# Iranian influence on Slavic



## EuropeanOrigin

I have read in some other topics that because of heavy Iranian influence Slavic separated from Balto Slavic. Is this the general consensus and if so does that mean Slavic sounded more like Baltic before this happened? Also if this is the case is there a certain region where this happened?


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## ahvalj

There are no examples of a "heavy Iranic influence": what we have is a few dozen words of various degrees of convincingness (e. g. Iranic and Slavic *_bagas_ for "god") plus some phonetic aspects when the Slavic is more consistent in its innovations than the Baltic (e. g. Slavic, like Iranic, always cerebralizes _s_ after _r, u, k_ and _i_, whereas Lithuanian has examples when _s_ persists, though the exact conditions of this process in Slavic and Iranic are not completely identical; also Slavic like Iranic has several examples of _kh_>_x_, a development not found in Baltic etc.). There is a rather recent book in Russian on these topics by the prominent iranist Joy Edelman, I can post the pdf if you read Russian. 

Slavic definitely sounded more like Baltic at some point, but its present dissimilarity is not related to any influence, but just to a banal divergence process and considerably faster evolutionary rates than in Baltic. If we take e. g. Latvian after a millennium, it will sound less Baltic as well.

There is no consensus about the Slavic Urheimat: Slavs were too insignificant and remote from the Roman world to enter the annals, and only speculations exist that identify certain archeological cultures as Slavic. Most often the homeland is placed in south-eastern Poland, Slovakia and western Ukraine, where indeed Slavs were exposed to contacts with Scythians. For some areas near Kiev (Ukraine), anthropologists often state that the population type didn't change between the Scythian times (e. g. 5th century BC) and the Kievan Rus period (e. g. 10th century AC), which suggests an assimilation of the Iranic population of these areas to the Slavic newcomers from the West.


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## Awwal12

ahvalj said:


> Slavic definitely sounded more like Baltic at some point, but its present dissimilarity is not related to any influence.


One cannot know for sure. The law of the open syllable was pretty specific and makes to think about some substrate or adstrate. However, _that_ substrate most definetly wasn't Iranian, even if it existed.
And, of course, no "heavy Iranian influence" (in linguistic aspect!) ever existed. Even the amount of proto-Slavic loanwords from Iranian languages appears to be pretty limited.


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## ahvalj

Awwal12 said:


> One cannot know for sure. The law of the open syllable was pretty specific and makes to think about some substrate or adstrate. However, _that_ substrate most definetly wasn't Iranian, even if it existed.


The law of the open syllables is pretty late: it most probably operated several centuries before the first records and wasn't able to embrace all the positions — cp. the varying reflexes of _eS/oS_ and _iS/uS_ across the Slavic area. The tendency towards open syllables characterized several branches in their history, and I can think of e. g. Luwian (though for a short period: its late Anatolian descendants were among the most consonant-rich IE languages), middle Indic, part of Romance (Italian, leaving aside the long consonants, earlier Portuguese)…

[posts merged]

Actually, what constitutes this law?
(1) The disappearance of -_t_ — late since the OCS thematic Aorist distinguishes between Sg. 1 _padъ_ (<*_pōdan_) and Pl. 3 _padǫ_ (<*_pōdant_).
(2) The disappearance of -_s_ — most probably late since there is -*_as_>-_e_ in the thematic Nom. Sg. in Novgorod and Pskov birch bark letters vs. >-_ъ_ elsewhere (though there are other explanations of this ancient north-western East Slavic ending).
(3) The disappearance of the rare inlaut consonant clusters — banal + not always consistent (*_sebdmiṣ_>_semь/sedmь, гибнуть/cгинуть_).
(4) The nasalization — most probably late, since the early borrowings in Greek and Finnish still have _n_.
(5) The fate of _e/o/i/uS_ — late, see above.


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## EuropeanOrigin

http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=799968&page=2



> The main cause which made splitting of Slavic from PBS was the enormous Iranian influence on PBS south-east tribes, which made the biggest impact on verb inflexion system, therefore it's so different from Baltic one. Some pronouns (_nas, vas_) are also loaned from Iranian (Scythian).





> _Nas, vas_ are definitely loans from Iranian (cf. Sanskrit _nas, vas_ 'us, you'), as Balto-Slavic forms are _*mans, *vans_ (Latvian _mūs, jūs_, Old Latvian _muns, vuns_), which according Slavic sound changes would give Slavic _*mus, *vus_ or even _*muh, *vuh_ (cf. _teh_ 'them') and not _nas, vas_.



Is there any truth to the above?



			
				ahvalj said:
			
		

> There is a rather recent book in Russian on these topics by the prominent iranist Joy Edelman, I can post the pdf if you read Russian.


If you could post it that would be good.



			
				ahvalj said:
			
		

> Slavic definitely sounded more like Baltic at some point, but its present dissimilarity is not related to any influence, but just to a banal divergence process and considerably faster evolutionary rates than in Baltic.


