What annoys me about encyclopedia articles

I'm aware that no article is perfect, and I've got poorly written ideas of my own. Though its frustrating running into encyclopedia and other articles on subjects, that are poorly sourced, poorly written, and reflect the writer's lack of knowledge (while pretending to know more than they do).

Looking through the Encyclopedia Britannica's article on the Baltic Languages, in the section on their developement, we find this:

"By the middle of the 1st millennium BC, the Proto-Baltic area was already sharply split into dialects. From the middle of the 1st millennium AD, the Baltic language area began to shrink considerably; at that time the greater part of Baltic territory, the eastern part, began to be inhabited by Slavs migrating from the south. The Balts there were gradually assimilated by the Slavs; complete assimilation probably occurred around the 14th century. One of these Baltic tribes, the Galindians (Goljadĭ), is mentioned in a chronicle as late as the 12th century. The protolanguage of the so-called Eastern Balts split into Lithuanian and Latvian (Latgalian) around the 7th century. The other languages of the so-called Eastern Balts became separated probably at the same time. Selonian and Semigallian could have been transitional languages between Lithuanian and Latvian. Only Curonian, which some consider to be a transitional language between East and West Baltic, might have developed somewhat earlier. Moreover, the name of the Curonians occurs in historical sources earlier (ad 853: Latin Cori) than the names of the other tribes of the so-called Eastern Balts."

Chunky paragraph aside, this is really sloppy and hard to follow. It looks like someone published their pre-published notes as the completed product.

Another problem, is that they don't state their evidence for ProtoBaltic as splitting from ProtoSlavic (assuming it did, and that its not an areal family) during the 2nd millenium BCE, nor that it was split into 2 dialects by the 1st millenium CE. I'm not saying that it wasn't, but can't you point to the evidence?

I guess this wouldn't be a problem if half the internet didn't parrot the same  wordy substance-light article, making an already obscure subject like historical linguistics, even harder to learn more about.

The way that I would have written this, would be to split it into at least three paragraphs. One that dealt with the language family as a whole, and the period before the split. Then the next paragraphs about each of the  Baltic language family groups individually.

North Picene: An Analysis and a possible interpretation of parts

Starting with the Novilara Stele, let's highlight both possible endings, stems, and affixes. Note, I'm starting from the educated guess that this is, in fact, an IndoEuropean language, although this isn't yet proven.

Suggested roots will be in black, stems/affixes in (mainly) red, and endings in blue.

The Novilara Stele

mimniś erút gaareśtadeś

rotnem úvlin partenúś

polem iśairon tet

śút tratneši krúviś

tenag trút ipiem rotneš

lútúiś θalú iśperion vúl

teś rotem teú aiten tašúr

śoter merpon kalatne

niś vilatoś paten arn

úiś baleśtenag andś et

šút iakút treten teletaú

nem polem tišú śotriś eúś

While I don't particularly think that all of these represent how you could break this down, it does demonstrate the point that, structurally, it does seem IndoEuropeanish. Also, other than -ag and -p-, all of the endings do look like stems and endings that have other IndoEuropean counterparts.

The following fragment, I will skip, due to the difficulties that would occur in analyzing it, at least with what I know of it:

1^st Fragment

úpeś
mresveat

This next fragment is analyzeable:

2^nd Fragment

pa śatigot
kešoteri
amdet : nk
------ k --------

Other than the suffixes -ti- and -ter- (if that's how they're divided), and endings -ot and -i, this looks noteably less indoeuropeanish than the main stele.

And finally, the last text:

3^rd Fragment

tiperašθe raiup bav---
-----ipš---------------------

Counting this as indoeuropean, I've basically gone on the assumption that -a- might have been from e+Laryngeal>a. Though other possibilities exist.

As you can see, the fragments seem noteably less indoeuropean than the maintext. Whether this is due to the fragmentary nature of these short inscriptions, or due to this not being indoeuropean, is something that can be explored further.

Now that we've looked at how this could be analyzed, let's take a second look, shall we?

It seems that the longer words may be verbs.

The Novilara Stele (A closer look)

1. mimniś erút gaareśtadeś

2. rotnem úvlin partenúś

3. polem iśairon tet

4. śút tratneši krúviś

5. tenag trút ipiem rotneš

6. lútúiś θalú iśperion vúl

7. teś rotem teú aiten tašúr

8. śoter merpon kalatne

9. niś vilatoś paten arn

10. úiś baleśtenag andś et

11. šút iakút treten teletaú

12. nem polem tišú śotriś eúś

I find the end of line 2 and beginning of line 3 interesting. Last word in line 2 resembles vulgar latin "(nos) partimos ~ (nos) part(y)amos" or 1^st person present plural indicative~Subjunctive verb form of partire "to depart, leave".

