[bobinux]

Recently found this video https://youtu.be/bzRxSVK7qIU where Sanskrit was being compared to Lithuanian. To think, that such geographically distant languages are so similar, as Lithuanian is one of the most well preserved languages in Europe. To get a grasp of what PIE sounded, the closest you can get in Europe is by listening to Lithuanian (especially the older dialects of it)

[OfSanguineFire]

> To get a grasp of what PIE sounded, the closest you can get in Europe is by listening to Lithuanian

No you can’t. Especially not the “sounded” aspect. Lithuanian is conservative in some matters of lexicon and morphology, but modern Baltic phonology is very different from PIE. The ancestral stages of Lithuanian after PIE lost the PIE laryngeal sounds, then the distinction of three classes of velars and aspirated/non-aspirated stops, and in more recent centuries there has been some palatalization processes and loss of nasal vowels (though the latter are still denoted in writing). The developments in Baltic-Slavic tone after PIE are also an infamous mess.

All in all, when you listen to Lithuanian, you are listening to just any IE language instead of gaining special insights into PIE.

[qwytw]

> the closest you can get in Europe is by listening to Lithuanian (especially the older dialects of it)

I'm not sure that's true. I mean Baltic languages are generally considered to be one of the last to diverge from PIE but that doesn't mean the sound that similar. They preserve many archaic features but there has also been a lot of innovation over thousands of years (especially considering that modern standard Lithuanian is to some degree a constructed language).

While certain grammatical features like almost the whole case system have been preserved too a higher degree than in other IE languages. Lithuanian has still lost laryngeals, aspirated stops etc. which means it sounds very differently to what proto Indo-European might have sounded.

[jakderrida]

> as Lithuanian is one of the most well preserved languages in Europe

Just to elaborate on the confusing phrasing here... Lithuanian, among PIE languages, is regarded by linguists as having preserved the most archaic features of PIE. So it basically resembles the first branches of PIE (like Sanskrit, but more Proto-Balto-Slavic) more than any other modern PIE language today. So as linguists trace back systematic transformations from other Proto-Balto-Slavic derived languages back to their root words, it resembles Lithuanian more. Btw, I'm not a linguist. I just worked really hard for a 4.0 GPA, even for electives.

[badcppdev]

So many people don't really like the word 'closest'. I thought your comment was very clear.

[PeterisP]

I think the main point being made is that 'closest' doesn't necessarily imply 'close'; that the closest living relative is still reasonably distant.