The "Balts" are almost gone...
henry alminas
According to Holman the Latvians
are but a bunch of Finns with a
Baltic accent. There goes roughly
another 50% of the Baltic population!
Ah well, the rest, according to the
Slavic "linguists" are just an offshoot
of the great Slavic race.
Kiss your ass goodbye and decide if
you want to join Moscow or Warsaw.
Best - - Henry
Leszek Deska
> According to Holman the Latvians
> are but a bunch of Finns with a
> Baltic accent. There goes roughly
> another 50% of the Baltic population!
?? Finns are different ethnic group (together with Hungarians)
> Ah well, the rest, according to the
> Slavic "linguists" are just an offshoot
> of the great Slavic race.
I'm from Poland and I have never heard such thing - although we had
Commonwealth with Lithuania there is no immediate ethnic connection.
Unless you mean that we all are descendants of Indoeuropeans...
> Kiss your ass goodbye and decide if
> you want to join Moscow or Warsaw.
Have you forgot your meds today? :-)
Am I speaking to a newsgrop troll?
--
Regards
Leszek Deska
http://www.ldeska.com/
henry alminas
"Leszek Deska" <lde...@yahoo.com> wrote in message
news:4005B1BF...@yahoo.com...
Sir! We hardly ever grope the news here.
Although - - I suspect that Holman does
- when the cameras are off.
Best - - Henry
Dmitry
> According to Holman the Latvians
> are but a bunch of Finns with a
> Baltic accent.
Not at all. Livs used to populate a large part of today's Latvia,
this is why contemporary Latvian has some Fennic influence. It
doesn't mean that the Latvians are Finns. Contemporary English has
some Celtic, Roman and Norse features as well. It doesn't mean that
English are a bunch of Danes.
> There goes roughly
> another 50% of the Baltic population!
>
> Ah well, the rest, according to the
> Slavic "linguists" are just an offshoot
> of the great Slavic race.
What is this statement based on?
>
> Kiss your ass
We don't do such thing in Europe.
> goodbye and decide if
> you want to join Moscow or Warsaw.
Join for what?
>
> Best - - Henry
«Pas de deux»
Yes, Leszek, Henry suffers from an over-fondness for moonshine liquor. He gets on the Net and vents his spleen.
GK
henry alminas
"«Pas de deux»" <kamou...@sympatico.ca> wrote in message
news:qLmNb.2633$c1.4...@news20.bellglobal.com...
GK
Tut, tut - Gintai. Read some of the Holmanian stuff.
In addition, as a linguist, one would assume that you
would monitor some linguistic forums. If you did
you would note that the poor or "Baltic" language
group has now evaporated and has been replaced
by the "Balto-Slavic" one. This in just the last
two years. At this rate how long can the "Balto-"
last within the BS. It is also interesting to note
the the claim is now that the Baltic linguistic
separation from the postulated Baltoslavic
languge took place relatively near the time
of the birth of Christ (+/- 200 years). If
nothing else, assuming this model, the Balts
built a completely separate language in record
time. One wonders why!
Try to keep up on the latest - and, if in
doubt - ask Holman.
Best - - Henry
vienalga_man
Well good for you, Dmitry.
The East is full of surprises.
R.
Randy McDonald
>
> dmitry....@ntlworld.com (Dmitry) wrote in message news:<aadbc421.04011...@posting.google.com>...
> > "henry alminas" <halm...@comcast.net> wrote in message news:<ZbdNb.49896$sv6.126839@attbi_s52>...
> > > According to Holman the Latvians
> > > are but a bunch of Finns with a
> > > Baltic accent.
> >
> > Not at all. Livs used to populate a large part of today's Latvia,
> > this is why contemporary Latvian has some Fennic influence. It
> > doesn't mean that the Latvians are Finns. Contemporary English has
> > some Celtic, Roman and Norse features as well. It doesn't mean that
> > English are a bunch of Danes.
Mr. Holman does indeed have a point. When it comes down to it, the
Latvians speak a language belonging to the Baltic subfamily of the
Indo-European family, not a language belonging to the Finnic (much less
Ugrian) subfamily of the Finno-Ugric family. That's quite enough to
qualify Latvians as Baltic.
(Note, also, that Latvian identity according to this definition includes
anyone sufficiently immersed in Latvian background, culture, and
language whether Lettish, Latgalian, Slavic, or Anglophone. Nations are
messy things; denying this only makes it worse.)
> > [deletia]
Ladzius
> >
> > Am I speaking to a newsgrop troll?
>
> Sir! We hardly ever grope the news here.
> Although - - I suspect that Holman does
> - when the cameras are off.
>
> Best - - Henry
LOL ;-))
Ladzius
Martin
Did a google search on "Balto-Slavic" and came up with 2510 hits. Found this
interesting article regarding the "balto-slavic" myth:
LITUANUS
LITHUANIAN QUARTERLY JOURNAL OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Volume 27, No. 1 - Spring 1981
Editor of this issue: Antanas Klimas
ISSN 0024-5089
Copyright © 1981 LITUANUS Foundation, Inc.
TWO LINGUISTIC MYTHS: BALTO-SLAVIC AND COMMON BALTIC
HARVEY E. MAYER
California State University, Fullerton
Let's talk about mythical languages. First there's Balto-Slavic. Then
there's Common Baltic. You've surely heard about those. Then there's
Illyro-Albano-Thracian. And finally there's Central Indo-European. That,
incidentally, consists of Illyrian, Albanian, Thracian, Prussian, Latvian,
Lithuanian, Slavic, and Iranian. I doubt that you've heard of these last two
protolanguages because I made them up. Let's examine these hypotheses one by
one.
If you trace the developments of the languages I call Central Indo-European
back to their earliest stages, you will find that their phonemic systems
matched. They all included the following sequences: p, b, t, d, k, g, k, g,
s, m, n, I, r, j, v, long and short i, u, e, a, and long o. Yet no one,
except me, has offered this hypothesis of Central Indo-European. Why?
Because the languages involved don't have enough words in common. In fact,
not even the Balkan languages I mentioned do. The situation there is so bad
that specialists agree on only one thing — that Illyrian and Thracian are
dissimilar. They don't agree at all on Albanian. Was it originally Illyrian,
Thracian, or a type all its own? No one can say for sure.
