Baltic language
| Baltic | |
|---|---|
| Ethnicity | Balts |
| Geographic distribution |
Northern Europe |
| Linguistic classification |
Indo-European
|
| Subdivisions |
|
| ISO 639-5 | |
| Linguasphere | 54= (phylozone) |
| Glottolog |
None east2280 (East Baltic) prus1238 (Prussian) |
The Baltic languages belong to the Balto-Slavic branch of the Indo-European language family. Baltic languages are spoken by the Balts, mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe.
Scholars usually regard them as a single language family divided into two groups: Western Baltic (containing only extinct languages), and Eastern Baltic (containing two living languages, Lithuanian and Latvian). The range of the Eastern Balts once reached to the Ural mountains.
Old Prussian, a Western Baltic language that became extinct in the 18th century, ranks as the most archaic of the Baltic languages.
Although related, the Lithuanian, the Latvian, and particularly the Old Prussian vocabularies differ substantially from one another and are not mutually intelligible.
The Baltic languages are generally thought to form a single family with two branches, Eastern and Western. However, these two branches are sometimes classified as independent branches of Balto-Slavic.
(†—Extinct language)
Speakers of modern Baltic languages are generally concentrated within the borders of Lithuania and Latvia, and in emigrant communities in the United States, Canada, Australia and the countries within the former borders of the Soviet Union.
Historically the languages were spoken over a larger area: west to the mouth of the Vistula river in present-day Poland, at least as far east as the Dniepr river in present-day Belarus, perhaps even to Moscow, and perhaps as far south as Kiev. Key evidence of Baltic language presence in these regions is found in hydronyms (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.
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