The sudovien or yotvingien is an extinct language belonging to the Baltic group Western of the Indo-European Langues.
History
The Galindie and the Sudovie belonged to the twelve original provinces of Prussia. Sudoviens (or Yotvingiens) lived the vast forests in the south-west of the river
Niémen.
Ptolémée mentions these people in his manuscripts. At the 10th century, the army of
Vladimir Ier, prince of
Kiev, forced a good number of Sudoviens to join the
Rus' of Kiev. They were invaded and conquered partially by the Slavic ones close to the towns of
Białystok and Suwalki in the North-East to the
Poland and close to Grodno in
Bielorussia. During the centuries which followed, those which succeeded in surviving surrounded of the Russians, of the Poles and the Lithuanians lost early or late their grounds with the Grand-Duchy of Lithuania. The language sudovienne accepted the influence of the Lithuanian more and more. One distinguishes the vestiges of the elements of this language in the Belorusse territories and of the
Ukraine because of the colonies of refugees and Prussian prisoners.
Distribution
The sudovien spoke itself in Galindie and Sudovie, of the areas of Eastern Prussia being close to the border of Poland and Bielorussia.
Writing
The sudovien was written by means of the
Latin alphabet.
Phonetics
This language had Voyelle S long and short and of a great diversity of Diphtongue S. the
phonetic Accent was relatively complex and approached the Lithuanian.
Grammar
Like the
Old Prussian, the sudovien had a system of variation with five cases:
Personal,
Genitive,
Dative, Accusative and
Vocative. The verbs sudoviens had three simple times, three or four
modes and a great quantity of verbal names being used of Participe S or Infinitif S
See too
- Linguistic
- Dictionary of the languages