{"history":[],"article":{"id":"12f8b9e7-3caf-4154-9445-e1ad3975127a","title":"Proto-Baltic language","slug":"proto-baltic-language","content":":::summary\n**Name:** Proto-Baltic \n**Altname:** PB, PBl, Common Baltic \n**Region:** [Central](https://bliptext.com/articles/central-europe), [Eastern](https://bliptext.com/articles/eastern-europe) and [Northern Europe](https://bliptext.com/articles/northern-europe) \n**Era:** 3rd m. BC – c. 5th century BC \n**Familycolor:** Indo-European \n**Ancestor:** [Proto-Indo-European](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-indo-european-language) \n**Target:** [Baltic languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/baltic-languages) \n**Ancestor 2:** [Proto-Balto-Slavic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-balto-slavic-language) \n:::\n\n# \n**Proto-Baltic** (**PB**, **PB**l, **Common Baltic**) is the [unattested](https://bliptext.com/articles/attested-language), [reconstructed](https://bliptext.com/articles/linguistic-reconstruction) ancestral [proto-language](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-language) of all [Baltic languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/baltic-languages).\nIt is not attested in writing, but has been partly reconstructed through the [comparative method](https://bliptext.com/articles/comparative-method) by gathering the collected data on attested Baltic and other [Indo-European](https://bliptext.com/articles/indo-european-languages) languages.\nIt represents the common Baltic speech that approximately was spoken between the [3rd millennium BC](https://bliptext.com/articles/3rd-millennium-bc) and ca. [5th century BC](https://bliptext.com/articles/5th-century-bc), after which it began dividing into [West](https://bliptext.com/articles/west-baltic-languages) and [East Baltic](https://bliptext.com/articles/east-baltic-languages) languages.\nProto-Baltic is thought to have been a [fusional language](https://bliptext.com/articles/fusional-language) and is associated with the [Corded Ware](https://bliptext.com/articles/corded-ware-culture) and [Trzciniec](https://bliptext.com/articles/trzciniec-culture) cultures.\nGenerally, Proto-Baltic had a [SOV word order](https://bliptext.com/articles/subject-object-verb-word-order).\nProto-Baltic is said to have possessed certain unique traits, such as turning short [Proto-Indo-European](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-indo-european-language) [vowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/vowel) *o, *a into *a, retaining and further developing the [Proto-Indo-European](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-indo-european-language) ablaut, retaining *m before dental [consonants](https://bliptext.com/articles/consonant), the productivity of the [word stem](https://bliptext.com/articles/word-stem) ē and free [accentuation](https://bliptext.com/articles/stress-linguistics) with two [pitch accents](https://bliptext.com/articles/pitch-accent-language).\nAlso, the [proto-language](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-language) is thought to have had its own set of [diminutive](https://bliptext.com/articles/diminutive) suffixes, identical endings for [verb tenses](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-tense) and [moods](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-mood), [past tense](https://bliptext.com/articles/past-tense) by applying thematic vowels *-ā- and *-ē-, as well as its own [lexicon](https://bliptext.com/articles/lexicon), including [onomastic](https://bliptext.com/articles/onomastics) elements.\n\n# Proto-Baltic area\nBaltic [hydronyms](https://bliptext.com/articles/hydronym) cover a vast area of 860,000 km2 from [Vystula](https://bliptext.com/articles/vistula) River in the west to [Moscow](https://bliptext.com/articles/moscow) in the east and from the [Baltic Sea](https://bliptext.com/articles/baltic-sea) in the north all the way to [Kyiv](https://bliptext.com/articles/kyiv) in the south.\nThe current [Lithuanian](https://bliptext.com/articles/lithuanians) and [Latvian](https://bliptext.com/articles/latvians) lands combined constitute approximately one-sixth of the former Baltic territory.\nSome researchers suggest that in the past Baltic lands from Vystula to [Daugava](https://bliptext.com/articles/daugava) were inhabited by [Baltic Finnic](https://bliptext.com/articles/baltic-finnic-peoples) tribes but they were [assimilated](https://bliptext.com/articles/assimilation-phonology) by the Baltic newcomers later on.\nThere is still an ongoing debate regarding the boundary of hydronyms in the southwest: Lithuanian linguist Simas Karaliūnas believed that practically all of the basins of [Oder](https://bliptext.com/articles/oder) and Vystula Rivers belonged to the Baltic hydronym habitat while German linguist Hermann Schall suggested that Baltic hydronyms could be found much further west all the way to [Elbe](https://bliptext.com/articles/elbe), [Saxony](https://bliptext.com/articles/saxony) and [Rügen](https://bliptext.com/articles/r-gen) island.\nDuring the [2nd](https://bliptext.com/articles/2nd-millennium-bc) and [1st millennium BC](https://bliptext.com/articles/1st-millennium-bc), the [Baltic people](https://bliptext.com/articles/balts) inhabited larger territories than [Germanic](https://bliptext.com/articles/germanic-peoples) and [Slavic](https://bliptext.com/articles/slavs) people did at the time.\nIt is estimated that the Proto-Baltic lands had up to 500,000 people.\nInhabitants of the Proto-Baltic area were surrounded by Germanic people in the west, Slavs in the south and Finno-Ugric people in the north and northeast.\nRussian [philologist](https://bliptext.com/articles/philology) [Vladimir Toporov](https://bliptext.com/articles/vladimir-toporov) believes that during 1000–800 BC [Proto-Germanic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-germanic-language) people began expanding into the western Baltic territory starting from the [Pasłęka](https://bliptext.com/articles/pas-ka) River.\nLater on, the Baltic area began shrinking even more due to the migration of the [Goths](https://bliptext.com/articles/goths).\nDuring the [migration period](https://bliptext.com/articles/migration-period) Slavic people began expanding into the northern and eastern territories of the Balts.\nFrom 11th to 12th century, Russian scriptures mention ongoing battles near Moscow with Eastern [Galindians](https://bliptext.com/articles/galindians).\nSince 1225, the conquests of the [Teutonic Order](https://bliptext.com/articles/teutonic-order) in the current Baltic region intensified and later on resulted in the extinction of the [Old Prussians](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-prussians) in the 18th century.\n# [The prevalence of Baltic hydronyms {{legend|#8FB0FF|Area with many Baltic hydronyms}}{{legend|#B8CCFF|Area with few or questionable Baltic hydronyms|undefined | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/The///prevalence///of///Baltic///hydronyms.png]\n\n# Relationship with other language groups\n# [Suggested early periods of linguistic convergence during the existence of the Proto-Baltic language. | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Baltic///linguistic///convergence///time///scale.svg]\n\n## Slavic languages\nAfter a long-running debate in the 20th century about the exact nature of the relationship between the Baltic and Slavic branches of the Indo-European family, in the 21st century many historical linguists moved firmly in favour of a shared genealogical history between these two branches, both deriving from a common intermediate source, [Proto-Balto-Slavic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-balto-slavic), after the breakup of Proto-Indo-European.\nThose in opposition continue to be sceptical about the nature of such a relationship and are uncertain whether it is even ascertainable.\nWhile Balto-Slavic has been traditionally divided into two main branches, viz.\nBaltic and Slavic, some linguists like [Frederik Kortlandt](https://bliptext.com/articles/frederik-kortlandt) or [Rick Derksen](https://bliptext.com/articles/rick-derksen) proposed that Proto-Balto-Slavic split into three language groups — [East Baltic](https://bliptext.com/articles/east-baltic-languages), [West Baltic](https://bliptext.com/articles/west-baltic-languages) and [Proto-Slavic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-slavic-language) — without a Proto-Baltic stage, which is a view opposed by Miguel Villanueva Svensson and Eugen Hill.\nHistorical linguist [Brian D. Joseph](https://bliptext.com/articles/brian-joseph) argues that in the context of other Indo-European phylogenetic clades, the qualitative evidence for Balto-Slavic is not on par with [Indo-Iranian](https://bliptext.com/articles/indo-iranian-languages), insofar as Balto-Slavic lacks evidence for shared culture (as is also the case for [Italo-Celtic](https://bliptext.com/articles/italo-celtic)).\nOther scholars point out that the [phonology](https://bliptext.com/articles/phonology) and [morphology](https://bliptext.com/articles/morphology-linguistics), which is shared by all known Baltic languages, is much more archaic than that of Proto-Slavic, retaining many features attributed to other attested [Indo-European](https://bliptext.com/articles/indo-european-languages) languages roughly 3000 years ago.\nIt is also known that some Baltic and Slavic languages have more in common that others: [Old Prussian](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-prussian-language) and [Latvian](https://bliptext.com/articles/latvian-language) share more commonalities with Slavic languages than [Lithuanian](https://bliptext.com/articles/lithuanian-language) does.\nSome similarities between Baltic and Slavic can be found on all levels of linguistic analysis, which led German philologist [August Schleicher](https://bliptext.com/articles/august-schleicher) to believe that there was indeed a common point of development.\nFrench linguist [Antoine Meillet](https://bliptext.com/articles/antoine-meillet), however, rejected this idea and claimed that similarities between Baltic and Slavic languages were a result of close contact.