As for Common Baltic, this is what we find. Prussian, Latvian, and
Lithuanian do have many words in common. But these languages do not share
one single phonological innovation resulting in a new phoneme that exists in
all of them on the one hand, yet is not to be found in other Indo-European
languages on the other. The same applies to Balto-Slavic. Still, people find
Common Baltic and Balto-Slavic palatable as theories.
We now see that it was common vocabulary, and this includes grammatical
endings, that lured linguists into creating the myths of Common Baltic and
Balto-Slavic while the lack of it inhibited them from formulating the other
two myths. But it took more than that to fool them in the first place and to
cause them to perpetuate those myths in the second. It was the phonological
shapes of large numbers of words in common found in the Baltic and Slavic
languages and dialects which added the final deceptive touch.
To understand why this was and still is so, you have to know what is meant
by the phrase: "the conservative nature of Baltic and Slavic". You should
ask: "Conservative? With respect to what?" I say, conservative with respect,
in particular, to Central Indo-European phonology, that phonology which is
classifiable as Late Common Dialectal Indo-European. To clarify this, I say
the following.
Linguists easily recognize Latin words in English as borrowings by their
phonological shapes no matter what their vintage. But they mark early
borrowings between Baltic and Slavic only with considerable difficulty, and
cannot at all mark early borrowings between just the Baltic languages and
dialects.
Perhaps now you can see why the Common Baltic and Balto-Slavic myths are so
durable. They are supported by large look-alike vocabularies which defy
analysis. You can hardly, if at all, tell which words are native and which
are borrowings between Baltic and Slavic types of speech and between only
Baltic types of speech. The conservativeness of phonology obscures and
conceals this. Yet none of this seemingly "common" vocabulary points to
either a Common Baltic or, even less, a Balto-Slavic protolanguage.
What, you should ask, do you look for as proof of Common Baltic or
Balto-Slavic? You look for at least one special kind of phonological
innovation resulting in a new phoneme. This innovation, thus, would
regularly mark many words of every dialect as Baltic or Balto-Slavic as
opposed to the same words without this innovation in other Indo-European
dialects. In other words, we have proof of Proto-Germanic with the h in
English heart, German Herz, Gothic haîrtô, Old Icelandic hjarta as opposed
to the k in Latin cordis (genitive), Greek kardia, the s in Russian serdce,
Armenian sirt, Latvian sirds, Prussian seyr from *serd-, or the đ in
Lithuanian đirdis, all handed down from original Proto-Indo-European. All
other intermediate Indo-European protolanguages have something like this.
Common Slavic has several things like this, for example, y for long u
elsewhere in Indo-European as in Russian myđ meaning 'mouse' versus Old High
German műs. Only the Baltic languages lack this common denominator. This
means that "Common Baltic is a linguistic myth.
To repeat, there is not even one Common Baltic phonological innovation like
the Germanic or Slavic ones. Aside from two questionable shifts found at
analogy-producing morpheme boundaries dividing stems from grammatical
endings, namely, the loss of jod between consonants and front vowels, which,
incidentally, produces no new phoneme at all, and the debatable one of long
and short a to long and short e to form the e-stems which, by the way, are
morphemes and could have been merely borrowings in most Baltic dialects from
another dialect or other dialects, the only phonological innovations we find
are those which do not satisfy our conditions. Either they cover only some
of the Baltic dialects, like đ in Lithuanian ones as a reflex of both
palatal k and s under ruki law conditions, or they also can be found in
other Indo-European languages, like the oppositions in phonemic pitch.
Those who favor the Balto-Slavic myth place a lot of emphasis on phonemic
pitch in Baltic and Slavic. They admit that phonemic pitch had also existed
in Greek. But they argue that in Greek it was confined to final syllables.
They say that only in Baltic and Slavic can it be found internally in the
word. But I say that none of this matters since the pitch opposition acute
versus circumflex as something phonemic arose in Baltic and Slavic only
after those types of speech had become separate entities. It is the
relationship between phonemic pitch and the nature of ablaut in standard
Lithuanian which makes this clear.
You got phonemic pitch in internal syllables in those languages once acute
pitch there stopped being redundant. For this to happen, long vowels in
certain positions had to shorten. They had to do this in diphthongs with
falling sonority in closed syllables. Thus when long vowels were followed by
i, u, r, I, m, n in tautosyllabic diphthongs and were shortened, the acute
pitch which had been an additional, redundant property of theirs now became
phonemic. This acute pitch alone differentiated the word it was in from a
similar one with circumflex pitch, the pitch of diphthongs with original
short vowels. Thus in Lithuanian we have kárti meaning 'to hang' with only
rising pitch to distinguish it from karti, the vocative of kartis meaning
'bitterness', which has falling pitch. All the instances of this phonemic
pitch arose not in syllables reflecting Indo-European ablaut, but reflecting
secondary ablaut developed later by Slavic and Baltic languages, as well as
by other tongues after they had existed awhile as entities separate from
Common Indo-European.
Slavic, Lithuanian, Latvian, and Prussian developed so-called long grades,
as did Sanskrit with its vrddhi in internal position in roots as
morphological devices. The evidence shows that Lithuanian and Latvian did
this after they were entities separate from Indo-European. It was the
shortening of these vowels representing "Baltic" ablaut that gave rise to
phonemic pitch in internal syllables, that is, in root or stem syllables in
these languages. As for Slavic, the evidence is not as clear even though
linguists refer to long vowels in analogical positions in Old Church
Slavonic as "Slavic" ablaut.
In Lithuanian and Latvian we can clearly separate old ablaut from new
ablaut, but only with respect to the reflexes of Indo-European o and a. The
old alternation is between an original long o which appears as uo with acute
pitch versus an a with circumflex pitch in Lithuanian as in Lithuanian dúoti
meaning 'to give' versus dăvë meaning 'he gave'. The new alternation is
between an original long a which remains a long a in Latvian but appears as
a long o with acute pitch in Lithuanian versus an a with circumflex pitch in
Lithuanian as in Latvian kâra and Lituanian kórë meaning 'he hung' versus
Lithuanian kăria meaning 'he hangs'. In a closed syllable we find an acute
pitch on the a in the infinitive kárti in Lithuanian. This arose from a
shortened long a which had developed in Lithuanian after it had been a
separate entity.
