Semigallian_language

Semigallian language

Semigallian language

Extinct Baltic language of Semigallia


Semigallian or Zemgalian, was an East Baltic language of the Baltic language sub-family of the Indo-European languages.

Quick Facts Native to, Extinct ...
Distribution of the Baltic tribes, c. 1200 CE (boundaries are approximate)

History

It was spoken in the northern part of Lithuania and southern regions of Latvia in what is known as Semigallia. It is thought that it was extinct by the 16th century, with the assimilation by the Latvians.[1] Semigallian is known only from references to it in documents and texts from before the 16th century.

Phonology

Semigallian shares some phonological similarities to Curonian and, to a lesser extent, Latvian. The Common Baltic /k/, /ɡ/ consonants became /c/, /d͡z/ in their soft varieties in Semigalian. All long vowels and diphthongs at the end of the word in Common Baltic were reduced to simple short vowels in Semigallian.[2]


References

  1. "Zemgalian : Encyclopedia of the Languages of Europe : Blackwell Reference Online". www.blackwellreference.com. Retrieved 2017-06-28.
  2. Babaev, Cyril. "Semigalian language". tied.verbix.com. Retrieved 2017-06-28.

Share this article:

This article uses material from the Wikipedia article Semigallian_language, and is written by contributors. Text is available under a CC BY-SA 4.0 International License; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.