\nMeanwhile, Latvian linguist [Jānis Endzelīns](https://bliptext.com/articles/j-nis-endzel-ns) suggested that following the split of PIE, Baltic and Slavic languages evolved independently, but later experienced a common period of greater contact.\n[Jan Michał Rozwadowski](https://bliptext.com/articles/jan-micha-rozwadowski) proposed that the two language groups were indeed a unity after the division of Indo-European, but also suggested that after the two had divided into separate entities (Baltic and Slavic), they had posterior contact.\nRussian linguists [Vladimir Toporov](https://bliptext.com/articles/vladimir-toporov) and [Vyacheslav Ivanov](https://bliptext.com/articles/vyacheslav-ivanov-philologist) believed that Proto-Slavic language formed from the peripheral-type Baltic dialects.\nThus, there are at least six points of view on the relationships between the Baltic and Slavic languages.\n# [Various schematic sketches of possible Balto-Slavic language relationships. | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Balto-Slavic///theories///2.svg]\n\n## Germanic languages\nThere is some vocabulary (about 60 words) that Baltic and [Germanic languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/germanic-languages) share, excluding [loanwords](https://bliptext.com/articles/loanword).\nCommon vocabulary mostly includes words relating to work, equipment, [agriculture](https://bliptext.com/articles/agriculture) etc., such as Proto-Baltic *darbas, meaning 'work' and [Proto-Germanic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-germanic-language) *derbaz, meaning 'bold, determined, strong' < *derbaną 'to work', Proto-Baltic *derṷā and [Proto-Germanic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-germanic-language) *terwą, meaning 'tar, resin', Proto-Baltic *gāmurii̯as and [Proto-Germanic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-germanic-language) *gōmô, meaning '[palate](https://bliptext.com/articles/palate)'.\nBaltic and Germanic languages also share [numeral](https://bliptext.com/articles/numeral-linguistics) formation for 11 to 19, both partially possess the same formation of verbs in [past tense](https://bliptext.com/articles/past-tense) ([ablaut](https://bliptext.com/articles/indo-european-ablaut)), absence of the [aorist](https://bliptext.com/articles/aorist).\nAccording to German linguist Wolfgang P. Schmid, at first Proto-Baltic was a [centum language](https://bliptext.com/articles/centum-and-satem-languages) along with Proto-Germanic, but it eventually became satem later on.\nSome scholars believe that Baltic and Germanic contacts are older than those with Slavic languages while others claim the opposite.\nAccording to Lithuanian linguist Saulius Ambrazas, [Germanic people](https://bliptext.com/articles/germanic-peoples) borrowed certain suffixes from their Baltic neighbours, such as *-ing-, *-isko-, *-ō-men- (e.g. [Old High German](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-high-german): arming 'poor person', [Old Icelandic](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-norse): bernska 'childhood', [Gothic](https://bliptext.com/articles/gothic-language): aldōmin ([Dative case](https://bliptext.com/articles/dative-case)) 'senility').\nBoth Baltic and Germanic emotional verbs possess similar semantic development, which is evinced by roots like *dhers- and *dreǵh-.\nThis semantic group is also noted for having exclusive [isoglosses](https://bliptext.com/articles/isogloss) (e.g. PIE: *dreǵh-, *dherbh-, *u̯rengh-, *peḱ-), though they differ in meaning.\nSimas Karaliūnas suggested that in the 3rd millennium BC Germanic and Baltic languages shared a common phase of linguistic convergence and that Baltic dialects were initially closer to the Germanic dialects than Slavic ones.\nHe noted that although Germanic languages possess more lexical commonalities with Slavic languages, Baltic and Germanic groups share a greater number of grammatical innovations.\nThis is evinced by the possession of *-mo- (e.g. Lithuanian: pirmas, Gothic: fruma, Old English: forma), second consanguineous component (cf. Lithuanian: vie-nuo-lika, dvy-lika, Gothic: ain-lif, twa-lif, Old High German: ein-lif, zwei-lif), identical dual number pronouns in first and second person (cf. Lithuanian: vedu, Gothic: wit < *ṷo-dṷō- ‘I lead’; Lithuanian: judu, Gothic: jut < *i̭u-dṷō- ‘I move’), common grammatical constructions to describe natural phenomenons (cf. Lithuanian: sniegas drimba, Latvian: sniegs drēbj, Old Icelandic: drift snaer ‘snow is falling down’) and resemblance of comparative degree prefixe -esnis to its corresponding Germanic counterpart (cf. Gothic: -izan).\n\n## Finnic languages\nThe linguistic influences of [Baltic Finnic languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/finnic-languages), which are associated with the eastern Baltic area, can be observed in certain grammatical innovations, such as the merger of some cases with [postpositions](https://bliptext.com/articles/preposition-and-postposition), thus forming new additional cases (postpositional locatives): [inessive](https://bliptext.com/articles/inessive-case) *šakāi + en > *šakāi̯en 'in the branch', [illative](https://bliptext.com/articles/illative-case) *šakān + nā > *šakānā 'into the branch', [adessive](https://bliptext.com/articles/adessive-case) *šakāi + prei > *šakāip(r)ei '(to be) by the branch' and [allative](https://bliptext.com/articles/allative-case) *šakās + prei > *šakāsp(r)ei '(get closer) to the branch'.\nThe impact of the Finnic languages over Baltic languages also explains the widespread use of a non-[agreed](https://bliptext.com/articles/agreement-linguistics) [modifier](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-modifier) expressed by the [genitive](https://bliptext.com/articles/genitive-case) of a [noun](https://bliptext.com/articles/noun) (, literally 'language of the Latvians') in contrast to other Indo-European languages that usually apply an [agreed](https://bliptext.com/articles/agreement-linguistics) [modifier](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-modifier) expressed by an [adjective](https://bliptext.com/articles/adjective) ( 'Latvian language') as well as the usage of [indirect mood](https://bliptext.com/articles/lithuanian-grammar) when one is retelling an event without knowing whether it actually happened.\nIn turn, Baltic Finnic languages have many borrowings from the Baltic languages.\nBaltic languages accelerated [diphthongization](https://bliptext.com/articles/diphthong) in these languages, the impact of the Baltic languages explains compound forms of the past tense ( 'I have read', 'I had read' cf., buvau skaitęs), development of the agreed modifier not found in other [Uralic languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/uralic-languages) ( 'big city' ([Nominative case](https://bliptext.com/articles/nominative-case)), 'of the big city' ([Genitive case](https://bliptext.com/articles/genitive-case)), 'towards the big city; for the big city' ([Allative case](https://bliptext.com/articles/allative-case)) cf. , didelio miesto, dideliam miestui), fortifying suffix -pa / -pä ( 'even, as much as', '(but) also, (but) even', 'maybe, if' cf. 'and, as well as', [Prussian](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-prussian-language): bhe 'and') etc.\n\n# Phonetics and phonology\n\n## Vowels and diphthongs\nThe vowels of Proto-Baltic changed little in comparison to PIE: short vowels *a and *o coincided into a single *a while the [reduced](https://bliptext.com/articles/vowel-reduction) Indo-European vowel [schwa](https://bliptext.com/articles/schwa) primum (*ə) also turned into *a as it did in other Indo-European languages of Europe and it ceased to exist in the middle of words.\nAccording to the proponents of the [Laryngeal theory](https://bliptext.com/articles/laryngeal-theory), the schwa primum appeared by turning laryngeals into vowels, which makes its reconstruction for PIE unnecessary and obsolete.\nThere were four short and five long vowels as well as four short and six long [diphthongs](https://bliptext.com/articles/diphthong) as presented below:\nVowels *a, *e, *i, *u together with [sonorants](https://bliptext.com/articles/sonorant) *r, *l, *m, *n of Proto-Baltic were used to form mixed diphthongs as they are being used in the modern Baltic languages today.\nIt is also well known that there were mixed diphthongs with long vowels at the endings.\nLong diphthongs can be reconstructed when [glottaling](https://bliptext.com/articles/glottalization) (e.g. PIE: *pl̥h₁nós 'full' > Proto-Baltic: *pī́ˀlnas 'full'), compared to PIE, the position of [stress](https://bliptext.com/articles/stress-linguistics) in the example is conditioned by [Hirt's law](https://bliptext.com/articles/hirt-s-law).\nLong mixed diphthongs, which position in the [morpheme](https://bliptext.com/articles/morpheme) is hardly determined or their existence is questionable are presented in Italic:\n\n## Consonants\nThe consonants of Proto-Baltic experienced greater changes than primary vowels when in their primordial condition.\nPIE aspirated and labialized velar consonants (*bʰ, *dʰ, *gʰ, *gu̯, *gu̯ʰ, *ku̯) in Proto-Baltic coincided with plain consonants (*b, *d, *g, *k) as they did in some other Indo-European languages.\nHowever, at the early stages of development, the differences between plain and aspirated voiced plosives might have been retained.\nThis is because before the plain voiced plosives the vowels were lengthened, which is not the case with the aspirated voiced ones ([Winter's law](https://bliptext.com/articles/winter-s-law)).\nThe Proto-Baltic was a satem language, PIE *ḱ turned into *š, PIE *ǵ and PIE *ǵʰ turned into *ž.\nThe sonorants of PIE *ṛ, *ḷ, *ṃ, *ṇ, which were used as vowels and could form a [syllable](https://bliptext.com/articles/syllable), turned into mixed diphthongs *ir, *il, *im, *in (in rarer cases—*ur, *ul, *um, *un) in Proto-Baltic.\nThese diphthongs alternated (had an [ablaut](https://bliptext.com/articles/indo-european-ablaut)) with *er (*ēr), *el (*ēl), *em (*ēm), *en (*ēn) and *ar (*ōr), *al (*ōl), *am (*ōm), *an (*ōn).\nOne of the unique properties of Baltic languages is the disappearance of the semivowel *i̯ between a consonant and a front vowel (e.g. *žemi̯ē > *žemē 'earth').