Talk:Curonian language

Two articles

I think it would be better to split the article in two: Old Curonian language and Spit Curonian. For the latter the German article is good source. Koryakov Yuri 09:26, 5 May 2006 (UTC)

Agree. Added template to that effect. Scant material as of now, but two distinctly separate languages are two distinctly separate languages. -Keinstein (talk) 12:50, 26 July 2010 (UTC)

Spit Curonian or New Curonian has been split to Kursenieki#Language. SilkTork ^{✔Tea time} 11:42, 1 December 2011 (UTC)

Finnic?

The language described at Curonian grammar is clearly Baltic, and that is in agreement with the consensus among linguists, as the article itself admits. A few isolated words with possible Finnic etymologies prove nothing. They could have been borrowings, for example. Finnic influence is quite possible and even likely, especially from Livonian, which is still spoken in Courland; but influence does not change the affiliation of a language. Therefore, I consider the current portrayal highly misleading and will change the article to reflect the current consensus, which does not involve realistic doubts as to the rough affiliation of Curonian. (If anything, there should be two separate articles, one on Baltic Curonian and one on Finnic Curonian, but it seems unlikely that Finnic Curonian could be justified as a topic distinct from Livonian.) --Florian Blaschke (talk) 15:23, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Noticing the title Eesti viikingid, I can't help but wonder if there is any ulterior motivation behind these smacking-of-fringe-hypothesis/pseudolinguistic attempts to make Curonian a Finnic language on the basis of a couple of words. Interestingly, Saks and Vaari are described only as "authors", not scholars. I suspect that they are non-specialist writers writing for a general audience in Estonia (well, Saks is even described as an amateur historian in Edgar V. Saks), and they would like very much to be the Curonians close relatives of the Estonians, just so that the Estonians have their own badass Viking/pirate-like quasi-ancestors instead of some puny Finnic farmers or even hunter-gatherers that lived in caves or on trees as in popular imagination. If I have learned something on Wikipedia, that assuming bad faith in cases as this one, when a case that has been made is so clearly flimsy (or a play with definitions), is entirely justified. Honi soit qui mal y pense, and all that. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 19:28, 24 April 2012 (UTC)

Is there any other source proposing this? Also:

• [..] Finnic "linguistic" & Uralic "genetic" substrate are undeniable in Latvia Yea, in certain areas which have some quite distinct dialectical features, not shared with whole area Curonians inhabited
• The Baltic tribes didn't enter Southern Curonia until the 13th century & the Curonian North remained Balt-free for much longer BS, unless you strictly consider that Curonians were not a Baltic tribe and were the only inhabitants of the area, Baltic tribes migrated to area much earlier than that.

We assumed that whole populations of two countries are wrong and scientific view should be favoured when it came to just mentioning various classifications of Baltic languages in article on them, but now we are going to accept a hypothesis of two amateur historians just because the language is dead? ~~Xil (talk) 19:06, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

Sources, people. You need WP:Reliable sources. — kwami (talk) 21:06, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

I've found Östen Dahl, 2001, The Circum-Baltic Languages: Typology and Contact, vol. 1. I don't have enough access to always be able distinguish when "Curonian" is referring to Old Curonian ws. modern Curonian dialects of Latvian, but at least one author in that collection says that it is now generally accepted that it was an Eastern Baltic language intermediate between Lithuanian and Latvian (though also mentioning some would say between E & W Baltic), and discusses the morphological evidence (most of which I can't see). — kwami (talk) 21:21, 9 May 2012 (UTC)

For crying out loud - every single book even touching on Baltic languages will list it as such, just do a Google search, if you wish to expand the article. There is some uncertainty if it was Western or Eastern Baltic (but I think Western is favored). And why did you put Germany back into infobox? The article at some point probably covered New Curonian, I tried to clear references to it and I am quite sure this was one - Curonians lived in current Latvia and perhaps a bit into Northern Lithuania; New Curonian, was spoken in Curonian spit, which was partialy in Germany until WWII after which many speakers migrated to Germany. The other differences between these two is that there are no written text in the old one (except for one highly questionable Lord's prayer), while New one still may have some speakers and there are enough material on it. The New one appears to be dialect of Latvian with heavy influences of majority languages in countries it was spoken in. It also seems that this dialect happened to be from Curonian group of Latvian dialects, which is subgrouping of Middle dialect spoken in Southern Courland. The book you found discusses Old Curonian in the beginning, seems to be mentioning some of its features on page 9. It seems to go into deeper discussion of modern Latvian right after that ~~Xil (talk) 01:09, 10 May 2012 (UTC)

