Selonian language
| Selonian | |
|---|---|
| Selian | |
| Native to | Latvia and Lithuania |
| Extinct | 16th century |
|
Indo-European
| |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-3 | sxl |
Linguist list | sxl |
Selonian was a Baltic language spoken by the Eastern Baltic tribe of the Selonians, who until the 15th century lived in Selonia, a territory in South Eastern Latvia and North Eastern Lithuania.
During the 13th-15th centuries the Selonians lost their language after being assimilated by the Latgalians and partly by the Lithuanians.
It is considered that the Selonian language retained the proto-Baltic phonemes *an, *en, *in, *un like the Lithuanian language, but like the Latvian language the proto-Baltic *kʲ, *ɡʲ changed to c, dz, and the proto Baltic *š, *ž changed to s, z.
Traces of the Selonian language can still be found in the territories the Selonians inhabited, especially in the accent and phonetics of the so-called Selonian dialect of the Latvian language. There are some traces of the Selonian language in the North Eastern sub-dialects of the Aukštaitian dialect of Lithuanian language, mostly in the lexicon.
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