The oldest level of Indo-European ablaut is short e versus short o. Short a
versus either of these was rare in root syllables. Consequently, later
developments in the corresponding long vowels in root syllables in Common
Indo-European included long e versus long o, and not long a. In Central
Indo-European languages short o and a fell together to a. No one can say
when this and other common phonological changes occurred. They very likely
arose after they had all been independent entities. This is what the
fundamental divergence in their vocabularies indicates. Later, vrrdhi
formations occurred in the Baltic and Slavic languages. In Lithuanian and
Latvian they arose clearly as long a- grades. This mirrored the shift in
ablaut alternations in short vowels from e versus o in Common Indo-European
to e versus a in Lithuanian and Latvian.
Thus we can see from Lithuanian and Latvian that phonemic pitch in internal
root or stem syllables arose not from any reduction of long o to short a
which would indicate something ancient. It arose from reduction of long a to
short a which indicates something recent. How, we might ask, are
Balto-Slavic correspondences in pitch of this sort supposed to prove a
Balto-Slavic protolanguage?
For Balto-Slavic pitch agreements to indicate an inherited rather than
borrowed origin, we should find, for example, something like a hypothetical
Lithuanian *kúorë with the long o reflex uo plus an acute alternating with
kárti, all of which should have counterparts in Slavic like a hypothetical
aorist *kare in Old Russian versus a hypothetical infinitive *korót' in
Modern Russian. Instead, what do we find? Things like acuted várna meaning
'crow' versus circumflexed varnas meaning 'raven' in Lithuanian
corresponding with voróna versus vóron in Russian! How weak! These things at
best represent parallel development. Probably, though, they are nothing more
than calks and other borrowings. And this applies not only to these and
similar borrowings, all really on a morphological level, and not, as it
might seem, on a phonological one, between the Baltic and Slavic languages,
but also between the Baltic languages alone.
Thus there is no firm evidence for either Balto-Slavic or Common Baltic as
protolanguages. We will have to consider them, therefore, as myths. This is
especially necessary since the attested dialects involved are conservative
fundamentally with respect to Central Indo-European, a phonological type
arrived at independently by all Indo-European dialects reflecting it.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
H. Mayer. "Baltic Membership in the West-Satem Subgroup", presented at the
6th Conference on Baltic Studies, Toronto, 1978.
??? "Die Divergenz des Baltischen und des Slavischen", ZslPh, 1978.
??? "Die frühzeitige Eigentümlichkeit des Slavischen", to appear in
ZslPh.
??? "Kann das Baltische als Muster für das Slavische gelten?", ZslPh,
1976.
??? "The Balto-Slavic Protolanguage and Pan-Slavism", submitted for
reading to the Vth Conference on Baltic Studies, Stockholm, 1979.
??? "The Function of the Concept 'Balto-Slavic' ", JBS, 1975.
A. Meillet. Les dialectes indoeuropéens. Paris, 1908.
Uno Hu
> "«Pas de deux»" <kamou...@sympatico.ca>
> "Leszek Deska" <lde...@yahoo.com> wrote
> > > According to Holman the Latvians
> > > are but a bunch of Finns with a
> > > Baltic accent. There goes roughly
> > > another 50% of the Baltic population!
> >
> > ?? Finns are different ethnic group (together with Hungarians)
The Hungarian link appears to be rather weak. It's there.. but tenuous
and much removed in geographic distance and time.
> > > Ah well, the rest, according to the
> > > Slavic "linguists" are just an offshoot
> > > of the great Slavic race.
> >
> > I'm from Poland and I have never heard such thing - although we had
> > Commonwealth with Lithuania there is no immediate ethnic connection.
> > Unless you mean that we all are descendants of Indoeuropeans...
Don't be so dammed literal. Appreciation of humorous and sarcastic
hyperboly requires some latitudinal thinking.
> > > Kiss your ass goodbye and decide if
> > > you want to join Moscow or Warsaw.
> >
> > Have you forgot your meds today? :-)
Henry has probably no source for whatever it is that they prescribe
for Polish Historians. (See? : Sarcasm)
> > Am I speaking to a newsgrop troll?
>
> Yes, Leszek, Henry suffers from an over-fondness for moonshine liquor. He
> gets on the Net and vents his spleen.
>
> GK
>
> Tut, tut - Gintai. Read some of the Holmanian stuff.
*Read* it? Sometimes GK seems to roll in it - so adoring is he/she/it.
> In addition, as a linguist, one would assume that you
> would monitor some linguistic forums. If you did
> you would note that the poor or "Baltic" language
> group has now evaporated and has been replaced
> by the "Balto-Slavic" one. This in just the last
> two years.
Yeah.. I've been running into this phenomenon also..
It's quite funny actually.. seeing as how Slavic was invented by two
deluded Greek monks just a while back.
I've been reminding folks that Baltic was around about 2500 years
before the first 'daiyetye' was even a twinkle in some wandering
*proto-Avars mouth.
> At this rate how long can the "Balto-"
> last within the BS. It is also interesting to note
> the the claim is now that the Baltic linguistic
> separation from the postulated Baltoslavic
> languge took place relatively near the time
> of the birth of Christ (+/- 200 years). If
> nothing else, assuming this model, the Balts
> built a completely separate language in record
> time. One wonders why!
>
> Try to keep up on the latest - and, if in
> doubt - ask Holman.
>
> Best - - Henry
Uno Hu
Eugene Holman
<halm...@comcast.net> wrote:
> According to Holman the Latvians
> are but a bunch of Finns with a
> Baltic accent.
That's a quite inaacurate paraphrase of what I claimed.
Firstly, there is a fundamental difference between the origin and history
of languages and the origins and history of ethnicities. Languages can be
learned and adapted by anyone, ethnicities are more difficult to join and
become accepted in as a full-fledged member. Both are sometimes forced on
people, but by different dynamics. Forcing someone to speak Lithuanian
follows a quite different dynamic than forcing someone to become a
Lithuanian, as do the desire of someone to be regarded as a Lithuanian as
opposed to the desire of the Lithuanians to regard an obvious outsider
trying to pass muster as a legitimate member of the ethnicity.
