Balto-Slavic

The Baltic and Slavic branches of the Indo-European language family share several innovations that separate them from the remaining branches, especially in the phonological domain. The most striking similarities concern the prosodic systems. Consequently, the two branches are often thought to constitute a subgroup within Indo-European, although some researchers consider the shared features to be the result of contact or parallel change. This entry presents and discusses the most salient similarities as well as the most important old-looking differences characterizing the two branches.