HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

Semigallian, or Zemgalian, was an Eastern Baltic language of the
Baltic language The Baltic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively by a population of about 4.5 million people mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. Together with the Slavic langu ...
sub-family of the
Indo-European languages The Indo-European languages are a language family native to the overwhelming majority of Europe, the Iranian plateau, and the northern Indian subcontinent. Some European languages of this family, English, French, Portuguese, Russian, Dutc ...
.


History

It was spoken in the northern part of Lithuania and southern regions of Latvia in what is known as
Semigallia Semigallia, also spelt Semigalia, ( lv, Zemgale; german: Semgallen; lt, Žiemgala; pl, Semigalia; liv, Zemgāl) is one of the Historical Latvian Lands located in the south of the Daugava river and the north of the Saule region of Samogitia. ...
. It is thought that it was extinct by the 16th century, with the assimilation by the
Latvians Latvians ( lv, latvieši) are a Baltic ethnic group and nation native to Latvia and the immediate geographical region, the Baltics. They are occasionally also referred to as Letts, especially in older bibliography. Latvians share a common La ...
. 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 , consonants became , 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.


References

East Baltic languages Medieval languages Extinct Baltic languages Extinct languages of Europe {{Ie-lang-stub