What triggered that process and how long ago is it thought to have happened? Is it possible that Germanic played a role in the changes that happened in Slavic?



			
				ahvalj said:
			
		

> Slavs were too insignificant and remote from the Roman world to enter the annals, and only speculations exist that identify certain archeological cultures as Slavic.


What is your opinion on why the language of such an insignificant group was able to spread so much over Europe?


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## ahvalj

EuropeanOrigin said:


> http://forum.wordreference.com/showthread.php?t=799968&page=2
> 
> Is there any truthto the above?



Nobody knows — except the poster, of course.
_Ny_ and _vy_ are standard IE accusatives (cp. Latin _nōs_, _uōs_). Morphologically they are more archaic than the Baltic forms cited in the link. I have no idea how they can be interpreted as Iranic borrowings.

I don't imagine what was the Iranic influence on the "verbinflexion system" as the Slavic thematic endings continue the well-known IE primary and secondary ones, which are attested in may IE branches and have nothing specifically Iranic.

By the way, we know nothing about the ancient Balto-Slavic tribes, including which ones were "south-east" and which attested dialects descend from these. I don't see anything specifically Iranic in the Ukrainian and south Russian dialects. The origin of _g_>_h_ in Central Slavic is unknown, as it is unknown why the presumed Iranic influence didn't force other voiced stops to become affricates as well (i. e. _b_>_v_ and _d_>_∂_), as both positions were empty in the Common Slavic (later _v_ was _w_ then). If the author meant the Slavic in general, we turn back to the question of the Iranic influence.




EuropeanOrigin said:


> What would havetriggered that process and how long ago is it thought to have happened? Is itpossible that Germanic played a role in the changes that happened in Slavic?


The Germanic morphological evolution is very remote from the Slavic one, with only several shared innovations found in both groups (the greatest being -_m_- in the nominal endings in Germanic and Balto-Slavic as opposed to -_bh_- elsewhere, cp. English _them_, Russian _tem_ and Sanskrit _tebhyas_). I cannot think of examples of any grammatical interchange between both groups in ancient times.


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## ahvalj

EuropeanOrigin said:


> What triggered that process and how long ago is it thought to have happened? Is it possible that Germanic played a role in the changes that happened in Slavic?


Actually, the rate of the Slavic linguistic evolution is pretty moderate, and it is slower in most respects than almost anywhere, except in Baltic and especially in Lithuanian, so the question is not what made Slavic so special, but what made Lithuanian so conservative. Interestingly, the neighbhor Finnish is in many respects (especially in the preservation of the syllable structure) the most archaic Uralic language. 



EuropeanOrigin said:


> What is your opinion on why the language of such an insignificant group was able to spread so much over Europe?


The empty lands left by Germanics and the steppe nomads in the Great migration period (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_Period). Had Goths remained where they lived in the 1–3rd centuries, there would have been no Slavic speakers nowadays.

[merged posts]


By the way, this concept of Slavs as Iranic-influenced descendants of Baltic speakers must occupy an important place in the Baltic national mythology since I recall reading this (though with no linguistic details) in a Latvian liberation newspaper in Riga back in 1992.

[merged posts]

I am sorry for being too verbose, just one last remark: the history has decided that only dialects of the European periphery have survived, whereas the IE idioms of Central Europe disappeared with few traces. In this context, the Balto-Slavic problem should not be confined to the relationships of just two casually preserved groups, but should be regarded as part of the question of how close were the IE dialects of Central Europe in the 1st millennium BC — which we will be able to learn only in the case if more Thracian, Dacian, Pannonian etc. inscriptions are discovered. 

[merged posts]

Here is the book — https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7...it?usp=sharing (Эдельман ДИ · 2002 · Иранские и славянские языки. Исторические отношения). As you can see, 90% of the text tells about the Iranic languages. Well, besides Edelman being an iranist, there is really not so much to discuss ,-)

By the way, there is a good parallel to the situation with Baltic and Slavic: the parallel showing that simple speculations (like those of the Latvian poster in the link above) don't necessarily work. So, we have two pockets of conservative languages, a more conservative one (Icelandic/Lithuanian) and a less conservative (Faroese/Latvian), and a much larger body of related but considerably more derived languages (continental Scandinavian/Slavic). The Latvian poster's scenario implies that the continental Scandinavian, like Slavic, didn't develop naturally, and that their faster evolutionary rates need special explanations. Actually, in the case of Scandinavian we luckily know that it was the opposite, and, in particular, these were Icelanders who experienced a considerable foreign influence (in the form of vikings' Irish wives), though without any perceptible effect on their language, which remained conservative due to its insular isolation.