Curonians were baltic and spoke baltic language. However there were livonians living in North Courland, like they did untill recently. However when the historical record of them starts, they were included to the curonians, rather than livonians living elsewhere in Latvia. Thease Curonian Livs spoke finnic language and were called Curonians, but their language should not be confused with Baltic Curonian. J.K Nakkila (talk) 18:04, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Curonian has been widely considered Baltic only since some Latvian historians' works in 1960s–1970s. Before that, most sources listed it as Finnic, based on the fact that Gesta Danorum – one of the very few actual sources about Curonians – describes them always closely associated with Estonians and Livonians. I'd also point out that although Saks is an amateur historian, Vääri has a PhD in linguistics, just as another Estonian researcher Karl Pajusalu who has also supported the theory of Curonians being Finnic. Therefore, I suggest we treat both Latvian and Estonian view on the matter equally for both lack the actual evidence due to the scarceness of what we actually know about the Curonians. DJ Sturm (talk) 19:01, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

Whatever, the current consensus is Baltic and "close associations" (whatever that may mean, it does not seem to refer to language) prove nothing for linguistic affiliation. The Finnic hypothesis seems to be entirely ignored outside of Estonia now; I've never it seen mentioned anywhere. While I appreciate the problem of assuming the conclusion, the same fault is committed when you presuppose that the Curonians were Finnic and argue that therefore there were no speakers of Baltic in Courland until the 13th century. Classic circular reasoning. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 20:43, 12 May 2012 (UTC)

I have added a source in German which does not even mention the Finnic hypothesis, underlining its obsoleteness.

While Meyers Enzyklopädie from 1885–1892 does consider the Curonians as Finnic under Kuren, the formulation under Kurland is ambiguous and the Brockhaus from 1894–1896 is more guarded and merely admits that the name Curonians may (vielleicht) originally have meant a Finnic population. Britannica 1911, in contrast, flatly calls the Curonians Lettish (a term which was then used in the sense of (Eastern) Baltic) and does not even mention a peep in the way of the Finnic hypothesis, not even indirectly, but strictly distinguishes Curonians and Livonians. Of course none of this matters much, as those sources are encyclopedias and extremely outdated.

Anyway, even if the inhabitants of Courland may have spoken a Finnic language in the High Middle Ages, the language described in this article, which went extinct in the 16th century or so, cannot have been Finnic, but must have been Baltic. J.K Nakkila reinforces my point that the Finnic "Curonians" are likely simply Livonians of Courland. --Florian Blaschke (talk) 00:54, 13 May 2012 (UTC)

We may not know much about the language, but we do now loads about the people, rather than the information being limited to just one chronicle. Not to mention the fact that people who trace their origins back to ancient Curonians are still alive today. And let's not forget archeological material. Probably given all that somebody besides Estonians would have noted that they are Finnic, if that was the case. Also here is a map of current dialects of Latvian, it marks Curonian substratum with green ticks, the dialects influenced by Finnic Livonian substratum are in blue - as you see, although they intersect, the Curonian substratum extends beyond that territory. So probably what others suggested that there could have been some assimilation of Northern Curonians into Livonians might well be true, but the Livonian dialects feature such Finnic odities as lack of gender and also lack endings in certain cases, this is not found in other dialects influenced by Curonian substratum - there you rather find retention of some ancient Baltic features. With all this material combined it probably amounts to having more proof of Curonians being Baltic than two words in some Chronicle pointing to them being Finnic. And also lack of quality research and National romanticism influenced views in early 20th century and before that wouldn't be all that surprising occurrence ~~Xil (talk) 00:51, 15 May 2012 (UTC)

In only given link with Vääri writing he does not say these things what are mentioned in article. He just says Curonians might even have been finnic. I think most (or all) claims in that section come from Saks, not from Vääri, and their ideas should be clearly separated as Vääri is scientist and Saks is not. Minnekon (talk) 21:14, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Self-denomination of Curonians, kure, means 'crane' in Estonian.

I doubt that self-denomination of Curonians was kure (which source says that?) and kure does not mean 'crane' in Estonian (crane is kurg and similarty with modern Estonian words doesn't matter anyway). Minnekon (talk) 21:27, 22 November 2015 (UTC)

Curonian "grammar"

There's not enough evidence for Curonian to even begin to "reconstruct a grammar". That article (nominated for deletion) is a pure flight of fancy and I've deleted the section here that perpetuates it. --Taivo (talk) 10:45, 8 May 2012 (UTC)

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