Topic summary
Proto-Slavic
Extracted from the Wikipedia article Proto-Slavic language.
Introduction
Proto-Slavic is descended from the Proto-Balto-Slavic branch of the Proto-Indo-European language family, which is also the ancestor of the Baltic languages, e.g. Lithuanian and Latvian. Proto-Slavic gradually evolved into the various Slavic languages during the latter half of the first millennium AD, concurrent with the explosive growth of the Slavic-speaking area. There is no scholarly consensus concerning either the number of stages involved in the development of the language (its periodization) or the terms used to describe them.