Update. Also, the modern Latvian is not that conservative. If it loses its final -_s_ and monophthongizes the diphthongs, it will generally reach the level of evolutionary advancement of the Old Church Slavonic. Latvian has passed through a more or less the same process of palatalizations and yotations as the Slavic languages, has modified its vowel+n/m sequences, has experienced a reduction of short vowels in final syllables (stronger than in Slavic, by the way), grammatically and syntactically it is already more or less on the northern Slavic level…


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## EuropeanOrigin

ahvalj said:
			
		

> Actually, the rate of the Slavic linguistic evolution is pretty moderate, and it is slower in most respects than almost anywhere, except in Baltic and especially in Lithuanian


Ok, but for Slavic to sound so different to Baltic today it still seems like there would have been something major happen for such drastic changes in case endings and other grammatical features to be triggered. Languages wouldn't just make huge changes like this without some cause would they? There is maybe no precise answer for this but I would like to know your opinion on it.


			
				ahvalj said:
			
		

> so the question is not what made Slavic so special, but what made Lithuanian so conservative.


I have heard that dialects on the fringes of a particular linguistic territory are often more conservative than the centre. Could this be why Lithuanian is more conservative? Maybe Baltic was spoken south of where it is today and only moved north prior to when Slavic underwent these drastic changes?


			
				ahvalj said:
			
		

> The empty lands left by Germanics and the steppe nomads in the Great migration period (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Migration_Period). Had Goths remained where they lived in the 1–3rd centuries, there would have been no Slavic speakers nowadays.


Which empty lands exactly are you talking about? If most of the lands were depopulated that means an insignificant tribe which the Romans didn't even notice had a sudden and enormous population boom. What explains that? If the lands weren't depopulated that means non-Slavic people adopted Slavic en masse. What explains that? Is it possible that in these areas people spoke Balto Slavic dialects which made it easier for a language shift to happen?


			
				ahvalj said:
			
		

> By the way, this concept of Slavs as Iranic-influenced descendants of Baltic speakers must occupy an important place in the Baltic national mythology since I recall reading this (though with no linguistic details) in a Latvian liberation newspaper in Riga back in 1992.


Yes it does look that way for some Baltic speakers but the information you've posted shows otherwise.


			
				ahvalj said:
			
		

> In this context, the Balto-Slavic problem should not be confined to the relationships of just two casually preserved groups, but should be regarded as part of the question of how close were the IE dialects of Central Europe in the 1st millennium BC — which we will be able to learn only in the case if more Thracian, Dacian, Pannonian etc. inscriptions are discovered.


From what remains there are many Dacian/Thracian words that look very similar to Baltic and I don't think it's impossible for them to have had a genetic link, and if that happens to be so then it explains a lot about Balto Slavic.


			
				ahvalj said:
			
		

> Here is the book — https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7...it?usp=sharing (Эдельман ДИ · 2002 · Иранские и славянские языки. Исторические отношения)


.
Thank you and excuse all of the questions, I just want to learn more about these topics from people who understand linguistics. Thanks for taking the time to explain.


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## ahvalj

EuropeanOrigin said:


> Ok, but for Slavic to sound so different to Baltic today it still seems like there would have been something major happen for such drastic changes in case endings and other grammatical features to be triggered. Languages wouldn't just make huge changes like this without some cause would they? There is maybe no precise answer for this but I would like to know your opinion on it.


Nowadays, there are only two languages that preserve e. g. the IE structure of the Nominative Singular form of the most frequent class of nouns: Lithuanian, e. g. _vilk-a-s_ and Greek, e. g. _lik-o-s_, "wolf", all the other languages have modified or lost this ending. What requires explanation: the general tendency (99% of languages) or the exceptions (2 languages)? 



EuropeanOrigin said:


> I have heard that dialects on the fringes of a particular linguistic territory are often more conservative than the centre. Could this be why Lithuanian is more conservative? Maybe Baltic was spoken south of where it is today and only moved north prior to when Slavic underwent these drastic changes?


The example of modern Scandinavian languages shows that simple speculations don't necessarily work: without direct or at least strong indirect evidence it is impossible to suggest anything convincing. We simply know nothing about the ancient linguistic situation in the Balto-Slavic area. Conservatism, too, is a complicated thing as there are no completely conservative languages and the preservation of some archaic characters always coexists with specific innovations. For example, in the Italian area the most conservative is the Tuscan dialect (the base of the literary language, by the way), which is located quite centrally. Sardinian, which is very conservative in some aspects, is strikingly innovative in the others.



EuropeanOrigin said:


> Which empty lands exactly are you talking about? If most of the lands were depopulated that means an insignificant tribe which the Romans didn't even notice had a sudden and enormous population boom. What explains that? If the lands weren't depopulated that means non-Slavic people adopted Slavic en masse. What explains that? Is it possible that in these areas people spoke Balto Slavic dialects which made it easier for a language shift to happen?