Secondly, the term Finnic-speaking peoples does not refer to Finns. Finns
are a subset of the Finnic-speaking peoples, which presently include
Estonians, Livs [= Livonians], Vepsians, Karelians, Izhorians, and
Vodians. These peoples are anthropologically of different origins,
representing the present product of a gene pool that continues the
aggregate gene pool of their ancestors but also includes the genetic
contributuon of the Samis, Balts, Slavs, Scandinavians, Germans, and
various and sundry people who have become absorbed, to different degrees,
into the present Finnic ethnicities.
What I stated was that the Latvian language is a consequence of Baltic
northward expansion into territory, the older inhabitants of which were
Finnic speakers (not Finns, but rather a subset of the ancestors of the
present-day Finns). Particularly in the area between the Daugava River and
the Gulf of Finland, this northern expansion had discernable different
kinds of linguistic, ethnographic, and cultural consequences:
a) in the area between the Daugava and approximately what is now the
Estonian-Latvian border, the older Finnic population, for the most part,
abandoned their ancestral language for Baltic. They also intermarried with
the Baltic newcomers, who were bearers of a more prestigious
agriculture-based lifestyle, and became culturally Baltic. This settled
agriculture-based lifestyle made it possible to support a population that
has been estimated as being ten times larger than the older semi-nomadic
hunting and gathering-based lifestyle could, and the denser population was
genetically and athropologically more Finnic than Baltic, but they created
various dialects, the basis of what is now Latvian, that were essentially
Baltic, but with many clearly Finnic features (substratum influence).
b) The Livs, who until the early 20th century lived in various isolated
pockets in northern Latvia, but now number only a few hundred, represent
the last linguistic remnants, hold-outs if you will, of the once much
larger and indigenous Finnic-speaking population of northern Latvia. Their
Finnic language, Liv or Livonian, shows signs of strong Baltic influence
(superstratum influence) on all levels of structure.
c) In the area between the present Estonian/Latvian border and the Gulf of
Finland the population retained its Finnic language and became culturally
Balticized. The language was strongly influenced on all levels of
structure by the northernmost dialects of Baltic, but it retained its
essentially Finnic character, and the culture underwent the same
transition from hunting and gathering to agriculture that had taken place
in northern Latvia, with the same consequent increase in the ability of
the land to support a far larger population.
d) As the population continued to expand, some of these Balticized Finnic
speakers expanded northwards into what is now Finland, entering the area
throught two routes: across the Gulf of Finland through the south-west,
and across the Isthmus of Karelia, through the south-east. At the time,
Finland already had an indigenous Sámi population that spoke what was
evidently a Finno-Ugric, but not a Finnic language.
e) Contacts between the two streams of Finnic speakers and the Samis had
two kinds of consequences: some Samis assimilated into the Finnic speakers
and became part of the Finnic-speaking local ethnicities that they formed,
e.g. Finns "Proper", Tavastians, Karelians. Others, non-assimilationists,
retreated northwards and retained their language, selectively choosing
some of the features of the innovative agriculture-based lifestyle and
integrating it into their culture. They became Sámis and are the
indigenous population, though now a small minority, of northern Finland.
Some Sámi communities earn their livelihood by agriculture and reindeer
herding, others continue the older and traditional lifestyle and
specialize in fishing and hunting. For more than 2000 years, there has
been a gradual trend among the Sámi population of Finland to assimilate
into the local Finnish ethnicites.
f) As national identities began to develop in Latvia, Estonia, and
Finland, local identities eventually gave way to more comprehensive
national ones: Baltic-speaking Latvians, and Finnic-speaking Estonians and
Finns. The Sámis never succeeded in establishing so well-defined an
identity, and specialists recognize as many as seven distinct and mutually
incomprehensible Sámi languages with associated locally and economically
defined Sámi identities and cultures.
> There goes roughly
> another 50% of the Baltic population!
If you had read with comprehension (which you hardly ever do), you would
have understood that I was claiming no such thing. Ethnicities, like
languages, have histories with starting points. Baltic ethnicities and
languages are consequence of the northward expanson of Indo-European
agriculturalists into territory inhabited by speakers of Finnic language
starting some 4300 years ago. The subsequent developments of distinct
Baltic languages and ethnicities are consequences of the specific features
that characterized the type of interaction between speakers of Baltic and
bearers of an agriculture-based lifestyle with the languages and cultures
of the indigenous populations. To paraphrase Professor Kalevi Wiik: The
Estonians look like Finns and speak a similar language. The Latvians look
like Finns, but speak a totally unrelated language. The Lithuanians do not
look like Finns, Estonians, or Latvians, but they speak a language that is
obviously closely related to Latvian. Many of the features that
differentiate Latvian from Lithuanian appear to derive from a language
similar to Estonian.
> Ah well, the rest, according to the
> Slavic "linguists" are just an offshoot
> of the great Slavic race.
The Baltic-Slavic issue is a totally different one. Baltic is more archaic
than Slavic linguistically, but these two branches of Indo-European have
evolved side by side for more than 1,500 years, share many innovations,
and are demonstrably closer than any other two branches of Indo-European.
This similarity odes not justify regarding them as a Baltic-Slavic branch.
There are enough differences between them to see that their similarities
are more the result of interaction and convergent development rather than
of common origin. During the past millennium and a half, many Slavic
populations have become Balticized, and many Baltic populations have
become Slavicized. Thus Baltic exhibits many features that derive from
Slavic input, just as Slavic does many features derived from Baltic input.
> Kiss your ass goodbye and decide if
> you want to join Moscow or Warsaw.
Isn't Minsk the closest Slavic capital to the Baltics? And is not
Lithuanian/Belarussian interaction the most obvious example of
Baltic/Slavic cross-fertilization, linguistically, culturally, and
anthropologically? Just as many Latvians and their language are the
consequences of the Balicization of older Finnic and Finnic-speaking
populations, many Belarussians and their language are the consequences of
the Slavicization of older Baltic and Baltic-speaking populations.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Eugene Holman
> henry alminas wrote:
> > According to Holman the Latvians
> > are but a bunch of Finns with a
> > Baltic accent. There goes roughly
> > another 50% of the Baltic population!