\nAnother noteworthy trait of Proto-Baltic is the retained intact *m existing before front dental consonants *t, *d, *s (e.g. *šimtan 'hundred', *kimdai 'gloves', *tamsā 'darkness'), which in other Indo-European languages turned into n.\nHowever, unlike in [Italic](https://bliptext.com/articles/italic-languages) or [Indo-Iranian](https://bliptext.com/articles/indo-iranian-languages) languages, in Proto-Baltic *m and *ṃ would become *n at the very end of a word.\n\n## Stress and pitch accent\nIn the Proto-Baltic language, the [stress](https://bliptext.com/articles/stress-linguistics) could be placed on any [syllable](https://bliptext.com/articles/syllable), the [stress](https://bliptext.com/articles/stress-linguistics) was free, unfixed.\nAccording to the movement of stress, three possible variants of accent system are reconstructed: 1) a system with baritone accentuation (stress on the stem) and oxytonic accentuation (stress on the endings), 2) a system with baritone accentuation and mobile accentuation (stress moves from endings to the stem), 3) a system with the baritone, mobile and oxytonic accentuations.\nThere were two [pitch accents](https://bliptext.com/articles/pitch-accent-language), an [acute](https://bliptext.com/articles/acute-accent) (´) and a [circumflex](https://bliptext.com/articles/circumflex) (˜), which were pronounced with pure and mixed [diphthongs](https://bliptext.com/articles/diphthong) and long [vowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/vowel).\nPitch accents could be pronounced both in the stems and in the endings.\nThe acute pitch had a rising intonation, while the circumflex pitch had a falling intonation.\nSome scientists ([Zigmas Zinkevičius](https://bliptext.com/articles/zigmas-zinkevi-ius), Vytautas Kardelis, Vytautas Rinkevičius (1981) etc.) believe that pitch accents were pronounced both in stressed and unstressed syllables, for example *'rãnkā́ 'hand' (stress placed on the first syllable, although both syllables had different pitch accents).\n\n# Morphology\n\n## Nouns\nThe [noun](https://bliptext.com/articles/noun) of Proto-Baltic possessed very [archaic](https://bliptext.com/articles/archaic-linguistics) traits—the endings were not being shortened and were close to the endings of PIE.\nIt had three grammatical categories: [gender](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-gender) (masculine, feminine and neuter), [number](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-number) (singular, [dual](https://bliptext.com/articles/dual-grammatical-number) and [plural](https://bliptext.com/articles/plural)) and seven cases: [nominative](https://bliptext.com/articles/nominative-case), [genitive](https://bliptext.com/articles/genitive-case), [dative](https://bliptext.com/articles/dative-case), [accusative](https://bliptext.com/articles/accusative-case), [instrumental](https://bliptext.com/articles/instrumental), [locative](https://bliptext.com/articles/locative-case) and [vocative](https://bliptext.com/articles/vocative-case) with three different [dual](https://bliptext.com/articles/dual-grammatical-number) case forms.\nIn comparison to the PIE reconstruction, Proto-Baltic only failed to retain the [ablative](https://bliptext.com/articles/ablative-case) and [allative](https://bliptext.com/articles/allative-case) cases.\nNeuter gender was only retained by [Old Prussian](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-prussian-language) while in [Latvian](https://bliptext.com/articles/latvian-language) and [Lithuanian](https://bliptext.com/articles/lithuanian-language) it ceased to exist.\nThat said, other neuter forms of inflected words such as [adjectives](https://bliptext.com/articles/adjective), [participles](https://bliptext.com/articles/participle), [pronouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/pronoun) and [numerals](https://bliptext.com/articles/numeral-linguistics) remained in Lithuanian.\n*ā-stem and *ē-stem nouns were feminine, *o-stem nouns basically were masculine and neuter, *s-stem nouns were neuter, *r-stem nouns―masculine and feminine while other noun stems could refer to all three genders.\nUnlike feminine and masculine nouns, neuter ones always had the same form for the nominative, accusative, and vocative cases.\nThis form distinguished neuter nouns from masculine and feminine ones belonging to the same stem.\nMasculine and feminine nouns of the same stem had identical endings, and the grammatical gender was indicated by gender-changing words (pronouns, adjectives, participles, etc.) used with nouns: *labas anglis 'a good coal' (masculine), *labā au̯is 'a good sheep' (feminine), *laba(n) mari 'a good sea' (neuter).\nBecause of the disappearance of the semivowel *i̯ between a consonant and a front vowel, neuter *i-stem words had changes *mari̯ī > *marī 'two seas', *aru̯i̯ī > *aru̯ī 'two suitable ones' in dual.\n\n### *o-stem nouns\n\n### *ā-stem nouns\n*rankā 'hand' < PBS *ránkāˀ < PIE *wrónkeh₂ (> Lith. rankà, Ltv. ròka, Pruss. ranko [written as \"rancko\"]; cognate with the Lith. verb riñkti)\n\n### *ē-stem nouns\n*žemē 'earth' < PBS *źémē < pre-BS *ǵʰem-m̥ (> Lith. žẽmė, Ltv. zeme, Pruss. zemē [written as \"semme\"])\n\n### *i-stem nouns\n\n### *u-stem nouns\n\n### *r-stem nouns\n\n### *n-stem nouns\n\n### *l-stem nouns\n*ābō 'apple-tree' < [PBS](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-balto-slavic-language) *ā́ˀbōl [apple] < [PIE](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-indo-european-language) *h₂ébōl (> [Lith.](https://bliptext.com/articles/lithuanian-language) obelis, [Ltv.](https://bliptext.com/articles/latvian-language) ābele, [Pruss.](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-prussian-language) wobalne)\n\n### *s-stem nouns\n*nebas 'cloud' < [PBS](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-balto-slavic-language) *néba < [PIE](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-indo-european-language) *nébʰos (> [Old Lith.](https://bliptext.com/articles/lithuanian-language) dẽbesis [f.], [Ltv.](https://bliptext.com/articles/latvian-language) debess [f.])\n\n### Root nouns\n\n## Adjectives\nUnlike the noun, the [adjective](https://bliptext.com/articles/adjective) used to be alternated using a gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), which was then adapted to the corresponding gender of the noun.\nAdjectives had three [degrees](https://bliptext.com/articles/comparison-grammar): positive (no suffix: masculine *labas, neuter *laban, feminine *labā 'good'), comparative (suffix *-es-: masculine *labesis, neuter *labesi, feminine *labesē 'better') and superlative (suffix *-im-: masculine *labimas, neuter *labiman, feminine *labimā 'the best').\nThey had singular, [dual](https://bliptext.com/articles/dual-grammatical-number) and [plural](https://bliptext.com/articles/plural) numbers as they were applied to adjectives for combining them with nouns.\nThe vocative case usually concurred with the nominative one.\nAs in the case of noun [paradigms](https://bliptext.com/articles/paradigm), there were *i̯o- (fem. *i̯ā-) and *ii̯o- (fem. *ē-) stem variants next to the *o-stem adjectives.\nFeminine gender forms were constructed with the *ā-stem while the feminine forms with the *i̯ā-stem (sing. nom. *-ī) were constructed with the *u-stem adjectives.\nThe feminine gender of the masculine and neuter genders for the *i-stem probably resulted with *i̯ā- or *ē-stems.\nHowever, the reconstruction of the later is difficult as the *i-stem adjectives in the current Baltic languages were poorly preserved.\n\n### *o-stem, *ā-stem adjectives\n*labas 'good' < [PBS](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-balto-slavic-language) *labas < perhaps [PIE](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-indo-european-language) *labʰos (> [Lith](https://bliptext.com/articles/lithuanian-language). lãbas, [Latv](https://bliptext.com/articles/latvian-language). labs, [Prus](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-prussian-language). labs)\n\n### *u-stem, *i̯ā-stem adjectives\n*platus 'wide' < [PBS](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-balto-slavic-language) *platús < [PIE](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-indo-european-language) *pléth₂us (> [Lith](https://bliptext.com/articles/lithuanian-language). platus, [Latv](https://bliptext.com/articles/latvian-language). plats, [Prus](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-prussian-language). plat-)\n\n### *i-stem, *ē-stem adjectives\n*aru̯is 'suitable' < [PBS](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-balto-slavic-language) *arwis (> [Lith](https://bliptext.com/articles/lithuanian-language). arvis or arvas, then displaced by tinkamas, linked to the verb tikti; [Prus](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-prussian-language). arwis \"true, correct\", and [PS](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-slavic-language) *orvьnъ \"straight, even\" > [Rus](https://bliptext.com/articles/russian-language). ровный)\n\n## Verbs\nThe reconstruction of the verb of Proto-Baltic is mostly based on the collected data on the East Baltic languages, as the verb system in [Old Prussian](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-prussian-language) is poorly attested.\nThe reconstructed verb system is attributed to the later stages of linguistic development.\nUnlike other parts of speech, the verb of Proto-Baltic experienced a lot of changes—the grammatical mood, tense and voice systems that came from PIE changed.\nFor instance, from the former Proto-Indo-European tenses—the [present](https://bliptext.com/articles/present-tense), the [aorist](https://bliptext.com/articles/aorist), the [perfect](https://bliptext.com/articles/perfect-grammar)—only the [present](https://bliptext.com/articles/present-tense) was preserved by Proto-Baltic in addition to the sigmatic [future](https://bliptext.com/articles/future-tense), which by some researchers is considered to be an inheritance from late PIE.\nIn PIE there were four moods: [indicative](https://bliptext.com/articles/realis-mood), [subjunctive](https://bliptext.com/articles/subjunctive-mood), [optative](https://bliptext.com/articles/optative-mood) and [imperative](https://bliptext.com/articles/imperative-mood).