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Reference.org
Balto-Slavic languages
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<p>The Balto-Slavic languages form a branch of the <a href="/facts/Indo-European_languages/L34TfgSr">Indo-European</a> <a href="/facts/Family_of_languages/IpJv9o5S">family of languages</a>, traditionally comprising the <a href="/facts/Baltic_languages/Jmj2ckcI">Baltic</a> and <a href="/facts/Slavic_languages/b5GaeFx1">Slavic languages</a>. Baltic and Slavic languages share several linguistic traits not found in any other Indo-European branch, which points to a period of common development and origin. </p><p>A <a href="/facts/Proto-Balto-Slavic_language/wE6x9r0c">Proto-Balto-Slavic language</a> is reconstructable by the <a href="/facts/Comparative_method/VKJAa3zy">comparative method</a>, descending from <a href="/facts/Proto-Indo-European_language/cVLNoM3p">Proto-Indo-European</a> by means of well-defined <a href="/facts/Sound_change/NU6EyI1u">sound laws</a>, and from which modern Slavic and Baltic languages descended. One particularly innovative dialect separated from the Balto-Slavic dialect continuum and became ancestral to the <a href="/facts/Proto-Slavic_language/XwCspQ3n">Proto-Slavic language</a>, from which all Slavic languages descended. </p><p>While the notion of a Balto-Slavic unity was previously contested largely due to political controversies, there is now a general consensus among academic specialists in Indo-European linguistics that Baltic and Slavic languages comprise a single branch of the Indo-European language family, with only some minor details of the nature of their relationship remaining in contention. </p>