Talk:Balto-Slavic languages

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January 2005 to October 2007

Position of Common Slavic

what I've been reading mostly as the most probable is the Ivanov/Toporov theory presented in the 1960s, by which Balto-Slavic separated directly into Early Proto-Slavic, Eastern Baltic and Western Baltic. Before the geographical division (probably caused by Goths), there was some kind of dialect continuum, on whose periphery there was this innovative dialect that Common Slavic later emerged from.
Common Slavic (up to 7th century) was spoken on an immense territory on which it expanded so fast that there are basically no detectable dialect features in it - this was probably because it was koine of Avar state. A thin millitary aristocracy layer of Avars was eventually completely Slavicized (later sources such as De administrando imperio often confuse Slavs with Avars, but earlier make a difference such as when describing Slavic-Avar attack on Constantinople).
That vastly expanded CS probably erased most of BSl. idioms, that left little or no traces (Avar itself left almost no traces in Slavic), leaving only CS, Eastern and Western Baltic. That theory is supported not only by historical inditions, but also by the fact that one cannot reconstruct Proto-Baltic language; Eastern and Western Baltic diverge among themselves so much as every one of them individually from CS, and there are basically no non-trivial exclusive isoglosses among Baltic languages, that are not secondary and that can be faithfully arranged chronologically (i.e. represent common development). Proto-Baltic article is a joke (it's been a stub for..how long?). These new "theories" that Western and Eastern Baltic independently stem from PIE (each repesenting a separate PIE "branch"), and that exhibited parallel development and converged, are just pathetic attempts to evade undisputable correspondences with Slavic. OTOH, for many important exclusive Balto-Slavic isoglosses, relative chronology can be set very easily!
The current state of the article, which focuses primarily on approving/"disapproving" Balto-Slavic theory, is particularly misleading. These comparison lists like Sanskrit-Latvian (hey this was new, usually these these are Lithuanian-Sanskrit, or Lithuanian-Sumerian, Turkish-Sumerian and similar ^_^) have nothing to do with the article theme. And it was even conveniently lemmatized; Latvian with Balto-Slavic infinitive suffix -ti, Sanskrit in 3PS PAI ^_^
Lituanus articles with their original research theories are really no "arguments" (Slavic-Albanian-Messapian - oh lord, after that, what credibility does Harvey Mayer have left?), most notably because they present absolutely no reasonable alternative to account for common isoglosses.
One would think upon reading this article, and also on Baltic languages ("Most linguists believe that the Baltic languages diverged from Proto-Indo-European separately from other language groups." - what a dirty lie), that the current communis opinio upon BSl. unity is that it's very existence is quite conservative topic by itself, when on the other hand the truth is quite the opposite: BSl. forms are cited in notable books, papers and journals, BSL. reflexes of PIE roots are treated always together (e.g. by Derksen in IEED project), and correspondences are being drawn to relevant Slavic dialects (Chakavian/Slovincian).
But, there are still many imporant articles to be created first (there's not even one on Winter's law, geez) --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 14:01, 25 April 2008 (UTC) And also "SIL" as a reference - this is the geographical distribution, which doesn't necessarily correspond with cladistic tree reconstructed by comparative method. E.g., Slavic languages are traditionally divided into East/West/South - but there is no "Proto-South Slavic" or "Proto-West Slavic"; there are numerous isoglosses that connect e.g. Croatian dialects with Slovak, and one tries to reconstruct "Proto-South-Slavic" word (e.g. on the basis of reflex of yat) you end up with Late Proto-Slavic reconstruction. So SIL's division is really a matter of tradition, not an argument per se. --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 14:10, 25 April 2008 (UTC)[reply]

your points are granted, and you appear to be the right person to address them -- so, any time you have some time to spare, feel welcome. --dab (𒁳) 15:46, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

I know both languages -Latvian(baltic) and Russian(slavic)very well and can assure you that these both languages are very relative.I am surprised to see that wikipedia allows blatant lies to proliferate within itself by letting such frazes as "Most linguists believe that the Baltic languages diverged from Proto-Indo-European separately from other language groups."

Frank Whoeffer (talk) 11:52, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

"blatant lies", Sir? Did you in fact verify the sources cited in this article? Which of them did you find was mis-cited? dab (𒁳) 15:44, 27 June 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Why do you consider the Latvian-Sanskrit comparison misleading and stupid? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.180.97.70 (talk) 13:22, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

Because it's cherry-picking a handful of forms that look superficially similar rather than paying attention to the actual comparative method, which has shown for well over 100 years now that the Baltic languages are very closely related to the Slavic languages and only much more distantly related to Sanskrit. —An gr 13:37, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

How does putting an external link with a Latvian-Sanskrit vocabulary comparison disprove the fact that Baltic and Slavic languages are related? The comparison isn't as superficial as you claim and it surely can be used to deepen the insight into the Indo-European languages. Keep in mind that the average reader has little to no clue about these language groups and this source has a great potential of showing the average reader how closely related the Indo-European languages generally are. I'm sure that many people after seeing the word "Balto-Slavic" will mistakenly understand that Baltic and Slavic language groups are a lot closer than they actually are and this link is an appropriate way of showing the true colors. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 213.180.97.70 (talk) 17:49, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The fact that the average reader has little to no clue about these language groups is exactly why we shouldn't include links to misleading websites suggesting some close relation between Latvian and Sanskrit where none exists. If people get the idea that Baltic and Slavic languages are closely related when they encounter the word "Balto-Slavic", then the idea they've gotten is the one that has consensus among historical linguists. Readers should get the idea that Baltic and Slavic are closely related, because they are; but they should not get the idea that Latvian and Sanskrit are closely related, because they aren't. —An gr 18:23, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

It is a case of WP:POV, and it could be cured by WP:RS and WP:V. Furthermore - removing of external links is on the verge WP:IDONTLIKE. And as a matter of fact Lithuanian is more close to sanskrit[1], [2], than Latvian, although, both of them ar not Slavic, and are rather Baltic, and rather close to the sanskrit [[3]. Best regards--Lokyz (talk) 20:02, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

The links you provided look fairly reliable, and indeed none of them claims that Baltic is particularly closely related to Sanskrit. However, some of them also do the cherry-picking, listing half-a-dozen words with superficial similarity, often due to coincidence (such as the fact that PIE *o became a independently in both Baltic and Indo-Iranian, as it did also in Germanic and, I believe, Hittite). —An gr 20:19, 4 July 2008 (UTC)[reply]

So you deleted the link, because: a) it is superficial b) it is misleading c) it is misleading and superficial?

You should support your opinion. In case of b) and c), I'd like to say that your quality standarts are far too high, I also couldn't find a sentence saying that Latvian or Lithuanian are very closely related to Sanskrit. A table of similar not just random words is accepted all over the Wikipedia and is included in several articles regarding various language groups and families therefore your statement, in my opinion, is not valid unless you can prove that the similarities in the provided link are inaccurate and false.