\nIn Proto-Baltic, indicative remained but subjunctive was changed by the newly formed [conditional mood](https://bliptext.com/articles/conditional-mood).\nMeanwhile, imperative gained forms from optative.\nPIE also had two verb voices – [active](https://bliptext.com/articles/active-voice) and [middle](https://bliptext.com/articles/voice-grammar).\nThe latter was changed with [reflexive verbs](https://bliptext.com/articles/reflexive-verb) in Proto-Baltic.\nNew types of verb form (the analytical [perfect](https://bliptext.com/articles/perfect-grammar) and the plu[perfect](https://bliptext.com/articles/perfect-grammar)) and the analytical [passive voice](https://bliptext.com/articles/passive-voice) were created.\nThe most archaic trait of Proto-Baltic is the retained [athematic conjugation](https://bliptext.com/articles/mi-verbs).\nIn the first and second person forms, Proto-Baltic had preserved the three numbers from PIE (singular, dual and plural), while in third person, number was not distinguished.\nThe verb of the Proto-Baltic had three basic stems, i.e. the stems of the present tense, past tense and the [infinitive](https://bliptext.com/articles/infinitive).\nAll forms of the verb were based on those stems.\nFor example, the stems of the verb 'to carry' were *neša-, *nešē-, *neš-; the stems of the verb 'to sit' were *sēdi-, *sēdējā-, *sēdē-.\nCompared to Lith.\nnẽša 'he carrys', nẽšė 'he carried', nèšti 'to carry'; sė́di 'he sits', sėdė́jo 'he sat', sėdė́ti 'to sit'.\n\n### Conjugation\n[CH. Stang](https://bliptext.com/articles/christian-stang) identifies the following conjugations of verbs in the present tense: athematic, thematic (*o-stem verbs) and semi-thematic (*i-stem and *ā-stem verbs).\nThe future tense was formed using the *-s- / -*si- suffix attached to the infinitive stem, and because of the *-si- suffix, all future tense verbs were conjugated with the *i-stem.\nThe past tense had *ā- and *ē-stems.\nWith a few exceptions (1st sg. [conditional](https://bliptext.com/articles/conditional-mood) *rinkti̯ā 'I would gather'; 3rd [imperative](https://bliptext.com/articles/imperative-mood), the same in all numbers; 2nd sg. [imperative](https://bliptext.com/articles/imperative-mood)), all verb endings were borrowed from the present tense.\n\n### Infinitive\nIn Proto-Baltic the [infinitive](https://bliptext.com/articles/infinitive) was created with suffixes *-tei, *-tēi, *-ti: *eitei, *-tēi, *-ti 'go', *darītei, *-tēi, *-ti 'do'.\nThe infinitive comes from the singular nominal of the word stem ti in its dative (*mirtei 'for death') and locative (*mirtēi 'in death'; consonant stem —*darānti 'in doing' (active participle, masculine–neuter) form. In Lithuanian, the relationship between the infinitive and dative can sometimes be observed to this day (e.g. kėdė yra sėdėti / sėdėjimui 'the chair is for sitting', ne metas liūdėti / liūdėjimui 'no time for sadness').\n\n### Supine\nIn Proto-Baltic the [supine](https://bliptext.com/articles/supine) was created with suffixes *-tun < PIE *-tum: *eitun, *darītun.\nThis verb form is unconjugated and was used together with the verbs of movement to express the [adverbials](https://bliptext.com/articles/adverbial) of a purpose or an intention.\nThe supine comes from the singular nominal of the word stem tu in its [accusative](https://bliptext.com/articles/accusative-case) form (*leitun 'rain').\nThe connection can be observed in the existing dialects of the current Baltic languages and is considered to be inherited from PIE as the supine can be found in other Indo-European languages as well.\n\n### Aspect\n[Aspect](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-aspect) (e.g. [imperfective](https://bliptext.com/articles/im[perfective](https://bliptext.com/articles/perfective-aspect)-aspect) aspect 'I was gathering' vs. [perfective](https://bliptext.com/articles/perfective-aspect) aspect 'I had gathered') might have been unusual to Proto-Baltic, as [aorist](https://bliptext.com/articles/aorist) tense, which was used to express a [perfective](https://bliptext.com/articles/perfective-aspect) aspect of a process in contrast to the [present tense](https://bliptext.com/articles/present-tense) used to express the [imperfective](https://bliptext.com/articles/im[perfective](https://bliptext.com/articles/perfective-aspect)-aspect) aspect, fell out of use.\n\n### Participle\nProto-Baltic had [active](https://bliptext.com/articles/active-voice) and [passive](https://bliptext.com/articles/passive-voice) voice [participles](https://bliptext.com/articles/participle).\nTraditionally, it is believed that active voice participles already existed in PIE.\nParticiples were [declined](https://bliptext.com/articles/declension) the same way as the [nominals](https://bliptext.com/articles/nominal-linguistics).\nThe vocative case probably coincided with the nominative one.\nThe participle had three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter), numbers (singular, [dual](https://bliptext.com/articles/dual-grammatical-number), [plural](https://bliptext.com/articles/plural)) and tenses ([present](https://bliptext.com/articles/present-tense), [future](https://bliptext.com/articles/future-tense), [past](https://bliptext.com/articles/past-tense)).\nActive participles were used to express a specific trait of an object that arises as a result of their own doing while passive participles were meant to express a specific trait of an object that arises as a result of someone else taking action.\nPresent participles of the verbs *rinktei 'gather, collect', *turētei 'have', *laikītei 'hold':\nFuture participles of the verbs *būtei 'be', *turētei 'have':\nPast participles of the verbs *būtei 'be', *turētei 'have', *laikītei 'hold':\n\n## Pronouns\nThe inflexions of PIE were already different significantly in comparison to [nominals](https://bliptext.com/articles/nominal-linguistics).\nAs in the case of PIE, the [demonstrative](https://bliptext.com/articles/demonstrative) pronouns of Proto-Baltic could indicate three levels of varying distance from the speaker: close range *šis and *is, distant range *anas, and unspecified range *tas.\nThe latter demonstrative pronoun, which had three grammatical genders, was the equivalent to the third-person.\nThere were two [personal pronouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/personal-pronoun), they had no grammatical gender — *ež (*eš) 'I' and *tu / *tū 'you', which possessed [suppletive](https://bliptext.com/articles/suppletion) inflexion forms preserved from PIE.\nThe [reflexive pronoun](https://bliptext.com/articles/reflexive-pronoun) *seu̯e 'oneself' only had a singular form without the nominative as it does in the current Baltic languages.\nThe singular forms of the pronoun *seu̯e were also used with dual and plural objects, i.e. the singular also served as dual and plural.\nDutch Professor [Frederik Kortlandt](https://bliptext.com/articles/frederik-kortlandt) believed that only the oldest and non-renewed pronoun forms should be reconstructed in Proto-Baltic language while Lithuanian linguist-historian Professor [Zigmas Zinkevičius](https://bliptext.com/articles/zigmas-zinkevi-ius) believed older pronoun forms only existed at the earliest stages of Proto-Baltic.\n\n### Personal pronouns\nDemonstrative pronoun *tas was the equivalent to the third person.\n\n### Reflexive pronoun\n\n### Interrogrative pronouns\nThere were two [interrogative pronouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/interrogative-word)—masculine *kat[a/e]ras, neuter *kat[a/e]ra, feminine *kat[a/e]rā, all meaning 'which', and masculine–feminine *kas, neuter *ka, meaning 'who, what'.\nThe latter was used as a [relative pronoun](https://bliptext.com/articles/relative-pronoun) in compound sentences.\nAccording to Zigmas Zinkevičius, relative pronouns had all three genders, and [Vytautas Mažiulis](https://bliptext.com/articles/vytautas-ma-iulis) believed pronoun *kas had the feminine form *kā when it was used as a relative pronoun.\nInterrogative and relative pronouns were inflected the same way as the demonstrative pronoun *tas.\n\n### Indefinite pronouns\n[Indefinite pronouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/indefinite-pronoun), such as masculine *kitas, neuter *kita, feminine *kitā, meaning 'other', or masculine *u̯isas, neuter *u̯isa, feminine *u̯isā, meaning 'all, entire, whole', were also inflected as the pronoun *tas.\n\n### Possessive pronouns\n[Possessive](https://bliptext.com/articles/possessive) pronouns indicate divisions between Baltic dialects: the western [areal](https://bliptext.com/articles/areal-feature) would have forms, such as the masculine *mai̯as, neuter *mai̯a, feminine *mai̯ā 'mine'; masculine *tu̯ai̯as, neuter *tu̯ai̯a, feminine *tu̯ai̯ā 'yours'; masculine *su̯ai̯as, neuter *su̯ai̯a, feminine *su̯ai̯ā 'oneself'.\nIn comparison, the eastern areal would possess forms like the masculine *menas, neuter *mena, feminine *menā; masculine *teu̯as, neuter *teu̯a, feminine *teu̯ā; masculine *seu̯as, neuter *seu̯a, feminine *seu̯ā, respectively.\nThese pronouns would be inflected as other gendered pronouns, although they could have been used only in their genitive form.\nThe eigenvalue of plural and dual possessive pronouns was possibly expressed in the genitive case of plural personal pronouns (e.g. *nōsōn (→*nūsōn) 'ours', *ṷōsōn (→*i̯ūsōn) 'yours').\nWestern Baltic pronouns masculine *su̯ai̯as, neuter *su̯ai̯a, feminine *su̯ai̯ā 'oneself', Eastern Baltic ones masculine *seu̯as, neuter *seu̯a, feminine *seu̯ā 'oneself' could be used with all persons.\nThe equivalent of third person possessive pronoun was the genitive case of the\ndemonstrative pronoun *tas, which had three numbers and genders.\n\n## Numerals\n\n### Cardinal numbers\nCardinal number 6 has three different reflexes in the Balto-Slavic languages: one in Latvian and pre-Lithuanian, another one in [Old Prussian](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-prussian-language) and a final one in [Proto-Slavic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-slavic-language).\nHence, number 6 in PBS had either two or three versions: one version with a reflex in Proto-Slavic and either one single version or two different versions with two reflexes in PB.\nThe hypothetical form of number 6 in PBS with medial *-w- is reconstructed by [Vytautas Mažiulis](https://bliptext.com/articles/vytautas-ma-iulis) (2004).