>
> ?? Finns are different ethnic group (together with Hungarians)
The history of languages and the history of ethnicities follow different paths.
Finnish and Hungarian share so many basic features of vocabulary and
structure that one can only conclude that they are the modern versions of
what once was a common language, one spoken perhaps 5000 years ago
somewhere in northern Eurasia. Nevertheless, the people who speak Finnish
and Hungarian today have little in common anthropologically. There is
nothing strange about this: the largest body of native speakers of English
today is in India-Pakistan-Bangladesh-Sri Lanka, despite the fact that
English traces its origins to a set of Germanic dialects transported from
what are now the Low Countries and Northern Germany to England about 1500
years ago. he same holds true for Russians: scratch a person who considers
him/herself to be a Russian today and, more likely than not, you will find
some Ukrainian, Belarussian, Komi, Udmort, Mordvin, Tatar, Kazakh, Kazar,
Georgian, Armenian, Polish, Slovak, Greek, Latvian, Lithuanian, Estonian,
Hungarian, Finnish, etc. etc. ancestry.
A person *cannot* make decisions concerning his/her genetic/physical
anthropological heritage, but he/she *can* make decisions, albeit not all
of which will be respected or recognized by his/her environment,
concerning his/her preferred language and ethnic identity.
<deletions>
Regards,
Eugene Holman
«Pas de deux»
> In addition, as a linguist, one would assume that you
> would monitor some linguistic forums. If you did
> you would note that the poor or "Baltic" language
> group has now evaporated and has been replaced
> by the "Balto-Slavic" one. This in just the last
> two years. At this rate how long can the "Balto-"
> last within the BS. It is also interesting to note
> the the claim is now that the Baltic linguistic
> separation from the postulated Baltoslavic
> languge took place relatively near the time
> of the birth of Christ (+/- 200 years). If
> nothing else, assuming this model, the Balts
> built a completely separate language in record
> time. One wonders why!
>
> Try to keep up on the latest - and, if in
> doubt - ask Holman.
>
> Best - - Henry
I'm sure you've read Martin's comments by now. I remember the article he posted, and I have also for many years been of the opinion that there is no firm evidence for either Balto-Slavic or Common Baltic as protolanguages.
Gintautas Kaminskas
Eugene Holman
=?windows-1257?Q?=ABPas_de_deux=BB?= <kamou...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
> I'm sure you've read Martin's comments by now. I remember the article =
> he posted, and I have also for many years been of the opinion that there =
> is no firm evidence for either Balto-Slavic or Common Baltic as =
> protolanguages.=20
I agree with you as concerns Balto-Slavic. But by "Common Baltic" do you
mean Proto-Baltic or something else?
In historical linguistics a distinction is made between "gemein-", common,
meaning a feature shared by all the languages of the group with no
distinction being made between inheritance and parallel or areal
development, and "ur-", proto, meaning an inherited feature that can be
traced to the earlier language of which the later languages are different
local versions.
Using this conceptual distinction, I regard it as unnecessary to speak of
a "common Baltic" language, Gemeinbaltisch, but as a logical necessity to
speak of proto-Baltic, Urbaltisch, the ancester of Lithuanian, Latvian,
Old Prussian, and the other extinct minor Baltic languages (see
http://www.mun.ca/research/rmatters/june_96/baltic.htm for details).
Proto-Baltic exists, as I see it, on two levels:
a. the abstract level, as the variation-free end point of internal and
comparative reconstruction [langue];
b. the concrete level, as a real language with local and situational
variation that was used by a real, pre-literate speech community [parole].
As an abstraction, we find that comparing Latvian zobs [zuops] "tooth" and
Lithuanian z^ambas "sharp corner" results in thge equation *zāmbas 'tooth'
which is clearly a continuation of proto-Indo-European *g'hombhos 'tooth',
cf. Sanskrit jambhah 'tooth'. On the more concrete level we explain the
existence of the clearly archaic Baltic borrowings in Finnic such as
Estonian hammas (hamba-), Finnish hammas (hampaa-), etc. as a deriving
from proto-Baltic, in this case *zāmbas 'tooth'. The phonology and
semantics would not readily support any alternative explanation of the
origin of this obviously Baltic and Indo-European word in Finnic, which
had its own inherited word for tooth, cf. Hungarian fog 'tooth'.
Every serious treatment of the history of the Baltic languages that I have
ever seen, such as *the History of the Lithuanian Language* by Professor
Zinkevic^ius and Jalo Kalima's *Itämeren suomalaisten kielten balttilaiset
lainasanat* [The Baltic Loanwords of the Finnic Languages], assumes the
existence of Proto-Baltic as the language from which the modern Baltic
languages have evolved. Abstractly it is the result of linguistic
reconstruction. Concretely it was the late and locally modified set of
closely related Indo-European dialects introduced to the Baltic region
from the south by the agriculturalist bearers of the Corded Ware Culture
during the later part of third millennium BC. This is no different from
positing the existence of Early Modern English, the ancestor of all
contemporary varieties of English, which exists abstractly [langue] as
both the end point of the comparison of contemporary variants in addition
to having had a concrete existence [parole] as the diverse speech acts and
dialects that existed in late 15th and early 16th century England before
colonial expansion.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
Eugene Holman
Lithuanian z^ambas "sharp corner" results in the equation *z^ambas 'tooth'
which is clearly a continuation of proto-Indo-European *g'hombhos 'tooth',
cf. Sanskrit jambhah 'tooth'. On the more concrete level we explain the
existence of the clearly archaic Baltic borrowings in Finnic such as
Estonian hammas (hamba-), Finnish hammas (hampaa-), etc. as a deriving
from proto-Baltic, in this case *z^ambas 'tooth'. The phonology and
Eugene Holman
=?windows-1257?Q?=ABPas_de_deux=BB?= <kamou...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
> I'm sure you've read Martin's comments by now. I remember the article =
> he posted, and I have also for many years been of the opinion that there =
> is no firm evidence for either Balto-Slavic or Common Baltic as =
> protolanguages.=20
I agree with you as concerns Balto-Slavic. But by "Common Baltic" do you
mean Proto-Baltic or something else?
