West Baltic languages

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.{{cite book|first=Pietro U.|last=Dini|title=Foundations of Baltic languages|translator-first1=Milda B.|translator-last1=Richardson|translator-first2=Robert E.|translator-last2=Richardson|publisher=Vilniaus universitetas|place=Vilnius|date=2014|isbn=978-609-437-263-6}}{{rp|page=290}} Many West Baltic languages went extinct in the 16th century while Old Prussian ceased to be spoken in the early 18th century.{{cite book |last=Young |first=Steven |year=2008 |chapter=Baltic |editor-last=Kapović |editor-first=Mate |title=The Indo-European Languages |location=London |publisher=Routledge |pages=486–518|isbn=978-03-6786-902-1}}

The only languages securely classified as West Baltic are Old Prussian and West Galindian, which could also be a dialect of Old Prussian.{{cite journal| url = https://www.academia.edu/37147068| title = The Balts in the migration period|first=Iliya|last=Tarasov|pages=95–124| journal=Istoričeskij Format | script-journal = ru:Исторический Формат|volume=3-4| date = January 2017|language=ru}}

Most scholars consider Skalvian to be a West Baltic language or dialect.{{r|Zinkevičius}} Another possible classification is a transitional language between West and East Baltic.{{cite book|first=Vytautas|last=Rinkevičius|title=Prūsistikos pagrindai|trans-title=Fundamentals of Prussian linguistics|publisher= Vilniaus universitetas|location=Vilnius|date=2015|language=lt|isbn=978-609-417-101-7}}{{rp|16}}

Sudovian is either classified as an Old Prussian dialect,{{cite book|first=Kazimieras|last=Būga|title=Kalba ir senovė|trans-title=Language and the Antiquity|language=lt|publisher=Švietimo Ministerijos leidinys|volume=1|place=Vilnius|year=1922|pages=78–83}}{{cite book|title=Festschrift Bezzenberger|chapter=Zur Sprache der Sudauer-Jatwinger|language=de|trans-chapter=About the Language of the Sudovians-Yatwingians|first=Georg|last=Gerullis |year=1921|place=Göttingen|publisher=Vandenhoek & Ruprecht|pages=44–51}} a West Baltic language{{cite journal|last=Mažiulis|first=Vytautas|author-link=Vytautas Mažiulis|year=1966|title=Jotvingiai|trans-title=The Jatvingians|language=lt|journal=Mokslas ir gyvenimas|place=Vilnius|volume=11|pages=32–33}}{{cite book|first=Zigmas|last=Zinkevičius|author-link=Zigmas Zinkevičius|page=267|series=Lietuvių kalbos istorija|trans-title=The origin of the Lithuanian language|title=Lietuvių kalbos kilmė|volume=1|year=1984| publisher=Mokslas|place=Vilnius|isbn=978-54-2000-102-8}} or a transitional language between West and East Baltic.{{cite book|last=Otrębski|first=Jan Szczepan|chapter=Namen von zwei Jatwingerstämmen|year=1963|title=Slawische Namenforschung, Vorträge auf der II. Arbeitskonferenz|trans-chapter=The names of two Yatwingian tribes|publisher=Akademie Verlag|place=Berlin|pages=204–209}} 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,{{r|Dini|page=295}}{{cite book|first=Vytautas|last=Mažiulis|title=Iš lietuvių etnogenezės|chapter=Apie senovės vakarų baltus bei jų santykius su slavais, ilirais ir germanais|publisher=Mokslas|language=lt|year=1981|place=Vilnius}} or East Baltic.{{Cite book |title=The Circum-Baltic Languages: Typology and Contact |date=2001 |publisher=John Benjamins Publishing |editor-last=Dahl |editor-first=Östen |volume=1: Past and Present |location=Amsterdam |language=en |editor-last2=Koptjevskaja-Tamm |editor-first2=Maria|isbn=9789027230577}}

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.{{rp|pages=13–14}}

Unlike the East Baltic languages, West Baltic languages generally conserved the following features: the diphthong *ei (e.g. {{lang|prg|deiws}} 'god', (Accusative case) {{lang|prg|deinan}} 'day'), palatalized consonants {{IPA|/kʲ/}}, {{IPA|/gʲ/}} (they are preserved also in the Lithuanian language), and the consonant clusters {{IPA|/tl/}} and {{IPA|/dl/}}. They also preserved three genders: masculine, feminine and neuter.{{citation |title=Rytų ir vakarų baltai. Du baltų tarimų junginiai |trans-title=East and West Balts. Two Compounds of Baltic Spelling |place=Vilnius |publisher=Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas |language=lt}} 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.Zinkevičius, Zigmas. [https://www.xxiamzius.lt/numeriai/2012/11/16/fondasa_01.html "Lietuviai ir krikščionybė"] [Lithuanians and Christianity] (in Lithuanian). XXI amžius. Archived from the original on 16 November 2012. Retrieved 7 August 2023.

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 *ā and *ō. 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.Kardelis, Vytautas (2016). [https://www.ceeol.com/search/article-detail?id=597277 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. 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.Pakalniškienė, Dalia (2007). [https://www.lituanistika.lt/content/20485 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.

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, živė ‘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 (Instrumental case), sajip, savip (Adessive case) ‘with oneself’, tajim (Instrumental case), tajip (Adessive case) ‘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.Vidugiris, Aloyzas (1996). [https://www.baltistica.lt/index.php/baltistica/article/view/346/301 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.

{{Infobox language

| name = Pomeranian Baltic

| altname = Pomeranian-Baltic, Pomeranian-Prussian, Pomorian-Baltic, Pomor-Baltic

| states = Poland

| ethnicity = Pomeranian Balts

| region = Baltic Pomerania

| extinct = 1st millenium BC

| ref =

| familycolor = Indo-European

| fam2 = Balto-Slavic

| fam3 = Baltic?

| fam4 = West Baltic

| iso3 = none

| glotto = none

}}

The Pomeranian Baltic language is one of the Western Baltic languages that has been reconstructed based on toponymic data. The language was represented in Baltic Pomerania and has several Prussian-type Balticisms like Gdańsk and Gdynia. The language was replaced by the East Germanic languages.{{cite web|title=Балтийские языки|language=Russian|access-date=28 March 2025|url=http://lingvarium.org/eurasia/IE/balt.shtml|website=lingvarium.org}}

{{Baltic languages}}

Category:Baltic languages

Category:West Baltic languages