\n[Numerals](https://bliptext.com/articles/numeral-linguistics) in Proto-Baltic, except for 'two', had noun endings: *ainas / *einas (PIE: *h₁óynos) 'one' was inflected the same way as noun word stems o (masculine and neuter) and ā (feminine), this numeral had a singular, dual and plural number;\nmasculine *d(u)u̯ō (PIE: *dwóh₁) and feminine-neuter *d(u)u̯ai (PIE: *dwóy(h₁)) 'two' was inflected as a demonstrative pronoun dual;\n*trii̯es (masc. PIE: *tréyes) 'three' was inflected as a plural noun with the word stem i and was common for all genders;\neventually, *ketures (masc. PIE: *kʷetwóres) 'four' was inflected as a plural noun with the consonant word stem r and was also the same for all three genders.\nProto-Baltic people applied the principles for *ketures (PIE: *kʷetwóres) 'four' inflexion to numerals *penkes (PIE: *pénkʷe) 'five', *ušes / *sešes < *su̯ešes (PIE:*(s)wéḱs) 'six', *septines (PIE: *septḿ̥) 'seven', *aštōnes (PIE: *(h₁)oḱtṓw) 'eight' and *neu̯ines (PIE: *h₁néwn̥) 'nine'.\nIn PIE, numerals from five to nine were not inflected.\nThe early Proto-Baltic might have retained the uninflected numeral forms of *su̯eš, *septin 'seven', *aštō 'eight', *neu̯in 'nine' as well.\nThe reconstruction of Latvian language indicates that *septines 'seven' and *neu̯ines 'nine' with the short *i is plausible.\nThe numeral 10, *dešimts (PIE *deḱmt- < *deḱṃ), was declined as the root noun and had all three numbers.\n\n### Ordinal numbers\nThe masculine and neuter [ordinal numbers](https://bliptext.com/articles/ordinal-number) were inflected as nouns possessing word stem o while feminine ones were inflected as nouns with word stem ā.\nOrdinal number 6 has two reflexes in the Baltic Languages from PBS; these two reflexes could have come from either two different form in PBS or a single form; the hypothetical single form, with medial *-w-, is reconstructed by [Vytautas Mažiulis](https://bliptext.com/articles/vytautas-ma-iulis) (2004).\nOrdinal numbers from first to tenth in Proto-Baltic were as follows:","current_revision":null,"created_by":"kACnuQmH5k9Nr5VNVEpVeg7XpvUmMctD","created_at":"2025-01-25T22:02:01.866Z","updated_at":"2025-01-25T22:02:01.866Z","search_vector":"'baltic':3 'languag':4 'proto':2 'proto-balt':1","search_content":" \n**Name:** Proto-Baltic \n**Altname:** PB, PBl, Common Baltic \n**Region:** [Central](https://bliptext.com/articles/central-europe), [Eastern](https://bliptext.com/articles/eastern-europe) and [Northern Europe](https://bliptext.com/articles/northern-europe) \n**Era:** 3rd m. BC – c. 5th century BC \n**Familycolor:** Indo-European \n**Ancestor:** [Proto-Indo-European](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-indo-european-language) \n**Target:** [Baltic languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/baltic-languages) \n**Ancestor 2:** [Proto-Balto-Slavic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-balto-slavic-language) \n \n\n# \n**Proto-Baltic** (**PB**, **PB**l, **Common Baltic**) is the [unattested](https://bliptext.com/articles/attested-language), [reconstructed](https://bliptext.com/articles/linguistic-reconstruction) ancestral [proto-language](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-language) of all [Baltic languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/baltic-languages).\nIt is not attested in writing, but has been partly reconstructed through the [comparative method](https://bliptext.com/articles/comparative-method) by gathering the collected data on attested Baltic and other [Indo-European](https://bliptext.com/articles/indo-european-languages) languages.\nIt represents the common Baltic speech that approximately was spoken between the [3rd millennium BC](https://bliptext.com/articles/3rd-millennium-bc) and ca. [5th century BC](https://bliptext.com/articles/5th-century-bc), after which it began dividing into [West](https://bliptext.com/articles/west-baltic-languages) and [East Baltic](https://bliptext.com/articles/east-baltic-languages) languages.\nProto-Baltic is thought to have been a [fusional language](https://bliptext.com/articles/fusional-language) and is associated with the [Corded Ware](https://bliptext.com/articles/corded-ware-culture) and [Trzciniec](https://bliptext.com/articles/trzciniec-culture) cultures.\nGenerally, Proto-Baltic had a [SOV word order](https://bliptext.com/articles/subject-object-verb-word-order).\nProto-Baltic is said to have possessed certain unique traits, such as turning short [Proto-Indo-European](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-indo-european-language) [vowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/vowel) *o, *a into *a, retaining and further developing the [Proto-Indo-European](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-indo-european-language) ablaut, retaining *m before dental [consonants](https://bliptext.com/articles/consonant), the productivity of the [word stem](https://bliptext.com/articles/word-stem) ē and free [accentuation](https://bliptext.com/articles/stress-linguistics) with two [pitch accents](https://bliptext.com/articles/pitch-accent-language).\nAlso, the [proto-language](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-language) is thought to have had its own set of [diminutive](https://bliptext.com/articles/diminutive) suffixes, identical endings for [verb tenses](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-tense) and [moods](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-mood), [past tense](https://bliptext.com/articles/past-tense) by applying thematic vowels *-ā- and *-ē-, as well as its own [lexicon](https://bliptext.com/articles/lexicon), including [onomastic](https://bliptext.com/articles/onomastics) elements.\n\n# Proto-Baltic area\nBaltic [hydronyms](https://bliptext.com/articles/hydronym) cover a vast area of 860,000 km2 from [Vystula](https://bliptext.com/articles/vistula) River in the west to [Moscow](https://bliptext.com/articles/moscow) in the east and from the [Baltic Sea](https://bliptext.com/articles/baltic-sea) in the north all the way to [Kyiv](https://bliptext.com/articles/kyiv) in the south.\nThe current [Lithuanian](https://bliptext.com/articles/lithuanians) and [Latvian](https://bliptext.com/articles/latvians) lands combined constitute approximately one-sixth of the former Baltic territory.\nSome researchers suggest that in the past Baltic lands from Vystula to [Daugava](https://bliptext.com/articles/daugava) were inhabited by [Baltic Finnic](https://bliptext.com/articles/baltic-finnic-peoples) tribes but they were [assimilated](https://bliptext.com/articles/assimilation-phonology) by the Baltic newcomers later on.\nThere is still an ongoing debate regarding the boundary of hydronyms in the southwest: Lithuanian linguist Simas Karaliūnas believed that practically all of the basins of [Oder](https://bliptext.com/articles/oder) and Vystula Rivers belonged to the Baltic hydronym habitat while German linguist Hermann Schall suggested that Baltic hydronyms could be found much further west all the way to [Elbe](https://bliptext.com/articles/elbe), [Saxony](https://bliptext.com/articles/saxony) and [Rügen](https://bliptext.com/articles/r-gen) island.\nDuring the [2nd](https://bliptext.com/articles/2nd-millennium-bc) and [1st millennium BC](https://bliptext.com/articles/1st-millennium-bc), the [Baltic people](https://bliptext.com/articles/balts) inhabited larger territories than [Germanic](https://bliptext.com/articles/germanic-peoples) and [Slavic](https://bliptext.com/articles/slavs) people did at the time.\nIt is estimated that the Proto-Baltic lands had up to 500,000 people.\nInhabitants of the Proto-Baltic area were surrounded by Germanic people in the west, Slavs in the south and Finno-Ugric people in the north and northeast.\nRussian [philologist](https://bliptext.com/articles/philology) [Vladimir Toporov](https://bliptext.com/articles/vladimir-toporov) believes that during 1000–800 BC [Proto-Germanic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-germanic-language) people began expanding into the western Baltic territory starting from the [Pasłęka](https://bliptext.com/articles/pas-ka) River.\nLater on, the Baltic area began shrinking even more due to the migration of the [Goths](https://bliptext.com/articles/goths).\nDuring the [migration period](https://bliptext.com/articles/migration-period) Slavic people began expanding into the northern and eastern territories of the Balts.\nFrom 11th to 12th century, Russian scriptures mention ongoing battles near Moscow with Eastern [Galindians](https://bliptext.com/articles/galindians).\nSince 1225, the conquests of the [Teutonic Order](https://bliptext.com/articles/teutonic-order) in the current Baltic region intensified and later on resulted in the extinction of the [Old Prussians](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-prussians) in the 18th century.\n# [The prevalence of Baltic hydronyms {{legend|#8FB0FF|Area with many Baltic hydronyms}}{{legend|#B8CCFF|Area with few or questionable Baltic hydronyms|undefined | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/3/3e/The///prevalence///of///Baltic///hydronyms.png]\n\n# Relationship with other language groups\n# [Suggested early periods of linguistic convergence during the existence of the Proto-Baltic language. | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/7/7a/Baltic///linguistic///convergence///time///scale.svg]\n\n## Slavic languages\nAfter a long-running debate in the 20th century about the exact nature of the relationship between the Baltic and Slavic branches of the Indo-European family, in the 21st century many historical linguists moved firmly in favour of a shared genealogical history between these two branches, both deriving from a common intermediate source, [Proto-Balto-Slavic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-balto-slavic), after the breakup of Proto-Indo-European.\nThose in opposition continue to be sceptical about the nature of such a relationship and are uncertain whether it is even ascertainable.\nWhile Balto-Slavic has been traditionally divided into two main branches, viz.