Nobody knows. What is attested is that the lands once occupied by various Germanic tribes (Poland, Ukraine, East Germany, Bohemia) or steppe nomads (Hungary, Ukraine) who moved south- or westwards towards the Roman territory, after a relatively short period became Slavic-speaking. Further east, in what is now Russia, there were probably no Slavic speakers still 1500 years ago: the future core Russian lands were occupied by Balts (roughly, south of Moscow) and Finns (roughly, north of Moscow). The area immediately west of Moscow was still Baltic-speaking (East Galindians) 800 years ago.



EuropeanOrigin said:


> Yes it does look that way for some Baltic speakers but the information you've posted shows otherwise.





EuropeanOrigin said:


> From what remains there are many Dacian/Thracian words that look very similar to Baltic and I don't think it's impossible for them to have had a genetic link, and if that happens to be so then it explains a lot about Balto Slavic.


Yes, it may perfectly happen that Baltic (probably, separately West Baltic and East Baltic) and Slavic were part of a larger continuum of not completely diverged dialects spoken in Central Europe in the 1st millennium BC.

Update. The Russian Wikipedia article about Balts (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Балты) has two maps with the distribution of archaeological cultures presumably associated with Balts (violet), Slavs (terracotta), Finnics (green) and others in the 3–4th and 5–6th centuries. I strongly doubt there is evidence of Slavic speakers in the north-west of Russia shown in the second map, but archaeologists must have their own reasons. In any case, as you can see, the later Balts occupy less than a half of their original territory.


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## EuropeanOrigin

ahvalj said:


> What requires explanation: the general tendency (99% of languages) or the exceptions (2 languages)?


I am only interesting in Slavic, not the rest of the 99%. I just wanted to know if there are theories that narrow down and explain why some of the changes in Slavic happened.


ahvalj said:


> The example of modern Scandinavian languages shows that simple speculations don't necessarily work: without direct or at least strong indirect evidence it is impossible to suggest anything convincing. We simply know nothing about the ancient linguistic situation in the Balto-Slavic area. Conservatism, too, is a complicated thing as there are no completely conservative languages and the preservation of some archaic characters always coexists with specific innovations. For example, in the Italian area the most conservative is the Tuscan dialect (the base of the literary language, by the way), which is located quite centrally. Sardinian, which is very conservative in some aspects, is strikingly innovative in the others.


There is a lot of conjecture in linguistics but that doesn't mean that some examples cannot be tentatively rationalised through some models. The example of Scandinavian languages as a parallel to Balto Slavic may show that the traditional centres where they were spoken appear to have evolved more than the fringe areas. It is only a suggestion but it does make some sense in their cases at least.


ahvalj said:


> Nobody knows. What is attested is that the lands once occupied by various Germanic tribes (Poland, Ukraine, East Germany, Bohemia) or steppe nomads (Hungary, Ukraine) who moved south- or westwards towards the Roman territory, after a relatively short period became Slavic-speaking.


Where is Slavic first attested? Are there any names of people or places that were recorded before OCS?


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## ahvalj

EuropeanOrigin said:


> I am only interesting in Slavic, not the rest of the 99%. I just wanted to know if there are theories that narrow down and explain why some of the changes in Slavic happened.


I had already mentioned Latvian and would like to emphasize once again that it has experienced many of the same sound shifts as Slavic: IE palatovelars gave _s_ and _z_ (as elsewhere in the attested Baltic except Lithuanian), _k_ and _g_ assibilated into _c_ and _dz_ before front vowels, _tj_>_š_, _dj_>_ž_, _kj_>_č_, _gj_>_dž_, _sj_>_š_, _zj_>_ž_, _in_>_ī_, _un_>_ū_, _en_>_ie_, _an_>_uo_, in Latgalian and Prussian _a_ partially gave _o_ (among other vowel shifts), Samogitian has _i_>_e_ and _u_>_o_ — so one can find many parallels to the Slavic developments within Baltic itself. The literary Lithuanian is just casually based on the phonetically most conservative Baltic dialect, all the remaining Baltic idioms (including Lithuanian substandard varieties) are more derived.



EuropeanOrigin said:


> Where is Slavic first attested? Are there any names of people or places that were recorded before OCS?


Wikipedia has a pretty comprehensive article about this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Slavs). 

