Baltic is a branch of the Indo-European language family closely related to Slavic within the wider Balto-Slavic grouping. Its only two surviving members are Lithuanian and Latvian, spoken by a combined total of roughly four million people in Lithuania and Latvia, while other Baltic languages, including Old Prussian, are extinct.
Facts
Disputed
Proto-Language StatusDebated: commonly held to descend from a reconstructed Proto-Baltic stage that split into East and West Baltic branches, though some recent scholarship argues Proto-Balto-Slavic split directly into three groups with no unified Proto-Baltic stage 1 Sources disagree on whether a unified Proto-Baltic stage existed before splitting into East and West Baltic, or whether Proto-Balto-Slavic split directly into three groups instead. RegionAreas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Europe 1 Speaker CountSource states a range of about 6.5 to 7.0 million; the midpoint is stored as the single value. Connections
Descends From
Baltic (Lithuanian, Latvian and their extinct relatives) is one of the two branches of Balto-Slavic alongside Slavic.
Sources
1. Wikipedia: Baltic languages
WikipediaLead section, paragraph 1: geographic distribution sentence
The Baltic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively or as a second language by a population of about 6.5-7.0 million people mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Europe.
Lead section, paragraph 1: population figure sentence
The Baltic languages are a branch of the Indo-European language family spoken natively or as a second language by a population of about 6.5-7.0 million people mainly in areas extending east and southeast of the Baltic Sea in Europe.
Classification section: Proto-Baltic unity debate sentence
However, more recent scholarship has suggested that there was no unified Proto-Baltic stage, but that Proto-Balto-Slavic split directly into three groups: Slavic, East Baltic and West Baltic.
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