In historical linguistics a distinction is made between "gemein-", common,
meaning a feature shared by all the languages of the group with no
distinction being made between inheritance and parallel or areal
development, and "ur-", proto, meaning an inherited feature that can be
traced to the earlier language of which the later languages are different
local versions.
Using this conceptual distinction, I regard it as terminologially
inaccurate to speak of a "common Baltic language", Gemeinbaltisch, but as
a logical necessity to speak of proto-Baltic, Urbaltisch, the common
ancester of Lithuanian, Latvian, Old Prussian, and the other extinct minor
Baltic languages (see
http://www.mun.ca/research/rmatters/june_96/baltic.htm for details).
Proto-Baltic exists, as I see it, on two levels:
a. the abstract level, as the variation-free inventory and system of
well-defined linguistic entities constituting the end point of internal
and comparative reconstruction [langue];
b. the concrete level, as a real language with local and situational
variation that was used by a real, pre-literate speech community [parole].
As an abstraction, we find that comparing Latvian zobs [zuops] "tooth" and
Lithuanian z^ambas "sharp corner" and then applying the techniques of
comparative reconstruction results in the equation *z^ambas 'tooth' which
is clearly a continuation of proto-Indo-European *g'hombhos 'tooth', cf.
Sanskrit jambhah 'tooth', Greek gomphios 'molar', Old Church Slavic zoNb@
'tooth', etc. On the more concrete level we explain the existence of the
clearly archaic Baltic borrowings in Finnic such as Estonian hammas
(hamba-), Finnish hammas (hampaa-), etc. as a deriving from proto-Baltic,
in this case *z^ambas 'tooth', borrowed into early Proto-Finnic as
*s^ambas 'tooth'. The phonology and semantics would not readily support
any alternative explanation of the origin of this obviously Baltic and
Indo-European word in Finnic, which
had its own inherited word for tooth, cf. Hungarian fog 'tooth'.
Every serious treatment of the history of the Baltic languages that I have
ever seen, such as *The History of the Lithuanian Language* by Z.
Zinkevic^ius, *Latvies^u etimolog,ijas vārdnīca* ["Latvian Etymological
Dictionary"], by K. Karulis, and *Itämeren suomalaisten kielten
balttilaiset lainasanat* ["The Baltic Loanwords of the Finnic Languages"],
by J. Kalima, assumes the existence of Proto-Baltic as the common language
from which the modern Baltic languages have evolved. Abstractly it is the
result of linguistic
reconstruction. Concretely it was the late and locally modified set of
closely related Indo-European dialects introduced to the Baltic region
from the south by the agriculturalist bearers of the Corded Ware Culture
during the later part of third millennium BC. This is no different from
positing the existence of Early Modern English, the ancestor of all
contemporary varieties of English, which exists abstractly [langue] as
the end point of the comparative reconstruction of contemporary variants
Eugene Holman
lora...@cs.com (Uno Hu) wrote:
> "henry alminas" <halm...@comcast.net> wrote
> > "«Pas de deux»" <kamou...@sympatico.ca>
> > "Leszek Deska" <lde...@yahoo.com> wrote
> > > henry alminas wrote:
> > > > According to Holman the Latvians
> > > > are but a bunch of Finns with a
> > > > Baltic accent. There goes roughly
> > > > another 50% of the Baltic population!
> > >
> > > ?? Finns are different ethnic group (together with Hungarians)
>
> The Hungarian link appears to be rather weak. It's there.. but tenuous
> and much removed in geographic distance and time.
It is quite solidly there, even if it takes some training to see:
Hungarian and Finnish share several hundred Finno-Ugric lexical morphemes
designating basic concepts such as body parts, fundamental natural
phenomena and activities, basic numerals, designations of qualities, as
well as a few dozen grammatical morphemes such as personal pronouns,
deictics, and those used for verbal and nominal inflection and derivation.
The dialects of proto-Finno-Ugric that eventually provided the basis for
Hungarian, on the one hand, and Finnish, on the other, appear to have gone
their separate ways more than 5,000 years ago, and the peoples speaking
them have subseuquently had totally different histories, interacting with
and absorbing speakers of quite different ethnic backgrounds in
conjunction with language expansions, transplantations, and shifts.
The difference between Finnish and Hungarian does not seem as extreme if
words from them are also taken from the minor Finno-Ugric languages that
constitute the "missing links" between them, Many words in Finnish,
Estonian, and Hungarian occur in two forms, a phonologically more
innovative free form and a phonologically more conservative bound form.
The Finnish nominative form viisi 'five' shos the results of phonological
innovation which resulted in word final *-e bocoming -i, and then the 't'
of the word final syllable *ti becoming assibilated into -si: *viite >
*viiti > viisi. The inflectional base, seen in the form viitenä 'as five',
did not undergo these changes and thus represents a an earlier form. This
phonologically conservative base, viite-, not the innovative dictionary
form viisi, should be the basis for comparison of Finnish with the other
Finno-Ugric languages.
FU *witte 'five' > Finnish viisi/viite-, Estonian viis/viie-/viit-; Saame
(Luleĺ) vihta, Saame (Norwegian) vit'tâ; Erzya Mordvin vete; Mountain Mari
wďts, Meadow mari wic^; Udmurt vit, Komi vit; Mansi ët, Khanty (Vakh) wčt;
Hungarian öt [řt]
FU *s^inge-re 'mouse' > Finnish hiiri/hiire-, Estonian hiir/hiire-; Erzya
Mordvin c^ejer', Moksha Mordvin s^ejer; Udmurt s^yr, Komi s^yr, Khanty
lönk@r, Mansi tank@r, Hungarian egér/egere- ['ëgë:r]
FU *eje ~ üje 'night' > Finnish yä, Estonian öö; Sámi (Norwegian) iggjâ;
Erzya Mordvin ve, Moksha Mordvin ve; Udmurt uj, Komi voj, Khanty @j, Mansi
jii, Hungarian éj [e:j]
FU *s´ilmä 'eye' > Finnish silmä, Estonian silm/silma-; Sámi (Norwegian)
c^al'bme; Erzya Mordvin sel'me, Moksha Mordvin sel'mja; Mountain Mari
sďnza, Meadow Mari s^inc^a; Udmurt sin'/sin'm-; Komi sin/sinm-; Khanty
sem, Mansi sam ~ säm; Hungarian szem [sëm]
FU *pänge 'head' > Finnish pää, Estonian pea; Sámi (Norwegian) bagnge
'fattest part of a reindeer orn'); Erzya Mordvin pe ~ pja, Moksha Morvin
pe; Udmurt pum 'tip', Komi pon 'tip'; Mansi pungk ~ pängk; Hungarian fej
[fei] ~ fó´ [fř:]
Here are some Finnish-Hungarian cognates. It should be rememebered that
the primary criterion for determining cognatehood is systematic sound
correspondences, with the secondary one being similarities in form and
meaning. In the Finno-Ugric languages systemayic sound correspondences are
best found in the sounds of the intitial syllable, since Finno-Ugraic
languages have always had initial primary stress. As the languages
followed their own paths of development after their speakers had gone
their separate ways, later sound changes accumulated, often obscuring the
once systematic correspondences.
