Incomplete Satemization in Baltic, and, to a lesser extent, Slavic, is taken as an indication of the diffusion of the satem sound change, or, alternatively, due to loans via early contact of Proto-Baltic and Proto-Germanic speakers.
By contrast, in the remainder of the Indo-European family (the so-called Centumlanguages), palato-velars lost their palatal component and merged with plain velars, while labio-velars remained distinct.
The Satem group is a paraphyletic group and thus not a phylogenetic unit.
Encyclopedia :: encyclopedia : Indo-European languages(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-30)
The Indo-European sub-branches are often classified in a Satem and a Centum group.
For example, the Germanic (centum) and Balto-Slavic (satem) families are by many measures more closely related than Germanic is to co-centum groups such as Italic or Celtic and/or Slavic is to a co-satem grouping such as Iranian).
According to them, