Carpathian language: Difference between revisions

==History==

===Classification and origins===

Carpathian is classified as an independent branch of the Indo-European languages, although it shares many common features with the Balto-Slavic languages. Some linguists tentatively conclude that Carpathian was dialectally close to that subbranch and connect it to the [[w:Paleo-Balkan languages|extinct languages]] of the Balkans, [[w:Dacian language|Dacian]] in particular. It is of interest to linguists for its distinctive phonological conservatism among modern Indo-European languages. Just as the Balto-Slavic languages, Carpathian exhibits [[w:Centum and satem languages|satemization]] (''śum̃ta'' “hundred” from Proto-Indo-European ''*ḱm̥tóm''), although some words developed as in the centum languages, such as ''gansìs'' “goose” from *ǵʰh₂éns (same as Slavic *gǫ̑sь).

The Carpathian region was a multilingual through its history, Carpathian vocabulary has historically been influenced by Paleo-Balkan, Slavic, Pannonian Avar and Hungarian, the latter two affected the language to a lesser extent.[42] Contact with German during the Austro-Hungarian period also resulted in a number of loanwords, particularly vocabulary related to trade and industry. There are two standardised modern literary forms, Eastern Carpathian in Ukraine and Poland and Western Carpathian in Slovakia, with which most contemporary dialects are mutually intelligible. Although Carpathians were known to history much earlier, both forms were codified in the 19th century.

===Early contacts===

Several linguists throughout the late 20th century noted the presence of so called "Carpathian [[w:Stratum_(linguistics)#Substratum|substratum]]" – an unidentified, likely non-Indo-European language formerly spoken in the Carpathians. Because there are irregularities in Carpathian substrate words, they might have been borrowed from distinct, but closely related languages. In the west, the substrate languages probably had an š-type sibilant which corresponds to an s-type sibilant in the east. The speakers of the Proto-Carpathian language arrived in the region around 2500 BCE and fully assimilated the local [[w:Paleo-European languages|Paleo-European]] population by the middle of 1st millennium BCE. The detailed reconstruction of this language (or languages) is impossible. Some of the borrowed words have cognates in all dialects of Carpathian, and semantically the substrate consists primarily of basic geographic and botanical terminology as well as toponymy, they are better preserved in dialectal vocabulary of the Carpathian Highlands. Some aspects of the Carpathian phonology, such as pleophony and consonant gemination, and grammar (absence of the passive voice, polypersonal agreement of verbs) are associated with the substrate.