\nBaltic and Slavic, some linguists like [Frederik Kortlandt](https://bliptext.com/articles/frederik-kortlandt) or [Rick Derksen](https://bliptext.com/articles/rick-derksen) proposed that Proto-Balto-Slavic split into three language groups — [East Baltic](https://bliptext.com/articles/east-baltic-languages), [West Baltic](https://bliptext.com/articles/west-baltic-languages) and [Proto-Slavic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-slavic-language) — without a Proto-Baltic stage, which is a view opposed by Miguel Villanueva Svensson and Eugen Hill.\nHistorical linguist [Brian D. Joseph](https://bliptext.com/articles/brian-joseph) argues that in the context of other Indo-European phylogenetic clades, the qualitative evidence for Balto-Slavic is not on par with [Indo-Iranian](https://bliptext.com/articles/indo-iranian-languages), insofar as Balto-Slavic lacks evidence for shared culture (as is also the case for [Italo-Celtic](https://bliptext.com/articles/italo-celtic)).\nOther scholars point out that the [phonology](https://bliptext.com/articles/phonology) and [morphology](https://bliptext.com/articles/morphology-linguistics), which is shared by all known Baltic languages, is much more archaic than that of Proto-Slavic, retaining many features attributed to other attested [Indo-European](https://bliptext.com/articles/indo-european-languages) languages roughly 3000 years ago.\nIt is also known that some Baltic and Slavic languages have more in common that others: [Old Prussian](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-prussian-language) and [Latvian](https://bliptext.com/articles/latvian-language) share more commonalities with Slavic languages than [Lithuanian](https://bliptext.com/articles/lithuanian-language) does.\nSome similarities between Baltic and Slavic can be found on all levels of linguistic analysis, which led German philologist [August Schleicher](https://bliptext.com/articles/august-schleicher) to believe that there was indeed a common point of development.\nFrench linguist [Antoine Meillet](https://bliptext.com/articles/antoine-meillet), however, rejected this idea and claimed that similarities between Baltic and Slavic languages were a result of close contact.\nMeanwhile, Latvian linguist [Jānis Endzelīns](https://bliptext.com/articles/j-nis-endzel-ns) suggested that following the split of PIE, Baltic and Slavic languages evolved independently, but later experienced a common period of greater contact.\n[Jan Michał Rozwadowski](https://bliptext.com/articles/jan-micha-rozwadowski) proposed that the two language groups were indeed a unity after the division of Indo-European, but also suggested that after the two had divided into separate entities (Baltic and Slavic), they had posterior contact.\nRussian linguists [Vladimir Toporov](https://bliptext.com/articles/vladimir-toporov) and [Vyacheslav Ivanov](https://bliptext.com/articles/vyacheslav-ivanov-philologist) believed that Proto-Slavic language formed from the peripheral-type Baltic dialects.\nThus, there are at least six points of view on the relationships between the Baltic and Slavic languages.\n# [Various schematic sketches of possible Balto-Slavic language relationships. | upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/d/dd/Balto-Slavic///theories///2.svg]\n\n## Germanic languages\nThere is some vocabulary (about 60 words) that Baltic and [Germanic languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/germanic-languages) share, excluding [loanwords](https://bliptext.com/articles/loanword).\nCommon vocabulary mostly includes words relating to work, equipment, [agriculture](https://bliptext.com/articles/agriculture) etc., such as Proto-Baltic *darbas, meaning 'work' and [[[Proto-Germanic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-germanic-language)](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-germanic-language)](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-germanic-language) *derbaz, meaning 'bold, determined, strong' *šakāi̯en 'in the branch', [illative](https://bliptext.com/articles/illative-case) *šakān + nā > *šakānā 'into the branch', [adessive](https://bliptext.com/articles/adessive-case) *šakāi + prei > *šakāip(r)ei '(to be) by the branch' and [allative](https://bliptext.com/articles/allative-case) *šakās + prei > *šakāsp(r)ei '(get closer) to the branch'.\nThe impact of the Finnic languages over Baltic languages also explains the widespread use of a non-[agreed](https://bliptext.com/articles/agreement-linguistics) [modifier](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-modifier) expressed by the [genitive](https://bliptext.com/articles/genitive-case) of a [noun](https://bliptext.com/articles/noun) (, literally 'language of the Latvians') in contrast to other Indo-European languages that usually apply an [agreed](https://bliptext.com/articles/agreement-linguistics) [modifier](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-modifier) expressed by an [adjective](https://bliptext.com/articles/adjective) ( 'Latvian language') as well as the usage of [indirect mood](https://bliptext.com/articles/lithuanian-grammar) when one is retelling an event without knowing whether it actually happened.\nIn turn, Baltic Finnic languages have many borrowings from the Baltic languages.\nBaltic languages accelerated [diphthongization](https://bliptext.com/articles/diphthong) in these languages, the impact of the Baltic languages explains compound forms of the past tense ( 'I have read', 'I had read' cf., buvau skaitęs), development of the agreed modifier not found in other [Uralic languages](https://bliptext.com/articles/uralic-languages) ( 'big city' ([Nominative case](https://bliptext.com/articles/nominative-case)), 'of the big city' ([Genitive case](https://bliptext.com/articles/genitive-case)), 'towards the big city; for the big city' ([Allative case](https://bliptext.com/articles/allative-case)) cf. , didelio miesto, dideliam miestui), fortifying suffix -pa / -pä ( 'even, as much as', '(but) also, (but) even', 'maybe, if' cf. 'and, as well as', [Prussian](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-prussian-language): bhe 'and') etc.\n\n# Phonetics and phonology\n\n## Vowels and diphthongs\nThe vowels of Proto-Baltic changed little in comparison to PIE: short vowels *a and *o coincided into a single *a while the [reduced](https://bliptext.com/articles/vowel-reduction) Indo-European vowel [schwa](https://bliptext.com/articles/schwa) primum (*ə) also turned into *a as it did in other Indo-European languages of Europe and it ceased to exist in the middle of words.\nAccording to the proponents of the [Laryngeal theory](https://bliptext.com/articles/laryngeal-theory), the schwa primum appeared by turning laryngeals into vowels, which makes its reconstruction for PIE unnecessary and obsolete.\nThere were four short and five long vowels as well as four short and six long [diphthongs](https://bliptext.com/articles/diphthong) as presented below:\nVowels *a, *e, *i, *u together with [sonorants](https://bliptext.com/articles/sonorant) *r, *l, *m, *n of Proto-Baltic were used to form mixed diphthongs as they are being used in the modern Baltic languages today.\nIt is also well known that there were mixed diphthongs with long vowels at the endings.\nLong diphthongs can be reconstructed when [glottaling](https://bliptext.com/articles/glottalization) (e.g. PIE: *pl̥h₁nós 'full' > Proto-Baltic: *pī́ˀlnas 'full'), compared to PIE, the position of [stress](https://bliptext.com/articles/stress-linguistics) in the example is conditioned by [Hirt's law](https://bliptext.com/articles/hirt-s-law).\nLong mixed diphthongs, which position in the [morpheme](https://bliptext.com/articles/morpheme) is hardly determined or their existence is questionable are presented in Italic:\n\n## Consonants\nThe consonants of Proto-Baltic experienced greater changes than primary vowels when in their primordial condition.\nPIE aspirated and labialized velar consonants (*bʰ, *dʰ, *gʰ, *gu̯, *gu̯ʰ, *ku̯) in Proto-Baltic coincided with plain consonants (*b, *d, *g, *k) as they did in some other Indo-European languages.\nHowever, at the early stages of development, the differences between plain and aspirated voiced plosives might have been retained.\nThis is because before the plain voiced plosives the vowels were lengthened, which is not the case with the aspirated voiced ones ([Winter's law](https://bliptext.com/articles/winter-s-law)).\nThe Proto-Baltic was a satem language, PIE *ḱ turned into *š, PIE *ǵ and PIE *ǵʰ turned into *ž.\nThe sonorants of PIE *ṛ, *ḷ, *ṃ, *ṇ, which were used as vowels and could form a [syllable](https://bliptext.com/articles/syllable), turned into mixed diphthongs *ir, *il, *im, *in (in rarer cases—*ur, *ul, *um, *un) in Proto-Baltic.\nThese diphthongs alternated (had an [ablaut](https://bliptext.com/articles/indo-european-ablaut)) with *er (*ēr), *el (*ēl), *em (*ēm), *en (*ēn) and *ar (*ōr), *al (*ōl), *am (*ōm), *an (*ōn).\nOne of the unique properties of Baltic languages is the disappearance of the semivowel *i̯ between a consonant and a front vowel (e.g. *žemi̯ē > *žemē 'earth').\nAnother noteworthy trait of Proto-Baltic is the retained intact *m existing before front dental consonants *t, *d, *s (e.g. *šimtan 'hundred', *kimdai 'gloves', *tamsā 'darkness'), which in other Indo-European languages turned into n.\nHowever, unlike in [Italic](https://bliptext.com/articles/italic-languages) or [Indo-Iranian](https://bliptext.com/articles/indo-iranian-languages) languages, in Proto-Baltic *m and *ṃ would become *n at the very end of a word.\n\n## Stress and pitch accent\nIn the Proto-Baltic language, the [stress](https://bliptext.com/articles/stress-linguistics) could be placed on any [syllable](https://bliptext.com/articles/syllable), the [stress](https://bliptext.com/articles/stress-linguistics) was free, unfixed.\nAccording to the movement of stress, three possible variants of accent system are reconstructed: 1) a system with baritone accentuation (stress on the stem) and oxytonic accentuation (stress on the endings), 2) a system with baritone accentuation and mobile accentuation (stress moves from endings to the stem), 3) a system with the baritone, mobile and oxytonic accentuations.