Selonian language

Extinct Baltic language
Selonian
Selian
Native toLatvia and Lithuania
Extinct16th century[citation needed]
Language family
Indo-European
  • Balto-Slavic
    • East Baltic
      • Selonian
Language codes
ISO 639-3sxl
Linguist List
sxl
GlottologNone
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Distribution of the Baltic tribes, c. 1200 CE (boundaries are approximate)

Selonian was an East Baltic language, which was spoken by the East Baltic tribe of the Selonians, who until the 15th century lived in Selonia, a territory in southeastern Latvia and northeastern Lithuania.

History

Traces of the Selonian language can still be found in the territories the Selonians inhabited, especially in the accent and phonetics of the so-called Selonian dialect of the Latvian language. There are some traces of the Selonian language in the northeastern sub-dialects of the Aukštaitian dialect of the Lithuanian language, mostly in the lexicon.

Classification

It is considered that the Selonian language retained the Proto-Baltic sonorant diphthongs *an, *en, *in, *un like the Lithuanian language, but like the Latvian language the Proto-Baltic *kʲ, *ɡʲ changed to c, dz, and the Proto-Baltic *š, *ž changed to s, z.[1]

References

  1. ^ Babaev, Cyril. "Selonian (Selian) language". tied.verbix.com. Retrieved 2017-06-28.
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ReconstructedWest Baltic
East BalticDnieper Baltic
Italics indicate extinct languages · Languages between parentheses are varieties of the language on their left · Asterisk (*) indicates dialects occasionally classified as languages · Question mark (?) indicates disputed classification.
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