Talk:akkuna

This below was commented out in the etymology section, I'm moving it to the talk page --Ivan Štambuk (talk) 00:20, 25 August 2013 (UTC)

This originally said "early Proto-Slavic" but that would make it not Proto-Slavic anymore since it's by definition the latest common ancestor. So maybe Proto-Balto-Slavic? ANSWER: The problem here is that traditional reconstructions of Proto-Slavic are anachronistic phonetically, while the Nebenüberlieferung (names, loanwords including this one, occasional glosses, i. e., single words given with translation/explanation) shows clearly that from the 6th to the 8th centuries, Slavic was very much Baltic-appearing still, especially in its vocalism. Traditional Proto-Slavic forms resemble much more the Common Slavic stage of the 9th century, as they are based on Old Church Slavonic, so you can call the realistic Proto-Slavic reconstructions "Early Proto-Slavic" in order to disambiguate. I think that many scholars feel the notation is too entrenched to change it without confusing the hell out of people, so you just have to change it mechanically in your mind and undo the earliest Common Slavic sound changes. Even if we know that Proto-Slavic didn't look much like any form of Slavic attested in connected texts, but rather like a Baltic language, it's didactically awkward to present the realistic reconstructions with the label Proto-Slavic.