Line 3 starts with what appears to be the Accusative singular form of the greek word polis "city", or in this case pol-em:

2. (...) partenúś

3. polem (...)

Perhaps, this part may be translated as:

2. (...) we left

3. the city (...)

The following word is less clear in meaning, but tentatively, we can view the -on as the genitive plural ending.

Iśairon

So, we have:

"(...) we left the city of Isair (...)"

If this is a proper interpretation of this section, this doesn't mean that this is an Italic nor Greek language that we're dealing with here. These could, in fact, be derived from words from those families, if not being direct loans themselves. In much the same way as terms like "ad hoc" and deja vu" from Latin and French are left untranslated, yet, form meaningful phrases in Modern English.

Lines 9 and 10 seem to have a plural personal pronoun + Verb combination:

niś vilatoś

úiś baleśtenag

Niś appears to be in the first person plural pronoun nes (Nominative nos) in the accusative case, and úiś appears to be the 2^nd person plural pronoun wes (Nominative wos) in the accusative case. The nes~nos and wes~wos coming from ProtoIndoEuropean. The only problem with this, is that they would be enclitic forms.

The verb balestenag can be interpreted as having the elements -est-en-ag in it. The ending -ag appears in multiple places, though what an IndoEuropean equivalent would be is wanting. Though the -este- ~ -est- ~ -ste- could be a realization of -st-, which may have come from the PIE suffix -skʲ-. This same cluster can be found in line one with gaarestades; which could be analyzed as gaare-sta-d-es (among other interpretations).

The above seems to have a perfect suffix -d- and a perfect/past 2^nd person singular ending -es, of which I'm not sure is supposed to occur in IndoEuropean. Or, perhaps, -des is meant, which may have come from the end person plural ending -tes (or perhaps, -ates). The later, though would require -t->-d-, seems more likely.

In line 6, iśperion seems to be conjugated like the greek name hyperion, but I'm not clear on what the root isper would represent.

Soter~sotri seems to be a greek loanword "savior", which can be an epithet for gods, heros, and kings.

For a broader look, to wrap this up for now, would give the following for case endings:

Nominative or Genetive singular, or Nominative and/or Accusative Plural (possibly all of the above) -(e/i)s

Accusative Singular -(e)m

Genetive Plural -(e)n

North Picene: What remains of a 2500 year old language

North Picene is an unclassified language from Northeastern Italy, preserved on stelai fragments from the 800-650 BCE period. A quick look at the best preserved inscription, the Novilara Stele, suggests that the language might be IndoEuropean. Other proposals have also been suggested, but this is the one we're to look at today.

The Novilara Stele (6^th Century BCE)

mimniś erút gaareśtadeś

rotnem úvlin partenúś

polem iśairon tet

śút tratneši krúviś

tenag trút ipiem rotneš

lútúiś θalú iśperion vúl

teś rotem teú aiten tašúr

śoter merpon kalatne

niś vilatoś paten arn

úiś baleśtenag andś et

šút iakút treten teletaú

nem polem tišú śotriś eúś

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Picene_language

http://www.omniglot.com/writing/olditalic.htm#spicene

For an image of this stele:

http://www.maravot.com/novilara_stele.jpg

And according to this post in this forum:

http://s1.zetaboards.com/anthroscape/topic/1100195/1/

mimniś erút gaareśtadeś
rotneš úvlin parten úś
polem iśairon tet
šút tratneši krúš
tenag trút ipiem rotneš
lútúiś θalú iśperion vúl
teś rotem teú aiten tašúr
śoter merpon kalatne
niś vilatoś paten arn
úiś baleśtenag andś et
šút lakút treten teletaú
nem polem tišú śotriś eúś

possible alternative readings:
line 1: gaariśtadeś
line 2: partenúś
line 4: krúś
line 5: rotnem
line 8: merion
line 11: mút iakút

And as for the other fragmentary texts, also found in Novilara, according to that forum post:

2^nd Stele (left half of two lines)

úpeś
mresveat

The ú in line 1 might also be an L.
In line 2 ve could also be ev or ee.

3^rd fragmentary text

pa śatigot
kešoteri
amdet : nk
------ k --------

The p in line 1 is uncertain.

4^th fragmentary text

tiperašθe raiup bav---
-----ipš---------------------

I like how the user Arnth also added sidenotes:

"There appears to be some flexion at work: rotnem - rotneš, śoter - śotris.

Similarities to Greek words: polem - polis, śoter - soter, iśperion – esperios."

I noticed this as well, and they're (well at least some of them) transparently IndoEuropean! Though they also note how the -sv- element is also found in North Etruscan, as well as several other features also being possibly Etruscan (so it's not a done deal what language family this belongs to).

Now that we've presented the evidence of this language, let's start picking it apart, shall we?