Finnish Hungarian
*p-
puu fa 'tree'
poika fíu 'boy, son'
pilvi/pilve- felhó´ 'cloud'
puoli/puole- fél 'half'
pesä feszek 'nest'
pelkää- fél- 'to fear'
pii (<*pinge-) fog 'peg, tooth'
pää fej ~ fó´ 'head'
*t-
tunke- dug- 'to penetrate'
tunte- tud- 'to know'
talve- tél 'winter'
te ti 'you pl.'
*kV[+front]
kive- kó´/köve- 'stone'
käsi/käte- kéz 'hand, arm'
kyynel könny 'tear'
*kV[-front]
kala hal 'fish'
kolme három 'three'
kuusi/kuute- hat 'six'
kuule- hall 'to hear'
kuu hó 'month'
koi haj- 'dusk'
kuole- hal- 'to die'
kota ház 'dwelling, house'
*s-
syli/syle- öl 'lap'
suoni/suone- ín 'vein'
sappi/sappe- epe 'gall'
syksy ó´sz 'autumn'
*s'-
silmä szem 'eye'
sata száz 'hundred' (< IE borrowing)
sarvi/sarve- szarv 'horn' (< IE borrowing)
sydän/sydäme- szvív 'heart'
suu száj 'mouth'
*s^-
hiiri/hiire- egér 'mouse'
*j-
jää jég 'ice'
joki/joke- -jó 'river'
jalka gyalog (<jalog) 'foot, leg'
juo- iv- (<jiv-) 'drink'
*w-
vesi/vete- víz 'water'
veri/vere- vér 'blood'
voi vaj 'butter'
viisi/viite- öt (<wöt) 'five'
vävy vó´/veje- 'son-in-law'
ole- vol- 'to be'
*m-
mi(kä) mi 'what'
mene- men- 'to go'
me mi 'we'
maksa máj 'liver'
muna mony 'egg, testicle'
*n-
nimi/nime- név 'name'
neljä négy 'four'
näke- néz- 'to see'
*n'-
nuoli/nuole- nyíl 'arrow'
nielu nyelv 'throat, tongue'
nuole- nyal 'to lick'
*l-
lintu (*<luntu) lúd 'bird, goose'
lie- le- 'to be'
löytä- lel- 'to find'
lyö- ló´-/löv- 'to beat, to shoot'
*r-
repo róka (<rVv-ka) 'fox'
*u
ui- u- 'to swim'
uusi/uute- új 'new'
*e elä- él- 'to live'
syö- (*seve-) en-/ev- 'to eat'
ete- el- 'front'
*a
anta- ad- 'to give'
al- al- 'under'
<deletions>
The basic elements out of which the systems of noun and verb inflection
are built up in both languages also share common Finno-Ugric origins. For
example, the inessive case in Finnish consists of two elements: -s-,
indicating 'interior' and -na/nä (now assilated) indicating 'location':
talossa (<*talosna) 'in the house'/kädessä (<*kädesnä) 'in the hand'. The
Hungarian inessive also consists of two elements -b-, indicating
'interior' and (V)n, indicating 'location': a házban 'in the house'/a
kézben 'in the hand'. Although the -s- and -b- elements are of different
origins, the -n, recently assimilated in Finnish in this environment, is
the reflex of an inherited Finno-Ugric morpheme indicating location. This
older meaning of the morpheme is still evident in certain usages of
another case using this same element, the Finnish essive -na/-nä:
latvempana '[located] closer to the treetop', illempana '[located in time]
later in the evening', as well as in the Hungarian superessive -on/-en:
Magyarországon 'in Hungary', Budapesten 'in Budapest'.
Finnish and Hungarian also have comparative suffixes that go back to the
same Finno-Ugric *-mpa/-mpä: Finnish isompi/isompa- 'bigger' (from iso
'big'), Hungarian nagyobb 'bigger' (from nagy 'big').
Regards,
Eugene Holman
«Pas de deux»
> In historical linguistics a distinction is made between "gemein-", common,
> meaning a feature shared by all the languages of the group with no
> distinction being made between inheritance and parallel or areal
> development, and "ur-", proto, meaning an inherited feature that can be
> traced to the earlier language of which the later languages are different
> local versions.
>
> Using this conceptual distinction, I regard it as unnecessary to speak of
> a "common Baltic" language, Gemeinbaltisch, but as a logical necessity to
> speak of proto-Baltic, Urbaltisch, the ancester of Lithuanian, Latvian,
> Old Prussian, and the other extinct minor Baltic languages (see
> http://www.mun.ca/research/rmatters/june_96/baltic.htm for details).
Sure, like any living organism, a language must be descended from an ancestor. Sure, there was an "Urbaltisch".
> Proto-Baltic exists, as I see it, on two levels:
> a. the abstract level, as the variation-free end point of internal and
> comparative reconstruction [langue];
> b. the concrete level, as a real language with local and situational
> variation that was used by a real, pre-literate speech community [parole].