\nThere were two [pitch accents](https://bliptext.com/articles/pitch-accent-language), an [acute](https://bliptext.com/articles/acute-accent) (´) and a [circumflex](https://bliptext.com/articles/circumflex) (˜), which were pronounced with pure and mixed [diphthongs](https://bliptext.com/articles/diphthong) and long [vowels](https://bliptext.com/articles/vowel).\nPitch accents could be pronounced both in the stems and in the endings.\nThe acute pitch had a rising intonation, while the circumflex pitch had a falling intonation.\nSome scientists ([Zigmas Zinkevičius](https://bliptext.com/articles/zigmas-zinkevi-ius), Vytautas Kardelis, Vytautas Rinkevičius (1981) etc.) believe that pitch accents were pronounced both in stressed and unstressed syllables, for example *'rãnkā́ 'hand' (stress placed on the first syllable, although both syllables had different pitch accents).\n\n# Morphology\n\n## Nouns\nThe [noun](https://bliptext.com/articles/noun) of Proto-Baltic possessed very [archaic](https://bliptext.com/articles/archaic-linguistics) traits—the endings were not being shortened and were close to the endings of PIE.\nIt had three grammatical categories: [gender](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-gender) (masculine, feminine and neuter), [number](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-number) (singular, [dual](https://bliptext.com/articles/dual-grammatical-number) and [plural](https://bliptext.com/articles/plural)) and seven cases: [nominative](https://bliptext.com/articles/nominative-case), [genitive](https://bliptext.com/articles/genitive-case), [dative](https://bliptext.com/articles/dative-case), [accusative](https://bliptext.com/articles/accusative-case), [instrumental](https://bliptext.com/articles/instrumental), [locative](https://bliptext.com/articles/locative-case) and [vocative](https://bliptext.com/articles/vocative-case) with three different [dual](https://bliptext.com/articles/dual-grammatical-number) case forms.\nIn comparison to the PIE reconstruction, Proto-Baltic only failed to retain the [ablative](https://bliptext.com/articles/ablative-case) and [allative](https://bliptext.com/articles/allative-case) cases.\nNeuter gender was only retained by [Old Prussian](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-prussian-language) while in [Latvian](https://bliptext.com/articles/latvian-language) and [Lithuanian](https://bliptext.com/articles/lithuanian-language) it ceased to exist.\nThat said, other neuter forms of inflected words such as [adjectives](https://bliptext.com/articles/adjective), [participles](https://bliptext.com/articles/participle), [pronouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/pronoun) and [numerals](https://bliptext.com/articles/numeral-linguistics) remained in Lithuanian.\n*ā-stem and *ē-stem nouns were feminine, *o-stem nouns basically were masculine and neuter, *s-stem nouns were neuter, *r-stem nouns―masculine and feminine while other noun stems could refer to all three genders.\nUnlike feminine and masculine nouns, neuter ones always had the same form for the nominative, accusative, and vocative cases.\nThis form distinguished neuter nouns from masculine and feminine ones belonging to the same stem.\nMasculine and feminine nouns of the same stem had identical endings, and the grammatical gender was indicated by gender-changing words (pronouns, adjectives, participles, etc.) used with nouns: *labas anglis 'a good coal' (masculine), *labā au̯is 'a good sheep' (feminine), *laba(n) mari 'a good sea' (neuter).\nBecause of the disappearance of the semivowel *i̯ between a consonant and a front vowel, neuter *i-stem words had changes *mari̯ī > *marī 'two seas', *aru̯i̯ī > *aru̯ī 'two suitable ones' in dual.\n\n### *o-stem nouns\n\n### *ā-stem nouns\n*rankā 'hand' Lith. rankà, Ltv. ròka, Pruss. ranko [written as \"rancko\"]; cognate with the Lith. verb riñkti)\n\n### *ē-stem nouns\n*žemē 'earth' Lith. žẽmė, Ltv. zeme, Pruss. zemē [written as \"semme\"])\n\n### *i-stem nouns\n\n### *u-stem nouns\n\n### *r-stem nouns\n\n### *n-stem nouns\n\n### *l-stem nouns\n*ābō 'apple-tree' [Lith.](https://bliptext.com/articles/lithuanian-language) obelis, [Ltv.](https://bliptext.com/articles/latvian-language) ābele, [Pruss.](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-prussian-language) wobalne)\n\n### *s-stem nouns\n*nebas 'cloud' [Old Lith.](https://bliptext.com/articles/lithuanian-language) dẽbesis [f.], [Ltv.](https://bliptext.com/articles/latvian-language) debess [f.])\n\n### Root nouns\n\n## Adjectives\nUnlike the noun, the [adjective](https://bliptext.com/articles/adjective) used to be alternated using a gender (masculine, feminine, and neuter), which was then adapted to the corresponding gender of the noun.\nAdjectives had three [degrees](https://bliptext.com/articles/comparison-grammar): positive (no suffix: masculine *labas, neuter *laban, feminine *labā 'good'), comparative (suffix *-es-: masculine *labesis, neuter *labesi, feminine *labesē 'better') and superlative (suffix *-im-: masculine *labimas, neuter *labiman, feminine *labimā 'the best').\nThey had singular, [dual](https://bliptext.com/articles/dual-grammatical-number) and [plural](https://bliptext.com/articles/plural) numbers as they were applied to adjectives for combining them with nouns.\nThe vocative case usually concurred with the nominative one.\nAs in the case of noun [paradigms](https://bliptext.com/articles/paradigm), there were *i̯o- (fem. *i̯ā-) and *ii̯o- (fem. *ē-) stem variants next to the *o-stem adjectives.\nFeminine gender forms were constructed with the *ā-stem while the feminine forms with the *i̯ā-stem (sing. nom. *-ī) were constructed with the *u-stem adjectives.\nThe feminine gender of the masculine and neuter genders for the *i-stem probably resulted with *i̯ā- or *ē-stems.\nHowever, the reconstruction of the later is difficult as the *i-stem adjectives in the current Baltic languages were poorly preserved.\n\n### *o-stem, *ā-stem adjectives\n*labas 'good' [Lith](https://bliptext.com/articles/lithuanian-language). lãbas, [Latv](https://bliptext.com/articles/latvian-language). labs, [Prus](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-prussian-language). labs)\n\n### *u-stem, *i̯ā-stem adjectives\n*platus 'wide' [Lith](https://bliptext.com/articles/lithuanian-language). platus, [Latv](https://bliptext.com/articles/latvian-language). plats, [Prus](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-prussian-language). plat-)\n\n### *i-stem, *ē-stem adjectives\n*aru̯is 'suitable' [Lith](https://bliptext.com/articles/lithuanian-language). arvis or arvas, then displaced by tinkamas, linked to the verb tikti; [Prus](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-prussian-language). arwis \"true, correct\", and [PS](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-slavic-language) *orvьnъ \"straight, even\" > [Rus](https://bliptext.com/articles/russian-language). ровный)\n\n## Verbs\nThe reconstruction of the verb of Proto-Baltic is mostly based on the collected data on the East Baltic languages, as the verb system in [Old Prussian](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-prussian-language) is poorly attested.\nThe reconstructed verb system is attributed to the later stages of linguistic development.\nUnlike other parts of speech, the verb of Proto-Baltic experienced a lot of changes—the grammatical mood, tense and voice systems that came from PIE changed.\nFor instance, from the former Proto-Indo-European tenses—the [present](https://bliptext.com/articles/present-tense), the [aorist](https://bliptext.com/articles/aorist), the [perfect](https://bliptext.com/articles/perfect-grammar)—only the [present](https://bliptext.com/articles/present-tense) was preserved by Proto-Baltic in addition to the sigmatic [future](https://bliptext.com/articles/future-tense), which by some researchers is considered to be an inheritance from late PIE.\nIn PIE there were four moods: [indicative](https://bliptext.com/articles/realis-mood), [subjunctive](https://bliptext.com/articles/subjunctive-mood), [optative](https://bliptext.com/articles/optative-mood) and [imperative](https://bliptext.com/articles/imperative-mood).\nIn Proto-Baltic, indicative remained but subjunctive was changed by the newly formed [conditional mood](https://bliptext.com/articles/conditional-mood).\nMeanwhile, imperative gained forms from optative.\nPIE also had two verb voices – [active](https://bliptext.com/articles/active-voice) and [middle](https://bliptext.com/articles/voice-grammar).\nThe latter was changed with [reflexive verbs](https://bliptext.com/articles/reflexive-verb) in Proto-Baltic.\nNew types of verb form (the analytical [perfect](https://bliptext.com/articles/perfect-grammar) and the plu[perfect](https://bliptext.com/articles/perfect-grammar)) and the analytical [passive voice](https://bliptext.com/articles/passive-voice) were created.\nThe most archaic trait of Proto-Baltic is the retained [athematic conjugation](https://bliptext.com/articles/mi-verbs).\nIn the first and second person forms, Proto-Baltic had preserved the three numbers from PIE (singular, dual and plural), while in third person, number was not distinguished.\nThe verb of the Proto-Baltic had three basic stems, i.e. the stems of the present tense, past tense and the [infinitive](https://bliptext.com/articles/infinitive).\nAll forms of the verb were based on those stems.\nFor example, the stems of the verb 'to carry' were *neša-, *nešē-, *neš-; the stems of the verb 'to sit' were *sēdi-, *sēdējā-, *sēdē-.\nCompared to Lith.\nnẽša 'he carrys', nẽšė 'he carried', nèšti 'to carry'; sė́di 'he sits', sėdė́jo 'he sat', sėdė́ti 'to sit'.\n\n### Conjugation\n[CH. Stang](https://bliptext.com/articles/christian-stang) identifies the following conjugations of verbs in the present tense: athematic, thematic (*o-stem verbs) and semi-thematic (*i-stem and *ā-stem verbs).\nThe future tense was formed using the *-s- / -*si- suffix attached to the infinitive stem, and because of the *-si- suffix, all future tense verbs were conjugated with the *i-stem.\nThe past tense had *ā- and *ē-stems.\nWith a few exceptions (1st sg. [conditional](https://bliptext.com/articles/conditional-mood) *rinkti̯ā 'I would gather'; 3rd [imperative](https://bliptext.com/articles/imperative-mood), the same in all numbers; 2nd sg. [imperative](https://bliptext.com/articles/imperative-mood)), all verb endings were borrowed from the present tense.