Baltic languages
group of Indo-European languages that includes modern Latvian and Lithuanian, spoken on the eastern shores of the Baltic Sea, and the extinct Old Prussian, Yotvingian, Curonian, Selonian, and Semigallian languages. The Baltic languages are more closely related to Slavic, Germanic, and Indo-Iranian (in that order) than to the other branches of the family. Speakers of modern Lithuanian and Latvian (Lettish), the languages of the Balts inhabiting the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea, as well as the now extinct Old Prussian language, Yotvingian (also spelled Yatvingian, Jotvingian, Jatvingian), Curonian (Kurish), Semigallian, and Selonian (Selian) are here referred to as the B-Balts. There also existed languages and dialects of the Balts (D-Balts) who lived east of the above-mentioned groups in the areas of the upper reaches of the Dnieper River.
Because its dialects are more archaic in their forms than those of the other living Indo-European languages, Lithuanian is of particular importance in the study of comparative Indo-European linguistics. The language had 2,760,000 speakers in Lithuania in the early 1980s and several thousand speakers in Belorussia and Poland, and until 1945 there were several thousand Lithuanians in East Prussia as well. More than 675,000 Lithuanians live abroad, mostly in the United States. Lithuanian is sharply divided into dialects whose differences are quite marked. The two major ones are Low (or Western) Lithuanian, with three subdialects, and High (or Eastern) Lithuanian, with four subdialects. The Low dialect is spoken by the Lowlanders, who live in the west and along the Baltic Sea; High Lithuanian is spoken by the Highlanders, who live in the eastern (and greater) part of Lithuania. Standard Lithuanian, formed at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, is based on the southern subdialect of West High Lithuanian.
The language most closely related to Lithuanian is Latvian, spoken by 1,344,000 speakers in Latvia in the early 1980s and about 156,000 abroad, mostly in the United States. Latvian is divided into dialects, the major ones being the Central dialect, Livonian (also called Tahmian, or West Latvian), and High (or East) Latvian. Standard Latvian, established at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, is based on the Central dialect.
By the 16th century the Selonians, Semigallians, and Curonians (Kurs), who lived in areas of Latvia and Lithuania, had completely lost their national identities and were assimilated by the Latvians and the Lithuanians. They left no written records. Nor did the Yotvingians (or Suduvians), who lived in southwest Lithuania and farther to the south (in the territory of the present-day Poland). They became extinct around the 16th–17th century, being assimilated by the Lithuanians in the north and the Slavs in the south. Information on the extinct Baltic languages is extremely scarce (mostly place-names). Only Old Prussian, of all the extinct Baltic languages, left any written records, and they are quite poor. The Prussians lived in East Prussia (i.e., between the lower reaches of the Vistula and Neman [Lithuanian Nemunas] rivers on the Baltic coast). They became extinct (i.e., were assimilated by the Germans) at the beginning of the 18th century.
Linguistically, the
Yotvingians were very closely related to the Prussians. They made up one ethnic
Baltic group, commonly called the Western Balts, as opposed to the so-called
Eastern Balts—the Lithuanians, Latvians, Selonians, Semigallians, and Curonians.
The traditional terms Western Balts and Eastern Balts are inaccurate when used
for all of the Balts—i.e., including the Balts for whose languages there
are no records (the D-Balts). These Balts, who were assimilated by Slavs in the
7th–14th century, lived in the upper reaches of the Dnepr.
Proto-Baltic, the
ancestral Baltic language from which the various known languages evolved,
developed from the dialects of the northern area of Proto-Indo-European. These
dialects also included the Slavic and Germanic protolanguages (and possibly also
Tocharian). The quite close historic relationship of the Baltic, Slavic, and
Germanic languages is shown by the fact that they alone of all the Indo-European
languages have the sound m in the dative plural ending (e.g.,
Lithuanian vilká-m-s “wolf,” Common Slavic *vilko-m-u,
Gothic wulf-am). (An asterisk [*] indicates that the following sound or
word is unattested and has been reconstructed as a hypothetical linguistic
form.) This relationship is suggested not only by the morphology and word
formation but also by the vocabulary—e.g., Lithuanian draugas
(Latvian drŕugs) “friend,” Old Church Slavonic drugu,
Gothic driugan “to fulfill military service”; Lithuanian văškas
(Latvian vasks) “wax,” Russian vosk, Old High German wahs.
