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What was the Elbing vocabulary?
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Baltic languages
The Baltic states: Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania.
The Elbing vocabulary is the earliest known written record of the Old Prussian language and, by extension, the Baltic languages.12
Compiled around 1300 and preserved in a copy dating to approximately 1400, this German-Prussian glossary contains 802 Old Prussian words paired with their German equivalents. It was written in a South Prussian dialect, specifically from the Pomesania region.12
Along with three 16th-century catechisms, the Elbing vocabulary serves as a primary source for modern linguistic understanding of Old Prussian, an extinct West Baltic language that preserved many archaic features—such as the neuter gender and specific Proto-Baltic diphthongs—that were lost in East Baltic languages like Lithuanian and Latvian.12