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Balto-Slavic branch divides into Baltic and Slavic language groups so nothing wrong here
by kaato137 11mo ago
Balto-Slavic branch divides into Baltic and Slavic language groups so nothing wrong here
- kreetx 11mo agoYup, most of Eastern Europe are Balto-Slavic. While the division from the Eastern Slavic languages (Russian, Belarussian, Ukranian, etc) is distant, they are still Slavic. From Eastern Europe, only Estonian is not a Slavic language.
- d1sxeyes 11mo agoHungarian too, although there’s a question about whether Hungary is Eastern or Central Europe.
- kreetx 11mo agoAh, yes, how could I forget! As a side note, though also Finno-Ugric then similarity in sound and appearance from Finnish or Estonian at least appears very far.
- d1sxeyes 11mo agoYeah Hungarian is just a thing on its own.
- dragonwriter 11mo ago“There’s a question” implies that there is a ground truth that might be discovered to resolve this rather than simply a clash of different purely arbitrary definitions of the same terms.
- d1sxeyes 11mo agoNot my intention. In fact my intention was the opposite: just to highlight it’s a bit of a contentious topic.
- lo_zamoyski 11mo agoThe Visegrad 4 (Poland, Czechia, Slovakia, Hungary)are generally taken to be "Central European". The strict East/West division is largely a product of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain.
- d1sxeyes 11mo agoPerhaps. The UN still calls them “Eastern European” though.
- 1718627440 11mo agoNo, the distinction into West/Central/East Europe was also relevant in the centuries prior. You're right with, that East Europe starts with Belarus, Russia and Ukraine.
- lo_zamoyski 11mo ago> No, the distinction into West/Central/East Europe was also relevant in the centuries prior. I never said it wasn't.
- 1718627440 11mo ago> The strict East/West division is largely a product of the Cold War and the Iron Curtain.
- NicuCalcea 11mo ago> From Eastern Europe, only Estonian is not a Slavic language. Well, that and Romanian. And Hungarian. And outside the EU, Albanian. And Georgian, Azeri and Armenian if you consider those Eastern Europe.
- ardit33 11mo agoAlbania is not "East Europe", but South East. Same as Greece.
- NicuCalcea 11mo agoThat's just your opinion, and the UN would disagree: https://www.un.org/dgacm/en/content/regional-groups#:~:text=Albania https://www.un.org/dgacm/en/content/regional-groups#:~:text=... Some of my fellow Romanians will also claim they're Central European, but in my mind, all the ones I listed are Eastern European countries. I'd even include Turkey and Kazakhstan in there, part of the latter is to the West of the Urals, which is what we normally consider the border between Europe and Asia.
- ardit33 11mo agoThat's cute. It is clear thats an outdated political organization and not geographical. Read at the groupings. Greece is more eastern than Albania (and it is one hour off timezone), and it says 'western' which is not the case by any geographic means. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/382295560/figure/fig1/AS:11431281260660322@1721195876556/Map-showing-European-sub-region-classification-and-countries-included-in-the.jpg https://www.researchgate.net/publication/382295560/figure/fi... https://www.worldatlas.com/r/w960-q80/upload/03/90/9b/countries-of-southern-europe-2.png https://www.worldatlas.com/r/w960-q80/upload/03/90/9b/countr... Albania is clearly south east europe. And, I don't care about your random Romanian friend's anecdote.
- NicuCalcea 11mo ago> Albania is clearly south east europe. Yes, it is clearly south east Europe. East. > And, I don't care about your random Romanian friend's anecdote. Who's my friend?
- rich_sasha 11mo agoLatvian and Lithuanian are not at all Slavic. There is a branch that contains both Baltic and Slavic languages, but there's also one that contains Albanian and Greek.
- ardit33 11mo agoAlbanian and Greek are both completely separate branches, and both unique on the tree (they don't have common cousins like the others). There have been some attempts to tie Albanian to Germanic, or Greek, or other branches, but they all have failed. At some point they all are Indo_european, but they split a way ago.
- pqtyw 11mo ago> most of Eastern Europe are Balto-Slavic and > only Estonian is not a Slavic language. So following this logic saying "in Eastern Europe, only Estonian is not a Baltic language" would make as much sense?
- sublimefire 11mo agoIt is just one of the theories, there is no clear evidence to suggest that Baltic and Slavic were the same language thousands of years ago.
- pqtyw 11mo agoWell there is if you go far enough. It's just the question when did they split off from each other. However there is no question that Baltic and Slavic are more closely related to each other than any other non extinct Indo-European languages. The fact they they are the closest surviving relatives on it own doesn't mean it makes sense to group them together (i.e. Italo-Celtic is also a theorized subgroup in a similar way but nobody is disputing that Celtic and Italic languages evolved into distinct groups). Then there is a huge amount of missing links and unknown unknowns. e.g. Thracian and Dacian probably were also pretty close to Baltic or Slavic (maybe even closer to Baltic than Slavic is but we don't know enough about them to make any conclusive claims at all... but we at least know these languages existed)
- Tade0 11mo agoPlenty of wrong here, considering Lithuanian and Latvian are utterly unintelligible to slavs, save for loanwords, but Slavic languages between themselves retain some level of intelligibility, which even spawned two competing constructed languages.