Old Prussian language
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- extinct language
Old Prussian language, West Balticlanguage extinct since the 17th century; it was spoken in the former German area ofEast Prussia (now inPoland and Russia). The poorly attested Yotvingiandialect was closely related to Old Prussian.
Old Prussian preserved manyarchaic Baltic features that do not occur in the related EastBaltic languages (Latvian, Lithuanian), among them the preservation of the final-n of the Proto-Baltic language (the ancestor of Old Prussian, Latvian, Lithuanian, and the other Baltic languages), the Proto-Baltic diphthongsai andei, and the use of neuter gender in nouns (East Baltic languages have only masculine and feminine gender). Old Prussian also contained many inflectional forms and vocabulary items unknown in East Baltic. Old Prussian had a position intermediate between East Baltic and the Slavic group.
Modern knowledge of Old Prussian is based primarily on a German-Prussian vocabulary, known as theElbing vocabulary andcompiled about 1300, and the three Old Prussian catechisms dating from the 16th century.
