was disapproved among other authors, such as
Ivan Duridanov, whose own analysis found Phrygian completely lacking parallels in either Thracian or Baltic languages.
The Bulgarian linguist Ivan Duridanov, who improved the most extensive list of toponyms, in his first publication claimed that Thracian is genetically linked to the Baltic languages and in the next one he made the following classification:
"The Thracian language formed a close group with the Baltic, the Dacian and the "Pelasgian
The name Pelasgians ( grc, Πελασγοί, ''Pelasgoí'', singular: Πελασγός, ''Pelasgós'') was used by classical Greek writers to refer either to the predecessors of the Greeks, or to all the inhabitants of Greece before the emergenc ...
" 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. "
Of about 20
reconstructed Thracian wordsby Duridanov most cognates (138) appear in the Baltic languages, mostly in Lithuanian, followed by Germanic (61), Indo-Aryan (41), Greek (36), Bulgarian (23), Latin (10) and Albanian (8). The cognates of the
reconstructed Dacian words in his publication are found mostly in the Baltic languages, followed by Albanian. Parallels have enabled linguists, using the techniques of
comparative linguistics, to decipher the meanings of several Dacian and Thracian placenames with, they claim, a high degree of probability. Of 74
Dacian placenames attested in primary sources and considered by Duridanov, a total of 62 have Baltic cognates, most of which were rated "certain" by Duridanov. For a big number of 300
Thracian geographic names most parallels were found between Thracian and Baltic geographic names in the study of Duridanov. According to him the most important impression make the geographic cognates of Baltic and Thracian
"the similarity of these parallels stretching frequently on the main element and the suffix simultaneously, which makes a strong impression".
Romanian linguist
Sorin Paliga, analysing and criticizing Harvey Mayer's study, did admit "great likeness" between Thracian, the
substrate of Romanian, and "some Baltic forms".
[Paliga, Sorin.]
Tracii şi dacii erau nişte „baltoizi”?
ere Thracians and Dacians ‘Baltoidic’? In: ''Romanoslavica'' XLVIII, nr. 3 (2012): 149-150.
See also
*
Historical linguistics
Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include:
# to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages
# ...
*
Dacian–Baltic connection
Dacian is an extinct language, generally believed to be Indo-European, that was spoken in the Carpathian region in antiquity.
In the 1st century, it was probably the predominant language of the ancient regions of Dacia and Moesia and possib ...
References
Bibliography
*
Lituanus Linguistics Index(1955–2004) provides a number of articles on modern and archaic Baltic languages
*
*
*
*
Fraenkel, Ernst (1950). ''Die baltischen Sprachen'', Carl Winter, Heidelberg, 1950.
* Girininkas, Algirdas. (1994) "The monuments of the Stone Age in the historical Baltic region", in: ''Baltų archeologija'', N.1, 1994 (English summary, p. 22). .
* Girininkas, Algirdas (1994). "Origin of the Baltic culture. Summary", in: ''Baltų kultūros ištakos'', Vilnius: "Savastis" "; p. 259.
* Gelumbeckaitė, Jolanta. "The evolution of Baltic". In: ''Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics''. Volume 3. Edited by Jared Klein, Brian Joseph and Matthias Fritz, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2018. pp. 1712-1715. https://doi-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/10.1515/9783110542431-014
* Larsson, Jenny Helena and Bukelskytė-Čepelė, Kristina. "The documentation of Baltic". In: ''Handbook of Comparative and Historical Indo-European Linguistics''. Volume 3. Edited by Jared Klein, Brian Joseph and Matthias Fritz, Berlin, Boston: De Gruyter Mouton, 2018. pp. 1622-1639. https://doi-org.wikipedialibrary.idm.oclc.org/10.1515/9783110542431-008
*
Mallory, J. P. (1991) ''In Search of the Indo-Europeans: language, archaeology and myth''. New York: Thames and Hudson
*
*
*
* Pashka, Joseph (1950)
Proto Baltic and Baltic languages
* Remys, Edmund (2007). "General distinguishing features of various lndo-European languages and their relationship to Lithuanian". In: ''Indogermanische Forschungen'', vol. 112, 2007, pp. 244-276. https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110192858.1.244
*
Literature
* Stafecka, A. & Mikuleniene, D., 2009. Baltu valodu atlants: prospekts = Baltu kalbu atlasas: prospektas = Atlas of the Baltic languages: a prospect, Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas; Riga: Latvijas Universitates Latviesu valodas instituts.