I have a good publication analyzing the linguistic traces of the Slavic languages in Byzantine and Latin sources of the early medieval times (_Тохтасьев СР · 1998 · Древнейшие свидетельства славянского языка на Балканах_), but unfortunately it is not scanned and the book will be ruined if I do this. The idea is that the Slavic forms of the 6–7th centuries are considerably less derived in comparison with the OCS stage. Also, the oldest Slavic borrowings into Finnic are very archaic, e. g. _talkkuna_ and _akkuna_ vs. the attested _tolokъno_ and _okъno_ still have_ a_, _u_, and _al_; _kaatio_ vs. _gača_ still shows the long vowel and the unmodified _tj_, etc. The same in Greek: _καρούτα_ (later _koryto_), _κασάρι_ (later _kosarjь_), _χούμελι_ (later _xъmelь_). You can also find examples in this book: _Shevelov GY · 1964 · A prehistory of Slavic: the historical phonology of Common Slavic_ (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7IkEzr9hyJYUZ1ck5vdWE2Q1U/edit?usp=sharing), though beware that Shevelov belonged to those numerous scholars who believe to understand more than the material allows to justify, so don't take too serious his detailed explanations, these are most often just some of millions of possible interpretations.


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## Словеса

EuropeanOrigin said:


> Languages wouldn't just make huge changes like this without some cause would they?


Why do you think so? The Universe is also now very different than in the time of Big Bang. Sorry for the absurd example, but anything changes, does it not?


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## EuropeanOrigin

ahvalj said:


> Wikipedia has a pretty comprehensive article about this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Early_Slavs).


It says more about the mentioning of Slavs and doesn't say much about earliest records of Slavic languages or words.


ahvalj said:


> I have a good publication analyzing the linguistic traces of the Slavic languages in Byzantine and Latin sources of the early medieval times (_Тохтасьев СР · 1998 · Древнейшие свидетельства славянского языка на Балканах_), but unfortunately it is not scanned and the book will be ruined if I do this.


Can you tell me which Byzantine and Latin sources have the earliest mention of Slavic linguistic traces and what is said in brief? I can look them up myself after that.


ahvalj said:


> Also, the oldest Slavic borrowings into Finnic are very archaic, e. g. _talkkuna_ and _akkuna_ vs. the attested _tolokъno_ and _okъno_ still have_ a_, _u_, and _al_; _kaatio_ vs. _gača_ still shows the long vowel and the unmodified _tj_, etc. The same in Greek: _καρούτα_ (later _koryto_), _κασάρι_ (later _kosarjь_), _χούμελι_ (later _xъmelь_).


Are these Slavic borrowings into Finnic and Greek from the same period or does one predate the other?


ahvalj said:


> You can also find examples in this book: _Shevelov GY · 1964 · A prehistory of Slavic: the historical phonology of Common Slavic_ (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7IkEzr9hyJYUZ1ck5vdWE2Q1U/edit?usp=sharing), though beware that Shevelov belonged to those numerous scholars who believe to understand more than the material allows to justify, so don't take too serious his detailed explanations, these are most often just some of millions of possible interpretations.


Thanks.


			
				Словеса said:
			
		

> Why do you think so?


Because change is a process whereby something becomes different. For this to happen there must be a cause which triggers a reaction. If a language existed only on paper with no variables, no people to speak it or society to influence it, then it would always stay the same. 





			
				Словеса said:
			
		

> The Universe is also now very different than in the time of Big Bang. Sorry for the absurd example, but anything changes, does it not?


There is a cause for that change, is there not?


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## Словеса

EuropeanOrigin said:


> There is a cause for that change, is there not?


Okay. Well, the Universe changes by itself, per its own laws, there is no external cause. As for the language, its change also does not need an external cause: people, during their lives, adopt other ways of thinking and of formulating their thoughts, young people cannot (and have no set goal to) represent exactly the language that they hear from their elders. As generations change and centuries go, the changes accumulate and grow huge. As people in the society seek still to accomodate to each other, the changes happen to be more or less consistent. Any change that we may wish to consider certainly needs a cause, but need that cause be anything special that we could name? No, not necessarily.


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## ahvalj

EuropeanOrigin said:


> Can you tell me which Byzantine and Latin sources have the earliest mention of Slavic linguistic traces and what is said in brief? I can look them up myself after that.


Right now I can offer this book from the web: _{Свод древнейших письменных известий о славянах} · 1991 · Свод древнейших письменных известий о славянах. Том I (I–VI вв.)_ (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7IkEzr9hyJMkY4cGV1RmEyVU0/edit?usp=sharing) and hopefully the next Monday I will scan the paper I had mentioned + another one with historical data, since I will need them scanned anyway.



EuropeanOrigin said:


> Are these Slavic borrowings into Finnic and Greek from the same period or does one predate the other?


The contacts between Greeks and Slavs begin with the Slavic raids across the Danube in the early 6th century. The timing of Finnic-Slavic contacts remains unknown for the lack of literacy in both groups. Most probably they are of roughly the same age, as Slavs must have met some Finnic tribes after they passed through the Balts' territories.

As always, many thanks to Словеса for his valuable contribution.


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## EuropeanOrigin

Словеса said:
			
		

> Okay. Well, the Universe changes by itself, per its own laws, there is no external cause.