>
Getting all Saussurian, are we? :-)
No problem with any of this. GK
> Regards,
> Eugene Holman
Eugene Holman
=?windows-1257?Q?=ABPas_de_deux=BB?= <kamou...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
><deletions>
>
> No problem with any of this. GK
Then plkease explain your scepticism with regard to a "common Baltic
langauge", as per (Message-ID:
<rNHNb.1203$XZ.1...@news20.bellglobal.com>
Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 21:13:43 -0500)"ŠI have also for many years been of
the opinion that there is no firm evidence for either Balto-Slavic or
Common Baltic as protolanguages.=20.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
«Pas de deux»
GK
**************
"Eugene Holman" <hol...@elo.helsinki.fi> wrote in message news:holman-1601...@c518-m3.eng.helsinki.fi...
> In article <uOTNb.23015$1K1.2...@news20.bellglobal.com>,
> =?windows-1257?Q?=ABPas_de_deux=BB?= <kamou...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
> ><deletions>
> >
> > No problem with any of this. GK
>
> Then plkease explain your scepticism with regard to a "common Baltic
> langauge", as per (Message-ID:
> <rNHNb.1203$XZ.1...@news20.bellglobal.com>
> Date: Thu, 15 Jan 2004 21:13:43 -0500)" I have also for many years been of
Dmitry
> > > Commonwealth with Lithuania there is no immediate ethnic connection.
> > > Unless you mean that we all are descendants of Indoeuropeans...
>
> Don't be so dammed literal. Appreciation of humorous and sarcastic
> hyperboly requires some latitudinal thinking.
For dammed latitudinal humorous sarcastic literal thinking consult Uno
Hu. It's free of charge.
>
> > > > Kiss your ass goodbye and decide if
> > > > you want to join Moscow or Warsaw.
> > >
> > > Have you forgot your meds today? :-)
>
> Henry has probably no source for whatever it is that they prescribe
> for Polish Historians. (See? : Sarcasm)
>
> > > Am I speaking to a newsgrop troll?
> >
> > Yes, Leszek, Henry suffers from an over-fondness for moonshine liquor. He
> > gets on the Net and vents his spleen.
> >
> > GK
> >
> > Tut, tut - Gintai. Read some of the Holmanian stuff.
>
> *Read* it? Sometimes GK seems to roll in it - so adoring is he/she/it.
Your problem is, that you don't make much sence. GK does. Your try
he/she/it is pathetic.
>
> > In addition, as a linguist, one would assume that you
> > would monitor some linguistic forums. If you did
> > you would note that the poor or "Baltic" language
> > group has now evaporated and has been replaced
> > by the "Balto-Slavic" one. This in just the last
> > two years.
>
> Yeah.. I've been running into this phenomenon also..
I hope you didn't hurt yourself.
> It's quite funny actually.. seeing as how Slavic was invented by two
> deluded Greek monks just a while back.
Uno Hu’s wisdom on the invention of Polish and Ukrainian!!!
What language did Ukranian's speak before two Greeks invented the
language for them?
>
> I've been reminding folks that Baltic was around about 2500 years
> before the first 'daiyetye' was even a twinkle in some wandering
> *proto-Avars mouth.
Very interesting note, Uno Hu. 'Twinkle in some wandering' is
particularly fascinating.
Eugene Holman
=?windows-1257?Q?=ABPas_de_deux=BB?= <kamou...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
> What I had in mind was that laypeople shouldn't think that the Baltic =
> language origin question is as simple as saying "Lithuanian, Latvian and =
> Prussian were all the same language once".
Nevertheless, that's about the size of it. All three are later and
localized versions of what was once the same language. Although Old
Prussian is extinct, Latvian and Lithuanian both exist as dialect
complexes which gradually melt into each other: the southernmost local
variety of Latvian shares many features with the northernmost varity of
Lithuanian. The two literary standards are the result of much later and
politically motivated efforts to emphasize differences, once again the
*langue* aspect, while the actual speech acts that take place in in formal
Latvian and Lithuanian represent a continuum of hundreds of thousands of
slightly different co-existent minimally different linguistic norms, the
*parole* aspect.
Of course laypeople aren't interested in these details, but they are, like
an understanding of the history and political objectives of normalization
and a basic understanding of how dialects work, important if a person is
ever going to really master one or both of the languages.
> There are probably missing =
> links that we don't know about, for lack of written records.
Of course, but that's true for all language history. Only the tiniest
fraction of what is expressed using a given language system ever gets
recorded. That does not prevent us from being able to reconstruct a
considerable amount of language history with reasonable reliability.
> They might =
> all be descended from a Baltic protolanguage ("Urbaltisch") but the =
> devil is in the detail of that descent, and the details are rather =
> different in each case.
True, but that's why we study these problems, gaining new insights and
developing better methodologies as we do so.
> What would help would be to have copious =
> records of the now extinct Baltic languages. But alas, that will never =
> happen, just as Alminas will never walk on Mars =97 or even touch a =
> rock from there.
Too bad for Henry; unattainable ambitions.
One aspect of language history that provides insight into the manner in
which the Baltic languages have evolved is the study of their interaction
with the languages of their neighbors. Clarifying the impact of the
various types of Germanic influence in what we know of Old Prussian and
Latvian, of the layers of Slavic influence on all of them, of the
important impact of Finnic influence on Latvian, particularly on the
dialects spoken in the area to the north of the Daugava river where a
Finnic-to-Baltic language shift has, even today, not been fully completed,
as well as of the impact of Baltic on the Slavic languages spoken today by
the Slavicized descendants of former Baltic speakers, and on Finno-Ugric
languages as distant as Mordvin, is as important to gaining an
understanding of why the Baltic languages have the features that they have
today as the study of their shared heritage from proto-Baltic.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
vienalga_man
> In article <rNHNb.1203$XZ.1...@news20.bellglobal.com>,
> =?windows-1257?Q?=ABPas_de_deux=BB?= <kamou...@sympatico.ca> wrote:
>
Indo-European dialects introduced to the Baltic region
> from the south by the agriculturalist bearers of the Corded Ware Culture
> during the later part of third millennium BC.
Corded Ware Culture gave a hint of our independant ways.
Think of all the hassles that we could have missed, with our neighbours.
Corded ware. There's the clue.
R.
>
> Regards,
> Eugene Holman