Probably the earlier close contact of the Balts and the Slavs with the Germanic
tribes broke off around the 2nd millennium BC, when the
Balts moved from the south (not, however, losing contact with the Slavs) and
settled a large area of the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea and the upper
reaches of the Dnepr.
Because contact between the Balts and Slavs from the time of Proto-Indo-European was never broken off, it is understandable that Baltic and Slavic should share more linguistic features than any of the other Indo-European languages. Thus, Indo-European *eu passed to Baltic jau and Common Slavic *jau (which became ju)—e.g., Lithuanian liáudis “people,” Latvian láudis, Old Church Slavonic ljudije. Tonal correspondences are found between Lithuanian and Serbo-Croatian (a Slavic language of Yugoslavia), and there are also similarities in stress; e.g., Lithuanian dumai “smoke” and Russian dym have the stress on the root, as do Lithuanian rańka “hand” (accusative singular) and Russian rúku, while both Lithuanian rankŕ “hand” (nominative singular) and Russian ruká are stressed on the second syllable.
Baltic and Slavic have specific morphological features in common. Among them, for example, is the genitive plural form. In Lithuanian, mu´su “of us” (= Latvian musu), evolved from the older form *nuson, which comes from Baltic *noson and corresponds to the genitive plural form in Common Slavic, *noson, from which developed Old Church Slavonic nasu “of us.” Baltic also shares some syntactic features with Slavic; e.g., the genitive case is used in place of the accusative with verbs expressing negation (Lithuanian jis nieko nezino “he does not know anything,” Latvian vinš neka nezin, Russian on nicego ne znajet). There are also many lexical items common to Baltic and Slavic. More than 100 words are common in their form and meaning to Baltic and Slavic alone, among them Lithuanian begu “I run,” Latvian begu, Old Church Slavonic bego; Lithuanian líepa “linden tree,” Latvian liepa, Old Prussian lipe, Old Church Slavonic lipa; Lithuanian răgas “horn,” Latvian rags, Old Prussian ragis, Old Church Slavonic rogu.
In addition to these features common to all the Baltic and Slavic languages, there are certain quite archaic features that Slavic shares with Lithuanian and Latvian but not with Old Prussian. The most striking example is the genitive singular ending in Lithuanian vilk-o = Latvian vělk-a “of a wolf,” which comes from Baltic *-o, historically paralleled by the genitive singular ending in Common Slavic *vilk-a. Old Prussian, however, has a different ending for the same inflection (deiw-as “of God”). In some instances the Slavic languages, differing from Lithuanian and Latvian, come closer to Old Prussian; e.g., the Prussian possessive pronouns mais “my, mine,” twais “your, yours,” swais “one's own” are different from Lithuanian mănas, tăvas, sâvas and from Latvian mans, tavs, savs but similar to Old Church Slavonic moji, tvoji, svoji.
It is possible to conclude that there was close contact between the Baltic and Slavic protolanguages at the time when they began to develop as independent groups (i.e., from about the 2nd millennium BC) and that the Proto-Slavic area might have been a part of peripheral Proto-Baltic, although a specific part. That is, Proto-Slavic at that time was in direct contact with both the corresponding dialects of the peripheral Proto-Baltic area (e.g., with Proto-Prussian) and the corresponding dialects of the central Proto-Baltic area. All this shows that the Proto-Slavic area of that time (south of the Pripyat River) was much smaller than the Proto-Baltic area. Proto-Slavic began to develop as a separate linguistic entity in the 2nd millennium BC and was to remain quite unified for a long time to come. Proto-Baltic, however, besides developing into an independent linguistic unit in the 2nd millennium BC, also began gradually to split. Among other things, the size of the Proto-Baltic area had an influence on the development of Proto-Baltic in that it considerably reduced contact between its dialects.