Most of the universe is unknown and we are in no position to determine where all of its causes for change come from. Anyway I am not here to discuss cosmology so let's stick to realistic comparisons. Let me also make it clear that I have no vested interest in any Baltic versus Slavic rivalry and I remain emotionally unmoved if either was influenced by foreign languages or not.


			
				Словеса said:
			
		

> As for the language, its change also does not need an external cause: people, during their lives, adopt other ways of thinking and of formulating their thoughts


Yes, it is not necessarily external influence. But something causes the adoption of other ways such as different environments or new social elements. This doesn't mean that innovation isn't also part of the evolutionary process but even that doesn't always automatically imply something sporadically initiated from the inside. Maybe there are no concise explanations for my questions and that is okay but I wanted to ask first to see what others think.


			
				Словеса said:
			
		

> As people in the society seek still to accomodate to each other, the changes happen to be more or less consistent. Any change that we may wish to consider certainly needs a cause, but need that cause be anything special that we could name? No, not necessarily.


I think it is better to investigate rather than ignore the subject altogether. Even if it doesn't lead to anything conclusive at least one can be comfortable with having thoroughly explored the possibilities.


			
				ahvalj said:
			
		

> Right now I can offer this book from the web: {Свод древнейших письменных известий о славянах} · 1991 · Свод древнейших письменных известий о славянах. Том I (I–VI вв.) (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7...it?usp=sharing) and hopefully the next Monday I will scan the paper I had mentioned + another one with historical data, since I will need them scanned anyway.


Thanks but I already know all of the early records which mention Slavic people. I am only interested in the earliest direct or indirect records/evidence of the Slavic language. Your example of borrowed words in Finnish and Greek was helpful. Another example is what were the first words, names or tribes recorded and confirmed as being definitively Slavic? I realise that this doesn't mean such words, names and tribes didn't exist before they were recorded, I just want to find out if anybody knows this information.


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## Словеса

EuropeanOrigin said:


> I think it is better to investigate rather than ignore the subject altogether.


I was only answering your remark:


EuropeanOrigin said:


> Languages wouldn't just make huge changes like this without some cause would they?


Glad that we eventually agreed.


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## Словеса

EuropeanOrigin said:


> Let me also make it clear that I have no vested interest in any Baltic versus Slavic rivalry and I remain emotionally unmoved if either was influenced by foreign languages or not.


I have no idea why you are saying this to me: you were one who brought this subject in in our conversation, I have not discussed this subject at all.
[........]


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## EuropeanOrigin

Словеса said:


> I have no idea why you are saying this to me: you were one who brought this subject in in our conversation, I have not discussed this subject at all.
> Let me make it clear that I don't care what you are emotionally moved or unmoved about.


I am saying it in general to eliminate any unwarranted suspicion because of the many questions I have been asking. My interest in this topic is genuine. [......]


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## ahvalj

As promised, two fresh scans:

Шувалов ПВ · 1998 · Проникновение славян на Балканы — https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7IkEzr9hyJLXpnbW9FQ0UxNGs/edit?usp=sharing

Тохтасьев СР · 1998 · Древнейшие свидетельства славянского языка на Балканах — https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B_7IkEzr9hyJOHEzeks1NnBKX1E/edit?usp=sharing

Together with the data on the oldest borrowings from Slavic into neighboring languages given in Shevelov (see the link in the post #11), this covers, I guess, some 90% of what is known on the topic.


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## EuropeanOrigin

Thanks for all of the information ahvalj, I will look at these and let you know if I have any more questions.


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## ahvalj

I'd just like to remind that we have switched from your original question to the topic of how archaic/derived Slavic was in the centuries preceding its first written attestation. The Iranic influence or just common innovations in these two neighboring languages are indisputable, but this obviously belonged to the 1st millennium BC and as such was not especially responsible of the form the Slavic speech took many centuries later.


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## EuropeanOrigin

ahvalj said:


> The Iranic influence or just common innovations in these two neighboring languages are indisputable, but this obviously belonged to the 1st millennium BC


Can you mention a couple of examples of those influences? Would that same Iranic influence be present in Baltic also? Can you narrow down 1st millennium BC to a likely century?


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## ahvalj

EuropeanOrigin said:


> Would that same Iranic influence be present in Baltic also? Can you narrow down 1st millennium BC to a likely century?


Indo-Iranics left the northern Pontic steppes some time in the 2nd millennium and returned, as Scythians and Sarmatians, in the first centuries of the 1st millennium BC (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scythians and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sarmatians). There are also speculations that Indic speakers were present in some form in the borders of the Azov sea in the 1st millennium BC, but this is still very vague. The contacts must have stopped to the turn of the eras as Iranics as a dominant force in that area were replaced first by Germanics in the 2nd century AC, and then by the Turkics (until the 18th century), so that the remaining Iranic speakers hardly had any prestige to be centers of influence. Nowadays, the only linguistic remnant of the Scythian/Sarmatian in the adjacent area is the Ossetic language.

