Golyad () or East Galindian (, ) is a poorly attested extinct

Baltic language The Baltic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively or as a second language by a population of about 6.5–7.0 million people

of the Dnieper Balts living in the Protva basin in present-day

Russia Russia, or the Russian Federation, is a country spanning Eastern Europe and North Asia. It is the list of countries and dependencies by area, largest country in the world, and extends across Time in Russia, eleven time zones, sharing Borders ...

. The Golyad people are believed to have descended from the Moshchiny culture and are only known ethnonyn for the Dnieper-Oka language. Due to there being no known written documents of the Golyad language, the language is poorly known. The language went extinct in the 12th century due to Early Slavic

migration Migration, migratory, or migrate may refer to: Human migration * Human migration, physical movement by humans from one region to another ** International migration, when peoples cross state boundaries and stay in the host state for some minimum le ...

and assimilation. It is believed the

vernacular Vernacular is the ordinary, informal, spoken language, spoken form of language, particularly when perceptual dialectology, perceived as having lower social status or less Prestige (sociolinguistics), prestige than standard language, which is mor ...

s of the Finno-Ugrians and

Volga Finns The Volga Finns are a historical group of peoples living in the vicinity of the Volga, who speak Uralic languages. Their modern representatives are the Mari people, the Erzya and the Moksha (commonly grouped together as Mordvins) as well as ...

adopted loanwords from East Galindian.

Phonology

Based on Baltic substratum and hydronomy in the Protva Basin, the following phonology can be reconstructed:

Consonants

Vowels

Lexicon

There are some Russian dialectal words from the Protva Basin region suspected to be of Baltic origin: It is believed that the

hydronym A hydronym (from , , "water" and , , "name") is a type of toponym that designates a proper name of a body of water. Hydronyms include the proper names of rivers and streams, lakes and ponds, swamps and marshes, seas and oceans. As a subset of top ...

s "

Lama Lama () is a title bestowed to a realized practitioner of the Dharma in Tibetan Buddhism. Not all monks are lamas, while nuns and female practitioners can be recognized and entitled as lamas. The Tibetan word ''la-ma'' means "high mother", ...

", " Yauza", "Nudol" and "Churilikha" have Baltic origins. Specifically, the Churilikha's name has origins in the Lithuanian language's name for narrow and other names for the Churilikha such as Goledyanka have origins from the Golyad's themselves. It is also believed that the name of the two villages of Golyadi has their names originate from the Golyads.

Proposed relation with West Galindian

Golyad and West Galindian have been proposed by scientists to have had a common origin that is based on two ancient authors using the common name of Galindian for both of them. In order to prove this hypothesis, they investigate common features between Prussian/West Galindian and Golyad.

Marija Gimbutas Marija Gimbutas (, ; January 23, 1921 – February 2, 1994) was a Lithuanian archaeology, archaeologist and anthropologist known for her research into the Neolithic and Bronze Age cultures of "Old European Culture, Old Europe" and for her Kurgan ...

suggested that both the Golyads and West Galindians name could both originate from the name for end or borderland in Lithuanian (gãlas) and Latvian (gàls). There has also been a suggestion that the West Galindians name comes from the Prussian word for death (gallan). This name could have come from the Golyad being the furthest Baltic tribe in the east. Some theories that propose a relationship between West Galindian and Golyad are that the West Galindians migrated from their homeland in

Prussia Prussia (; ; Old Prussian: ''Prūsija'') was a Germans, German state centred on the North European Plain that originated from the 1525 secularization of the Prussia (region), Prussian part of the State of the Teutonic Order. For centuries, ...

towards the Protva basin. People believe this migration would have been one in the

Migration Period The Migration Period ( 300 to 600 AD), also known as the Barbarian Invasions, was a period in European history marked by large-scale migrations that saw the fall of the Western Roman Empire and subsequent settlement of its former territories ...

and would have occurred between the 5th and 7th centuries. In this theory, another group who also migrated West during this period, the

Goths The Goths were a Germanic people who played a major role in the fall of the Western Roman Empire and the emergence of medieval Europe. They were first reported by Graeco-Roman authors in the 3rd century AD, living north of the Danube in what is ...

, are believed to have also inspired language and culture of the Golyads. Another theory is that Golyads were West Galindians that were captured during wars with the

Grand Duchy of Lithuania The Grand Duchy of Lithuania was a sovereign state in northeastern Europe that existed from the 13th century, succeeding the Kingdom of Lithuania, to the late 18th century, when the territory was suppressed during the 1795 Partitions of Poland, ...

and the Russian duchies, but this is unlikely as local Slavs wouldn't have replaced their own names for regions for names from their POWs.

References

Bibliography

* {{Baltic languages Baltic languages Medieval languages Extinct Baltic languages Extinct languages of Europe Languages of Russia