By the middle of the 1st
millennium BC, the Proto-Baltic area was already sharply
split into dialects. From the middle of the 1st millennium AD,
the Baltic language area began to shrink considerably; at that time the greater
part of Baltic territory, the eastern part, began to be inhabited by Slavs
migrating from the south. The Balts there were gradually assimilated by the
Slavs; complete assimilation probably occurred around the 14th century. One of
these Baltic tribes, the Galindians (Goljadi), is mentioned in a
chronicle as late as the 12th century. The protolanguage of the so-called
Eastern Balts split into Lithuanian and Latvian (Latgalian) around the 7th
century. The other languages of the so-called Eastern Balts became separated
probably at the same time. Selonian and Semigallian could have been transitional
languages between Lithuanian and Latvian. Only Curonian, which some consider to
be a transitional language between East and West Baltic, might have developed
somewhat earlier. Moreover, the name of the Curonians occurs in historical
sources earlier (AD 853: Latin Cori) than the names of
the other tribes of the so-called Eastern Balts.
In historical sources the Prussians are called Aistians from the 1st century AD (by Tacitus) until the 9th century AD (by the Anglo-Saxon seafarer Wulfstan). They are first referred to by their own name (by a Bavarian geographer using the form Bruzi, “Prussians”) in the 9th century AD. About 1230 the Teutonic Order began to plunder the lands of the Prussians and finally conquered them and the Yotvingians (Suduvians) in 1283. From that time the slow extinction of the two Baltic groups began, with the Germanization of the Prussians being completed at the beginning of the 18th century.
The earliest Old
Prussian (and, for that matter, Baltic) written record is a German-Prussian
vocabulary—the so-called Elbing vocabulary, compiled about 1300 and extant in a
copy dated around 1400. This vocabulary, consisting of 802 Old Prussian words
(and the same number of German words), was written in a South Prussian dialect
(in Pomesania). Somewhat poorer than the Elbing vocabulary is the vocabulary
compiled by Simon Grunau, consisting of 100 Old Prussian (and German) words,
written between 1517 and 1526. The most important Old Prussian written records
are the three catechisms of the 16th century based on the dialects of Sambia and
translated from the German; the first two catechisms, which are very short and
anonymous, date from 1545, and the third catechism, or Enchiridion, dates
from 1561 and was translated by Abelis Vilis (Abel Will), a pastor of the church
at Pobeten (Pabeciai; modern Romanovo). The language of all the Old
Prussian catechisms is rather poor: the translations are excessively literal,
and there are many errors in language and orthography. In spite of this, it is
from these Old Prussian catechisms that scholars can learn most about the Old
Prussian language.
Lithuanians are first
mentioned in historical sources in AD 1009. Old Russian
(more precisely, an East Slavic language based mainly on Belorussian), Latin,
and Polish were used in official matters in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, which
was established in the mid-13th century and lasted until the 18th century.
Lithuanian writings begin to appear in the 16th century, first in East Prussia
(home to many Lithuanians) and, somewhat later, in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.
In East Prussia, a quite uniform written Lithuanian language, based on the West
High Lithuanian dialect, had already been established by the second half of the
17th century. In Lithuania, however, a uniform written Lithuanian came into use
only at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, when a
standard Lithuanian language, based on the (Southern) West High Lithuanian
dialect (spoken in both East Prussia and Lithuania), was established. Martynas
Mazvydas (died 1563), who published the first Lithuanian book (a
catechism) in Königsberg (Lithuanian Karaliaucius; modern Kaliningrad) in
the year 1547, is purported to be the first person to use Lithuanian as a
written language. Others, in particular Baltramiejus Vilentas, Jonas Bretkunas,
and the pastor-poet Kristijonas Donelaitis, also took part in the formation and
standardization of a written Lithuanian language in the 16th–18th century in
East Prussia. Great influence was exerted by the first grammars of Lithuanian,
by Danielius Kleinas (1653 and 1654), and the works of Donelaitis (1714–80), the
first Lithuanian writer to become well known. In the Grand Duchy of Lithuania
the first to use Lithuanian as a written language is held to be Mikalojus Daukša
(died 1613), who published a catechism in 1595 and a prayer book (Postile)
in 1599. Later writers who helped to standardize written Lithuanian include
Konstantinas Sirvydas, who prepared the first dictionary of Lithuanian (1629),
Jonas Jaknavicius (1598–1668), and Saliamonas Slavocinskis (17th
century). The works of Daukša and Sirvydas in particular, based on the Middle
and East High Lithuanian dialects, did much toward establishing the practice of
drawing on the various dialects in the creation of a written Lithuanian. This
tradition waned in the 18th century but was revived at the beginning of the
19th, with the formation of a standard Lithuanian. The practice became most
apparent at the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, during
the establishment of standard Lithuanian. The mixing and levelling of the
Lithuanian dialects started at the beginning of the 20th century owing to the
influence of a standard language, and it was especially intensified after the
creation of the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic in 1940. Both the
Lithuanian S.S.R. and its successor, the Republic of Lithuania (from 1991),
designated Lithuanian the nation's official language.
