Baltic Languages

Baltic Languages, languages spoken in the area bordering the Baltic Sea, which form a subfamily of the Indo-European languages, but are more closely related to Slavic, Germanic, and Indo-Iranian languages. The principal Baltic languages are the Latvian language or Lettish; the Lithuanian language; and Old Prussian (extinct since the 17th century). A few other extinct Baltic languages are associated with historical regions of northern Europe, notably Curonian and Semigallian, but no written records were left when the speakers of these languages were assimilated by the Latvians and Lithuanians in the 16th century. Of the extinct languages, only Old Prussian has significant written records, these being the three 16th-century catechisms translated from the German and based on the dialects of Sambia. Estonian, the language spoken in the third Baltic state, Estonia, is not part of the Baltic languages subfamily, belonging instead to the Uralic language group. Some linguists consider the Baltic and Slavic languages to form a single Indo-European subfamily, Balto-Slavic.