Semigallian language
extinct Eastern Baltic language
Semigallian, also known as Zemgalian (Latvian: Zemgaļu valoda; Lithuanian: Žiemgalių kalba), was an East Baltic language of the Baltic language sub-family of the Indo-European languages.
History
It was spoken in the northern part of Lithuania and southern regions of Latvia in what is known as Semigallia. It is thought that it was extinct by the 16th century, with the assimilation by the Latvians
and Lithuanians. 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 /k/, /ɡ/ consonants became /c/, /d͡z/ 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.
“Semigallian language” enters the record as extinct Eastern Baltic language. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Semigallian, language and extinct can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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This entry incorporates text from “Semigallian language” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.