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A discussion of that would have to also include a discussion of why Lithuanian has also not changed much since the vocabulary is filled with Samskruta cognates
by imbnwa 5y ago
A discussion of that would have to also include a discussion of why Lithuanian has also not changed much since the vocabulary is filled with Samskruta cognates that Lithuanian does NOT share with Slavic languages like Russian or Polish, some examples from Wikipedia:
- S: sunus, L: sunus (son)
- S: avis, L: avis (sheep)
- S: padas, L: padas (foot)
- S: viras, L: vyras (man, also compare Latin vir [pronounced weer])
- S: dhumas, L: dumas (smoke)
- S: antaras, L: antras (other, second)
- S: vṛkas, L: vilkas (wolf)
- S: yuñje, L: jungiu (I join)
- S: jántis, L: gentys (tribes, also compare Latin gentes [a/the people])
- S: dantas, L: dantis (also compare Latin dentes)
- S: naktis, L: naktis (also compare Latin noctes)
- KhoomeiK 5y agoLithuanian in general is considered one of the most conservative IE languages. There isn't really any clear reason that historical linguistics has produced for whether languages change quickly or slowly afaik.
- imbnwa 5y agoMy understanding was that the isolation of the Baltic speakers was a big contributor, though off the top of my head I wouldn't know the geographical obstacles, hence also why they were the last to Christianity in Europe
- vkazanov 5y agoKnowing Russian, Lithuanian and bits of Polish I would also add that it's amazing how lithuanian is very similar to slavic languages in grammar structure but radically different phonetically. I.e. a direct translation, word to word, works (with some style issues), but it's hard to recognize the sentence when pronounced. This makes me wonder how sanscrit sounds... Also, the language is quite complex, probably more complex than polish or russian, which is typical for archaic languages, afaik.