The detectable Iranic borrowings in Baltic are rare, but Balts must have had a common boundary with Iranics in Eastern Europe before the arrival of the Slavs. Most probably these borrowings disappeared together with the Baltic speech in that area. I'd like to remind that the modern Balts are just remnants of a considerably larger entity and that Lithuanian and Latvian are located at the northern periphery of the former Baltic continuum.

The common innovations of the entire Balto-Slavic and Iranic, like the merger of _bh_, _dh_ and _gh_ with _b_, _d_ and _g_, or the assibilation of the IE palatovelars, or the change of _s_ into a hissing sound after _r_, _u_, _k_ and_ i_ are parallel but not exactly identical in all the three branches, and what is important were not uniform within Iranic itself. For example, the palatovelars give _š_ and _ž_ in Lithuanian, _s_ and _z_ elsewhere in the attested Baltic, in Slavic and in Avestan, but _θ_ and _d_ in Persian and probably other reflexes in the minor Iranic dialects. It is hard to justify that this _s/z _reflexation is a common innovation caused by mutual influence: rather, this result was achieved independently in various parts of Balto-Slavic and Iranic.



EuropeanOrigin said:


> Can you mention a couple of examples of those influences?


I cannot add anything to the examples in the book by Edelman (post # 7). The _Paradebeispiel_ of the late Iranic influence to the Slavic is the word *_bagas_ for "god", that has replaced in Iranic the ancient *_daiwas_ between the separation of the Indic speakers (still have *_daiwas_) and the time when the Zoroastrianism took shape (has *_bagas_, whereas *_daiwas_ becomes a word for a demon). Also, some of the Slavic names for gods are of probable Iranic origin, e. g. _Xъrsъ_ (https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/Хорс). Baltic preserves _dievas/dievs_.


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## arvistro

ahvalj said:


> Update. Also, the modern Latvian is not that conservative. If it loses its final -_s_ and monophthongizes the diphthongs, it will generally reach the level of evolutionary advancement of the Old Church Slavonic. Latvian has passed through a more or less the same process of palatalizations and yotations as the Slavic languages, has modified its vowel+n/m sequences, has experienced a reduction of short vowels in final syllables (stronger than in Slavic, by the way), grammatically and syntactically it is already more or less on the northern Slavic level…


That is very true. When I look at proto-Balto-Slavic and proto-Slavic reconstructions it sometimes takes me to crazy ideas, that visually would be explained like this:
ProtoBaltoSlavic-Lithuanian-..-..-Latvian-ProtoSlavic-..-OCS-Modern Slavic...
Basically Lithuanian being one step after PBS, and Latvian one step before PS. Btw, calling Baltic languages North Slavic, is about same as calling Slavic languages South Baltic 



ahvalj said:


> Nowadays, there are only two languages that  preserve e. g. the IE structure of the Nominative Singular form of the  most frequent class of nouns: Lithuanian, e. g. _vilk-a-s_ and Greek, e. g. _lik-o-s_,  "wolf", all the other languages have modified or lost this ending. What  requires explanation: the general tendency (99% of languages) or the  exceptions (2 languages)?


Btw, male masculine "s" endings -s, -as, -az, -us, etc were present around Europe (Norse runes, Latin, Greek, Gothic, etc) until 5-6th centuries, and dissappeared until 8-9th centuries (vulgar Latin, newer forms of Norse, Germanics, etc). I think also Celtic had mostly -os for male masculine before 5th century, and who knows maybe Slavs as well. 

It gives 3-4 centuries interval or maybe less for such important change to happen accross vast geographical and language group area. What could have helped it was probably depopulation of Europe on the 6th century (at least 50% of population was lost year 536 famine and Justinian plague that followed), and migrations.


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## ahvalj

arvistro said:


> Btw, calling Baltic languages North Slavic, is about same as calling Slavic languages South Baltic


I actually meant that Slavic languages except Bulgarian and Macedonian preserve the case system. In principle, West + East Slavic are sometimes called North Slavic (when there is a need to contrast them to South Slavic), but of course Slovene and Serbo-Croatian preserve cases as well, so I was not accurate.



arvistro said:


> Btw, male masculine "s" endings -s, -as, -az, -us, etc were present around Europe (Norse runes, Latin, Greek, Gothic, etc) until 5-6th centuries, and dissappeared until 8-9th centuries (vulgar Latin, newer forms of Norse, Germanics, etc). I think also Celtic had mostly -os for male masculine before 5th century, and who knows maybe Slavs as well.
> 
> It gives 3-4 centuries interval or maybe less for such important change to happen accross vast geographical and language group area. What could have helped it was probably depopulation of Europe on the 6th century (at least 50% of population was lost year 536 famine and Justinian plague that followed), and migrations.


That was much more complicated. 

