--- In cybalist@..., george knysh <gknysh@...> wrote:
> *****GK: I gather that in Lithuanian -str- is a rarity
> (-sr- is usual), while in Latvian and Old Prussian it
> isn't.
It's normal in Samogitian dialects and, if I recall, Yotvingian-
influenced southern auks^tai~c^iu, (sorry, haven't come across an
English equivalent) dialects.
It is also found in Germanic and in recorded
> Thracian. In West Ukraine there is a very large number
> of hydronyms and toponyms with the element -str-,which
> clearly go back to pre-Slavic times. So if we're
> talking "BaltoSlavic" or "Baltic" (but then what of
> Thracian and Germanic?) this leaves Lithuanian out.
> If
> its -sr- is the archaism then -str- is some later
> common (minus Lith.?)innovation? There is also a river
> ISTR in the Moscow region, which goes back to
> Galindian times there I guess.******
Let's call Latvian and Lithuanian (traditionally East
Baltic) 'Central Baltic' and Old Prussian, Yotvingian (traditionally
West Baltic), Curonian (West Baltic with a strong East Baltic
adstratum?), *Dniepro-Baltic and *Oka-Baltic (East
Galindian) 'Periferal Baltic' (in areal linguistic terms, with
(mostly) innovations-generating center and arcaisms-holding
perifery), though Dniepro-Baltic could well be Central Baltic. -sr-
> -str-, -nr- > -ndr- is an often phonetic developement which, IMO,
is of secondary taxonomical importance here.
Now the proper Lithuanian (East or Central Baltic) is ruled out not
because of not sharing -sr- > -str- isogloss, but because West or
Periferal Baltic (with probably Proto-Slavic maturing in its womb) is
expected in West Ukraine by default, so to say (though I'm aware of
other theories which say that East Baltic (~Lithuanian) has been
forced out to the North by the Slavs).
Sergei