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The Latvian and Lithuanian languages have retained many features of the nominal morphology of Proto-Indo-European, though their phonology and verbal morphology show many innovations (in other words, forms that did not exist in Proto-Indo-European), [14] with Latvian being considerably more innovative than Lithuanian.
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 Early Middle Ages, which in turn is thought to have descended from the earlier Proto-Balto-Slavic language, linking the Slavic languages to the Baltic ...
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.
The Latvian linguist Jānis Endzelīns thought, however, that any similarities among Baltic and Slavic languages resulted from intensive language contact, i.e. that they were not genetically more closely related and that there was no common Proto-Balto-Slavic language.
Latvian, 1.75 million speakers (2015) Latgalian, 164,000 speakers ... Old East Slavic, developed into modern East Slavic languages; Old Ruthenian; Polabian language;
It is also known that some Baltic and Slavic languages have more in common that others: Old Prussian and Latvian share more commonalities with Slavic languages than Lithuanian does. [28] Some similarities between Baltic and Slavic can be found on all levels of linguistic analysis, which led German philologist August Schleicher to believe that ...
The following list is a comparison of basic Proto-Slavic vocabulary and the corresponding reflexes in the modern languages, for assistance in understanding the discussion in Proto-Slavic and History of the Slavic languages. The word list is based on the Swadesh word list, developed by the linguist Morris Swadesh, a tool to study the evolution ...
The East Baltic languages are less archaic than their Western counterparts, with Latvian being the most innovative Baltic language. Certain linguistic features of East Baltic languages are usually explained by contacts with their Baltic Finnic neighbours. It is believed that stress retraction in Latvian is a consequence of their influence.