The Three (Or Four) Baltic Peoples

The third “Baltic” country is by no means Baltic by language. Estonians speak a language in the Finno-Ugric family, which also contains Finnish, Hungarian and a number of languages in the Russian Federation. It’s not even remotely related to any Indo-European language—while we say “three,” Spaniards say “tres” and Russians “tri,” Estonians say “kolm.” Yet despite the linguistic (and cultural) differences, people who spoke both types of languages lived in close proximity to each other and undoubtedly influenced each other.

Some people believe that the Latvian language sounds like “Lithuanian being spoken with an Estonian accent.” Some Finno-Ugric linguistic features, such as word stress that almost always falls on the first syllable of the word, are present in Latvian, but not in Lithuanian. These borrowings are due to interaction with a Finno-Ugric speaking group called the Livs, who have lived for centuries in Latvia. Who are these people? Well, that’s another story.

The people who live in what we call the “Baltic States” have differences and similarities that extend far into the past, and their languages are evidence of historic unity and division among the three nations. Yet while only two of the countries can be called “Baltic” in linguistic terms, all three are often treated as if they are culturally and politically similar. In the past, there were three Baltic peoples, and today, accurately or not, there again are three “Baltic” peoples.

Go To Page: 1 2