The Latvian (Latgalian)
people achieved a separate identity around the 16th century AD,
when they completely assimilated the other Balts, as well as a greater part of
the Livs (also called Livonians, Livians), who are of Finnic descent and live on
Latvian territory. As a result of the conquering of Latvian territory by the
German Knights of the Sword by 1290, close contact between all of the so-called
Eastern Balts (the Latvians with the Lithuanians as well) was considerably
weakened for a long period of time. The first Latvian book was the
Catechismus Catholicorum of 1585. In 1638 the first Latvian(-German)
dictionary, by Georgius Mancelius, appeared; the first grammar of the Latvian
language, by Johann Georg Rehehausen, was published in 1644; and a Latvian
translation of the Bible was published in 1685. The Latvian writings of the
16th– 18th century are translations of religious works, as are the Lithuanian.
The language of these Latvian works, however, is somewhat poorer than that of
the Lithuanian writings of the same period. The works of the Latvians Juris Alunans
(1832–64) and Atis Kronvalds (1837–75) exerted a great influence on the
development of a standard Latvian language, based on the Central dialect, at the
beginning of the 19th century. Standard Latvian was finally established at the
end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, and the levelling
influence of this standard language on the Latvian dialects began at this time.
Standard Latvian is the official language of Latvia.
All of the Baltic
languages are inflected. Old Prussian is the most archaic of the recorded Baltic
languages (although it also has innovations of its own), and it differs
considerably from Lithuanian and Latvian.
In contrast to Lithuanian and Latvian, Old Prussian retained the Baltic diphthong ei—Old Prussian deiws “God,” Lithuanian dievas, Latvian děevs; Old Prussian deinan “day” (accusative singular), Lithuanian dienŕ, Latvian děena. In place of Lithuanian š and z (from Indo-European *k, *g, and *gh), however, Old Prussian, like Latvian (as well as Curonian, Semigallian, and Selonian), has s and z—thus, Old Prussian assis “axle,” Latvian ass, Lithuanian aši`s; Old Prussian (po)sinnat “to confess,” Latvian zinat, Lithuanian zinóti “to know.” The cluster s + j (and z + j) in Old Prussian, as in Latvian, passed to š (and z): Old Prussian schan (from *sjan) “this” (accusative singular feminine), Latvian šůo “this,” Lithuanian šia. In contrast to Lithuanian and Latvian, Old Prussian did not replace the clusters t + j and d + j with affricate sounds (begun with complete stoppage of the breath stream from the lungs and released with incomplete closure and friction): Old Prussian median “forest,” Lithuanian medzias, Latvian mezs.
Word stress was free in Old Prussian, as it is in Lithuanian (in contrast to Latvian, in which the stress is predictable and falls on the first syllable). Old Prussian also made use of intonations (tones), the character of which is similar to that of the Latvian (i.e., more archaic than that of Lithuanian intonations). The Proto-Baltic circumflex intonation corresponds to the falling tone in Old Prussian, while the acute intonation corresponds to the rising tone.
Old Prussian, moreover, had a substantive neuter gender, lost by Lithuanian and Latvian: Old Prussian assaran “lake,” Lithuanian ezeras, Latvian ezers; Old Prussian lunkan “bast,” Lithuanian lůnkas, Latvian luks. It differs in morphology from Lithuanian and Latvian in more than one instance—e.g., in the genitive singular ending, Old Prussian deiw-as “of God” (Lithuanian diev-o = Latvian diev-a) and, in the dative singular, Old Prussian tebbei “to you” (Lithuanian tavi = Latvian tev), among others. Old Prussian did not have the dual number, only the singular and plural. Nouns were declined according to seven types. There were five cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, and vocative. All verbs had three separate forms in the plural, but not in the singular. The 3rd person was the same in both the singular and the plural. There were three tenses: present, preterite, and future.