* (In Lithuanian) Pietro U. Dini, ''Baltų kalbos. Lyginamoji istorija'' (''Baltic languages. A Comparative History''), Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla, 2000, p. 540.
* (In Lithuanian)
''Baltų kalbų gramatinės sistemos raida''(''Development of the grammatical system of the Baltic Languages: Lithuanian, Latvian, Prussian''), Vilnius: „Šviesa“, 1998. .
Further reading
;On Baltic hydronymy:
* Fedchenko, Oleg D.
BALTIC HYDRONYMY OF CENTRAL RUSSIA. In: ''Theoretical and Applied Linguistics'', no. 4,
Amur State University, (2020): 104–27. DOI: 10.22250/2410-7190_2020_6_4_104_127
* Gusenkov, Pavel A. "Revisiting the “West-Baltic” Type Hydronymy in Central Russia". In: ''Voprosy onomastiki'', 2021, Volume 18, Issue 2, pp. 67–87. (in Russian) DOI: 10.15826/vopr_onom.2021.18.2.019
* . "Baltische Gewässernamen und das vorgeschichtliche Europa". In: ''Indogermanische Forschungen'', vol. 77, no. 1, 1973, pp. 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1515/if-1972-0102
* Toporov, V. N., & Trubachov, O. N. (1993). "Lіngvіstychny analіz gіdronіmau verkhniaga Padniaprouia"
inguistic Analysis of Hydronyms of the Upper Dnieper Basin In: ''Spadchyna'', 4, 53–62.
* Васильев, Валерий Л. (2015). “The Problems of Studying the Baltic Origins of Hydronyms on the Territory of Russia”. In: ''Linguistica'' 55 (1): 173-186. https://doi.org/10.4312/linguistica.55.1.173-186.
* Witczak, Krzysztof.
Węgra — dawny hydronim Jaćwięski ęgra — a Former Yatvingian Hydronym In: ''Onomastica'' VOL. 59 (2015). pp. 271-280. https://doi.org/10.17651/ONOMAST.59.17
* Yuyukin, Maxim A.
Из балтийской гидронимии Верхнего Подонья.
rom the Baltic hydronymy of the basin of the upper Don
Rom, or ROM may refer to:
Biomechanics and medicine
* Risk of mortality, a medical classification to estimate the likelihood of death for a patient
* Rupture of membranes, a term used during pregnancy to describe a rupture of the amniotic sac
* ...
In: ''Žmogus ir žodis''. 18, nr. 3, 2016, pp. 50-56.
;On Baltic-Uralic contacts:
* Junttila, Santeri
The prehistoric context of the oldest contacts between Baltic and Finnic languages In: R. Grünthal, P. Kallio (eds.). ''A Linguistic map of Prehistoric Northern Europe''. Suomalais-Ugrilaisen Seuran Toimituksia. Vol. 266. Helsinki: Suomalais-Ugrilainen Seura, 2012. pp. 261–296. .
* Vaba, Lembit. "Welche Sprache sprechen Ortsnamen? Über ostseefinnisch-baltische Kontakte in Abhandlungen über Toponymie von Ojārs Bušs"
he Revealing Language of Place Names: Finnic-Baltic Contacts According to the Toponymic Studies by Ojārs Bušs In: ''Linguistica Uralica'' 55, nr. 1 (2019). pp. 47-65. DOI: https://dx.doi.org/10.3176/lu.2019.1.05
External links
Baltic Onlineby Virginija Vasiliauskiene, Lilita Zalkalns, and Jonathan Slocum, free online lessons at th
Linguistics Research Centerat the
University of Texas at Austin
The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public research university in Austin, Texas. It was founded in 1883 and is the oldest institution in the University of Texas System. With 40,916 undergraduate students, 11,07 ...
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Indo-European languages