Albanian and East Romance (including Italian) lose all -_s_. Ibero-Romance (Portuguese, Spanish and Catalan) preserves -_s,_ simply the Nominative is being replaced with the Accusative. Gallo-Romance (French and Occitan) preserve -_s_ until late Middle Ages phonetically, plus the Old French and Old Occitan preserve -_s_ in the Nom. Sg.

In Germanic, -_s_ persists (e. g. in the Gen. Sg.), and -_z_ tends to change. Only Old High German loses every -_z_. In Ingaevonic (English, Frisian and Low German), -_z_ disappears but -_nz_>-_s_ in Acc. Pl., hence e. g. the modern English -_s_ in the Plural. Scandinavian preserves -_z_>-_R_>-_r_ until today in Icelandic and Faroese, but loses -_r_ in Nom. Sg. in the continental languages (any other -_r_ remains).

In Celtic, Irish still preserves -_s_ in Ogamic writings (in the 4th century) but loses it to the beginning of the 6th century.


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## arvistro

Thanks! Did not know about France.
But am I right to say that *before 5th century* a king *anywhere* in *IE* *Europe* in masculine nominative would say I(me), Whatevers (Whateveraz, Whateveros, Whateveris, etc)? 

After 8th century he would say I(me), Whatever (_Whateverir, Whateverj, Whatevero etc). _Only in France (till 14th century), Byzantium and Baltics he would still say Whatevers/os/as. And in some other language groups in some grammar forms some traces of s would be preserved...

It is still quite big thing for few centuries and area covered, is not it? 

About Celts, do you know when exactly -s got lost in 6th century? Before or after 536? Or maybe changes started when migrations and cooling of 5th century took place. Hm.


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## ahvalj

Common Germanic had generalized -_s_>-_z_, so why should we count Germanic forms? _Z_ is not _s_.

Archaic and dialectal Latin in the 3–2nd centuries BC had a tendency to drop -_s_ (even after long vowels occasionally). Cicero calls it _subrūsticum_.

Slavic had assibilated _s_ after _i_ and _u_, so it actually must have had -*_as _and_ -*es_ but -*_iṣ_ and -*_uṣ_, and we don't know when did this *_ṣ_ move to the attested _x_. Lithuanian shows _s_>_ṣ_>_š_ inconsistently (_sausas_ but _vetušas_ — cp. _suxъ_ and _vetъxъ_ in Slavic; _visas_ but _maišas_ — cp. _vьśь_ and _měxъ_ in Slavic), and if this inconsistency had dialectal sources, some part of Baltic may have had -_iṣ_>-_iš_ and -_uṣ_>-_uš_ at some point as well (as had Iranic).

I don't know if Irish sources can be dated so precisely.


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## arvistro

Re German -az vs -r:
When viking Fjornotaz went to Lithuanian ca 500 AD, local folk would tell: "Fjornotas was there"
When viking Fjornotr went to Lithuania ca 800 AD, local folk would tell: "FjornotRas was there".

Do you see why I don't care about -s, -z or -š differences?

I am pretty sure Greeks would also call him first time Fjornotos, second time FjornotRos.

Also do we know if Germans actually spelled it as z at word end position? In Finnic their loanwords end with -as.
...
Slavic had mjagkij znak in masc nominative in OCS. When was x attested in Slavic nominative?


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## ahvalj

No, I don't see why you don't care.

Germanic -_z_ is attested: (1) in earlier runic inscriptions (where _R_ doesn't merge with _r_), (2) in Gothic, where -_z_ is preserved when augmented by a particle (cp. _ƕas_ — _ƕazuh_ vs. _was_ — _wasuh_), and is suggested by (3) the preservation of -_s_ in later West and North Germanic vs. the abovementioned changes of -_z_ (cp. Old Icelandic Nom. Sg. _armr_ vs. Gen. Sg. _arms_). 

Finnish is the only language that has a clean voiceless -_s_, its relatives have a weak (Estonian) or voiced sound instead (except for some dialects, like North Karelian), but in any case it is an in-Finnic development: both -_s_ and -_z_ would have produced the same reflex in these languages.

Slavic exhibits the regular shift *_s_>*_ṣ_>_x_ when after _i, u, r,_ _k _and when not before a consonant (e. g. Aorist Pl. 1 _stavixomъ_ vs. Pl. 2 _staviste_); word-finally it is not attested since Slavic lost all the final consonants, but ancient Indo-Iranic shows this shift in the endings as well (e. g. _Dārayavahuš_ — http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Darius_I), so there is no reason Slavic was any different.


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## arvistro

I think as/az is minor thing. As/r or az/r is a big thing.
The first one could be dialectal pronounciation, the second sounds like from different language. 

I understand that you dont have this intuitive feel since you dont speak Latvian or similar language daily. 

I believe -az time German would tell you the same.


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