In vocabulary Old
Prussian is quite similar to Lithuanian and Latvian (closer to Lithuanian than
Latvian). It should be emphasized, however, that Old Prussian differs from
Lithuanian and Latvian in that it retained a greater number of archaisms than
either.
The differences between Lithuanian and Latvian can be summarized in very broad terms by saying that Lithuanian is far more archaic than Latvian and that modern written Lithuanian could in many instances serve as a “protolanguage” for it. For example, Lithuanian has quite faithfully preserved the old sound combinations an, en, in, un (the same is true of Old Prussian, Curonian, Selonian, and, possibly, Semigallian), while they have passed in every case to uo, ie, i, u in Latvian; thus, Lithuanian rankŕ (Old Prussian rancko) = Latvian růoka “hand,” Lithuanian peńktas (Old Prussian penckts) = Latvian piekt(ai)s “fifth,” Lithuanian pěnti = Latvian pit “to weave, to twine,” and Lithuanian jůngas = Latvian jugs “yoke.” The diphthongs ei (as well as ai) and au in final position were monophthongized and later shortened in Latvian—e.g., Lithuanian ved-ei (2nd person singular preterite) = Latvian *ved-ie, which became ved-i “you led”; Lithuanian med-aus = Latvian *med-uos, which became med-us “of honey.” Long vowels at the end of polysyllabic words have been shortened in Latvian, and short vowels have been dropped—e.g., Latvian sak-a “says” (which derives from *-a) = Lithuanian săk-o, Latvian pel-e “mouse” (from *-e) = Lithuanian pel-e, Latvian vělk-u “wolf” (from *-uo) = Lithuanian viík-a, Latvian daikts “thing” (from *-as) = Lithuanian dáiktas, and Latvian nakts “night” (from *-is) = Lithuanian naktěs. Palatalized k and g, formed with the blade of the tongue closer to the hard palate than nonpalatalized k and g, were retained in Lithuanian (as in Old Prussian and Semigallian) but changed to c (pronounced like ts) and dz in Latvian (as in Selonian and Curonian): Lithuanian ăkys “eyes” (Old Prussian ackis) = Latvian acis, and Lithuanian gérve “crane” (Old Prussian gerwe) = Latvian dzerve. The change of the old clusters t + j and d + j progressed further in Latvian. Most Lithuanian dialects have c (as ch as in “church”) and dz (as j in “jam”), whereas Latvian has š (as sh in “shore”) and z (as z in “azure”)—e.g., Lithuanian trecias “third” = Latvian trešs; Lithuanian bríedzai “elks” = Latvian briezi. Another difference between Lithuanian and Latvian is that, instead of Lithuanian š and z, Latvian (like Selonian, Semigallian, Curonian, and Old Prussian) has s and z sounds—e.g., Lithuanian širděs “heart” = Latvian sirds; Lithuanian ziemŕ “winter” = Latvian zěema. Proto-Latvian (and Prussian) s + j and z + j have passed to š and z: Latvian šut “to sew” = Lithuanian siuti; Latvian eza “of a hedgehog” (from Latvian *ezja) = Lithuanian ezio. Lithuanian has retained the initial clusters pj and bj, which in Latvian (and similarly in Slavic) have passed to pl and bl—e.g., Lithuanian piáuti “to cut” (pi is pronounced as pj) = Latvian plaut; Lithuanian biaurůs “hideous, nasty” = Latvian blaurs.
Lithuanian has a free stress in contrast to Latvian fixed stress, which occurs on the first syllable. Latvian is more archaic than Lithuanian in the intonations inherited from Proto-Baltic: the Proto-Baltic circumflex intonation has preserved its falling character in Latvian (it became rising in Lithuanian), and the Proto-Baltic acute intonation retained its rising character (it is falling in Lithuanian), although in some cases (because of stress retraction) it has been changed to the broken intonation; e.g., Latvian pěrsts “finger” = Lithuanian pirštas (falling in Latvian and rising in Lithuanian from the Proto-Baltic circumflex), Latvian vărna “crow” = Lithuanian várna (the rising or extended intonation in Latvian and the falling intonation in Lithuanian from the Proto-Baltic acute intonation), Latvian zâle “grass” = Lithuanian zole (the Latvian broken intonation from the Proto-Baltic acute intonation through stress retraction).