\n\n### Infinitive\nIn Proto-Baltic the [infinitive](https://bliptext.com/articles/infinitive) was created with suffixes *-tei, *-tēi, *-ti: *eitei, *-tēi, *-ti 'go', *darītei, *-tēi, *-ti 'do'.\nThe infinitive comes from the singular nominal of the word stem ti in its dative (*mirtei 'for death') and locative (*mirtēi 'in death'; consonant stem —*darānti 'in doing' (active participle, masculine–neuter) form. In Lithuanian, the relationship between the infinitive and dative can sometimes be observed to this day (e.g. kėdė yra sėdėti / sėdėjimui 'the chair is for sitting', ne metas liūdėti / liūdėjimui 'no time for sadness').\n\n### Supine\nIn Proto-Baltic the [supine](https://bliptext.com/articles/supine) was created with suffixes *-tun < PIE *-tum: *eitun, *darītun.\nThis verb form is unconjugated and was used together with the verbs of movement to express the [adverbials](https://bliptext.com/articles/adverbial) of a purpose or an intention.\nThe supine comes from the singular nominal of the word stem tu in its [accusative](https://bliptext.com/articles/accusative-case) form (*leitun 'rain').\nThe connection can be observed in the existing dialects of the current Baltic languages and is considered to be inherited from PIE as the supine can be found in other Indo-European languages as well.\n\n### Aspect\n[Aspect](https://bliptext.com/articles/grammatical-aspect) (e.g. [im[perfective](https://bliptext.com/articles/perfective-aspect)](https://bliptext.com/articles/im[perfective](https://bliptext.com/articles/perfective-aspect)-aspect) aspect 'I was gathering' vs. [perfective](https://bliptext.com/articles/perfective-aspect) aspect 'I had gathered') might have been unusual to Proto-Baltic, as [aorist](https://bliptext.com/articles/aorist) tense, which was used to express a [perfective](https://bliptext.com/articles/perfective-aspect) aspect of a process in contrast to the [present tense](https://bliptext.com/articles/present-tense) used to express the [im[perfective](https://bliptext.com/articles/perfective-aspect)](https://bliptext.com/articles/im[perfective](https://bliptext.com/articles/perfective-aspect)-aspect) aspect, fell out of use.\n\n### Participle\nProto-Baltic had [active](https://bliptext.com/articles/active-voice) and [passive](https://bliptext.com/articles/passive-voice) voice [participles](https://bliptext.com/articles/participle).\nTraditionally, it is believed that active voice participles already existed in PIE.\nParticiples were [declined](https://bliptext.com/articles/declension) the same way as the [nominals](https://bliptext.com/articles/nominal-linguistics).\nThe vocative case probably coincided with the nominative one.\nThe participle had three genders (masculine, feminine and neuter), numbers (singular, [dual](https://bliptext.com/articles/dual-grammatical-number), [plural](https://bliptext.com/articles/plural)) and tenses ([present](https://bliptext.com/articles/present-tense), [future](https://bliptext.com/articles/future-tense), [past](https://bliptext.com/articles/past-tense)).\nActive participles were used to express a specific trait of an object that arises as a result of their own doing while passive participles were meant to express a specific trait of an object that arises as a result of someone else taking action.\nPresent participles of the verbs *rinktei 'gather, collect', *turētei 'have', *laikītei 'hold':\nFuture participles of the verbs *būtei 'be', *turētei 'have':\nPast participles of the verbs *būtei 'be', *turētei 'have', *laikītei 'hold':\n\n## Pronouns\nThe inflexions of PIE were already different significantly in comparison to [nominals](https://bliptext.com/articles/nominal-linguistics).\nAs in the case of PIE, the [demonstrative](https://bliptext.com/articles/demonstrative) pronouns of Proto-Baltic could indicate three levels of varying distance from the speaker: close range *šis and *is, distant range *anas, and unspecified range *tas.\nThe latter demonstrative pronoun, which had three grammatical genders, was the equivalent to the third-person.\nThere were two [personal pronouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/personal-pronoun), they had no grammatical gender — *ež (*eš) 'I' and *tu / *tū 'you', which possessed [suppletive](https://bliptext.com/articles/suppletion) inflexion forms preserved from PIE.\nThe [reflexive pronoun](https://bliptext.com/articles/reflexive-pronoun) *seu̯e 'oneself' only had a singular form without the nominative as it does in the current Baltic languages.\nThe singular forms of the pronoun *seu̯e were also used with dual and plural objects, i.e. the singular also served as dual and plural.\nDutch Professor [Frederik Kortlandt](https://bliptext.com/articles/frederik-kortlandt) believed that only the oldest and non-renewed pronoun forms should be reconstructed in Proto-Baltic language while Lithuanian linguist-historian Professor [Zigmas Zinkevičius](https://bliptext.com/articles/zigmas-zinkevi-ius) believed older pronoun forms only existed at the earliest stages of Proto-Baltic.\n\n### Personal pronouns\nDemonstrative pronoun *tas was the equivalent to the third person.\n\n### Reflexive pronoun\n\n### Interrogrative pronouns\nThere were two [interrogative pronouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/interrogative-word)—masculine *kat[a/e]ras, neuter *kat[a/e]ra, feminine *kat[a/e]rā, all meaning 'which', and masculine–feminine *kas, neuter *ka, meaning 'who, what'.\nThe latter was used as a [relative pronoun](https://bliptext.com/articles/relative-pronoun) in compound sentences.\nAccording to Zigmas Zinkevičius, relative pronouns had all three genders, and [Vytautas Mažiulis](https://bliptext.com/articles/vytautas-ma-iulis) believed pronoun *kas had the feminine form *kā when it was used as a relative pronoun.\nInterrogative and relative pronouns were inflected the same way as the demonstrative pronoun *tas.\n\n### Indefinite pronouns\n[Indefinite pronouns](https://bliptext.com/articles/indefinite-pronoun), such as masculine *kitas, neuter *kita, feminine *kitā, meaning 'other', or masculine *u̯isas, neuter *u̯isa, feminine *u̯isā, meaning 'all, entire, whole', were also inflected as the pronoun *tas.\n\n### Possessive pronouns\n[Possessive](https://bliptext.com/articles/possessive) pronouns indicate divisions between Baltic dialects: the western [areal](https://bliptext.com/articles/areal-feature) would have forms, such as the masculine *mai̯as, neuter *mai̯a, feminine *mai̯ā 'mine'; masculine *tu̯ai̯as, neuter *tu̯ai̯a, feminine *tu̯ai̯ā 'yours'; masculine *su̯ai̯as, neuter *su̯ai̯a, feminine *su̯ai̯ā 'oneself'.\nIn comparison, the eastern areal would possess forms like the masculine *menas, neuter *mena, feminine *menā; masculine *teu̯as, neuter *teu̯a, feminine *teu̯ā; masculine *seu̯as, neuter *seu̯a, feminine *seu̯ā, respectively.\nThese pronouns would be inflected as other gendered pronouns, although they could have been used only in their genitive form.\nThe eigenvalue of plural and dual possessive pronouns was possibly expressed in the genitive case of plural personal pronouns (e.g. *nōsōn (→*nūsōn) 'ours', *ṷōsōn (→*i̯ūsōn) 'yours').\nWestern Baltic pronouns masculine *su̯ai̯as, neuter *su̯ai̯a, feminine *su̯ai̯ā 'oneself', Eastern Baltic ones masculine *seu̯as, neuter *seu̯a, feminine *seu̯ā 'oneself' could be used with all persons.\nThe equivalent of third person possessive pronoun was the genitive case of the\ndemonstrative pronoun *tas, which had three numbers and genders.\n\n## Numerals\n\n### Cardinal numbers\nCardinal number 6 has three different reflexes in the Balto-Slavic languages: one in Latvian and pre-Lithuanian, another one in [Old Prussian](https://bliptext.com/articles/old-prussian-language) and a final one in [Proto-Slavic](https://bliptext.com/articles/proto-slavic-language).\nHence, number 6 in PBS had either two or three versions: one version with a reflex in Proto-Slavic and either one single version or two different versions with two reflexes in PB.\nThe hypothetical form of number 6 in PBS with medial *-w- is reconstructed by [Vytautas Mažiulis](https://bliptext.com/articles/vytautas-ma-iulis) (2004).\n[Numerals](https://bliptext.com/articles/numeral-linguistics) in Proto-Baltic, except for 'two', had noun endings: *ainas / *einas (PIE: *h₁óynos) 'one' was inflected the same way as noun word stems o (masculine and neuter) and ā (feminine), this numeral had a singular, dual and plural number;\nmasculine *d(u)u̯ō (PIE: *dwóh₁) and feminine-neuter *d(u)u̯ai (PIE: *dwóy(h₁)) 'two' was inflected as a demonstrative pronoun dual;\n*trii̯es (masc. PIE: *tréyes) 'three' was inflected as a plural noun with the word stem i and was common for all genders;\neventually, *ketures (masc. PIE: *kʷetwóres) 'four' was inflected as a plural noun with the consonant word stem r and was also the same for all three genders.\nProto-Baltic people applied the principles for *ketures (PIE: *kʷetwóres) 'four' inflexion to numerals *penkes (PIE: *pénkʷe) 'five', *ušes / *sešes < *su̯ešes (PIE:*(s)wéḱs) 'six', *septines (PIE: *septḿ̥) 'seven', *aštōnes (PIE: *(h₁)oḱtṓw) 'eight' and *neu̯ines (PIE: *h₁néwn̥) 'nine'.\nIn PIE, numerals from five to nine were not inflected.\nThe early Proto-Baltic might have retained the uninflected numeral forms of *su̯eš, *septin 'seven', *aštō 'eight', *neu̯in 'nine' as well.\nThe reconstruction of Latvian language indicates that *septines 'seven' and *neu̯ines 'nine' with the short *i is plausible.\nThe numeral 10, *dešimts (PIE *deḱmt- < *deḱṃ), was declined as the root noun and had all three numbers.\n\n### Ordinal numbers\nThe masculine and neuter [ordinal numbers](https://bliptext.com/articles/ordinal-number) were inflected as nouns possessing word stem o while feminine ones were inflected as nouns with word stem ā.\nOrdinal number 6 has two reflexes in the Baltic Languages from PBS; these two reflexes could have come from either two different form in PBS or a single form; the hypothetical single form, with medial *-w-, is reconstructed by [Vytautas Mažiulis](https://bliptext.com/articles/vytautas-ma-iulis) (2004).\nOrdinal numbers from first to tenth in Proto-Baltic were as follows:","revisionCount":0},"hasMore":false,"nextCursor":null}

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