Old Prussian language

Old Prussian (Old Prussian: Prūsiskai; German: Altpreußische Sprache, Altpreußisch; Polish: język pruski) was a Western Baltic language belonging to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European languages, which was once spoken by the Old Prussians, the Baltic peoples of the Prussian region. The language is called Old Prussian to avoid confusion with the German dialects of Low Prussian and High Prussian and with the adjective Prussian as it relates to the later German state. Old Prussian began to be written down in the Latin alphabet in about the 13th century, and a small amount of literature in the language survives. Old Prussian is an Indo-European language belonging to the Baltic branch. It is considered to be a Western Baltic language. Old Prussian was closely related to the other extinct Western Baltic languages, namely Sudovian, West Galindian and possibly Skalvian and Old Curonian. Other linguists consider Western Galindian and Skalvian to be Prussian dialects. It is related to the Eastern Baltic languages such as Lithuanian and Latvian, and more distantly related to Slavic. Compare the words for 'land': Old Prussian semmē [zemē], zeme, žemė, земля́, (zemljá) and ziemia. Old Prussian had loanwords from Slavic languages (e.g., Old Prussian curtis [kurtis] 'hound', like Lithuanian kùrtas and Latvian kur̃ts, cognate with Slavic (compare хорт, khort; chart; chrt)), as well as a few borrowings from Germanic, including from Gothic (e.g., Old Prussian ylo 'awl' as with Lithuanian ýla, Latvian īlens) and from Scandinavian languages. The Germanic regional dialect of Low German spoken in Prussia (or East Prussia), called Low Prussian (cf. High Prussian, also a Germanic language), preserved a number of Baltic Prussian words, such as kurp, from the Old Prussian kurpe, for shoe in contrast to common Schoh (standard German Schuh), as did the High Prussian Oberland subdialect. Until the 1938 renaming of East Prussian placenames, Old Prussian river- and place-names, such as Tawe and Tawellningken, could still be found.