There are really no differences in the older morphological features between Lithuanian and Latvian if one does not take into account innovations such as the Latvian debitive verb form (man ir jamacas “I must study” or “it is necessary for me to study”) and the Lithuanian frequentative past (jie eidavo “they used to go”). Lithuanian and Latvian have two grammatical genders (masculine and feminine) and two numbers (singular and plural), while some Lithuanian dialects also have the dual number. Both Lithuanian and Latvian have seven cases—nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative, vocative. Standard Lithuanian has five declensions of nouns with 12 inflectional types; Latvian has six declensions with eight inflectional types. Lithuanian adjectives have three declensions, Latvian adjectives have one. The comparison of adjectives in the two languages is different. Both Lithuanian and Latvian have indefinite adjectives (Lithuanian măzas, masculine, mazŕ, feminine, “a small one” = Latvian mazs, maza) and definite adjectives (Lithuanian mazŕsis, mazóji “the small one” = Latvian mazais, maza) with their own specific inflection. The verb in Lithuanian and Latvian has three conjugations (genetically different). There are three persons, the third of which is the same (apparently from the time of Proto-Indo-European) in both the singular and the plural (as well as the dual); for example:
The verb in Lithuanian and Latvian has three tenses (present, preterite [or past], future)—e.g., Lithuanian kertů, Latvian certu (present); Lithuanian kirtau, Latvian cirtu (preterite); Lithuanian kirsiu, Latvian ciršu (future). In contrast to Latvian, Lithuanian also has a frequentative past tense—e.g., kirsdavau “I used to cut, strike.” Lithuanian and Latvian have many compound tense forms, compounded from the forms of the verb buti “to be” and participles. There are several moods in both languages, although moods in Lithuanian differ from those in Latvian. The system of participles (active and passive) in Lithuanian and Latvian is quite similar, although complicated—e.g., Lithuanian kertas, Latvian certuošs (present active); Lithuanian kertamas, Latvian certams (present passive). Lithuanian and Latvian word order is quite free, and, in general, the syntax of both languages is quite similar.
Words are formed in
Lithuanian and Latvian basically by means of suffixes, prefixes, and
compounding. The languages are very similar in their early vocabulary, and the
differences that do occur tend to be more of a semantic nature—e.g.,
Lithuanian móša “husband's sister” = Latvian masa “sister”;
Lithuanian zambas “corner, angle (acute)” = Latvian
zůobs “tooth.” Some older lexical differences do occur, however (e.g.,
Lithuanian kraujas “blood” = Latvian asins; Lithuanian sunůs
“son” = Latvian dels). In the newer vocabulary, there are now many
differences between Lithuanian and Latvian.
The Baltic languages have loanwords from the Slavic languages (e.g., Old Prussian curtis “hunting dog,” Lithuanian kůrtas, Latvian kurts come from Slavic [compare Polish chart]; Lithuanian muilas “soap” [compare Russian mylo]; Latvian suods “punishment, penalty” [compare Russian sud]). There are in addition a few loanwords from the Germanic languages, such as Gothic (e.g., Old Prussian ylo “awl,” Lithuanian ýla, Latvian ilens) and possibly Scandinavian as well. There are many loanwords directly from German; these are notable especially in Old Prussian and Latvian and are clearly a consequence of German colonization in the 13th century.
The Balts first came in
close contact with their northern neighbours, the Baltic Finns, about 2000
BC. This contact left traces in both the Baltic and the
Finnic languages. Baltic has very few early loanwords from Finnic, but Finnic
has many early loans from Baltic. Latvian, with many loanwords from Livonian and
Estonian (both Finnic languages), has been more influenced by Finnic than has
any other recorded Baltic language.
The Lithuanian alphabet is based on the Roman (Latin) alphabet. It has 33 letters, several employing diacritical marks, and is phonetic. In linguistic literature an acute accent is used for falling tones and a tilde for rising tones; the grave accent is used for short, stressed vowels.
The Latvian alphabet has 33 letters, 11 with diacritical marks. A macron over a vowel indicates that it is long. In linguistic literature the following accents are used for the Latvian intonations: grave for falling, tilde for extended or rising, and circumflex for broken.
The Old Prussian
orthography is almost wholly based on the German orthography of that time and is
quite inconsistent. Furthermore, every Old Prussian written record has its own
specific orthography.
Vytautas J. Maziulis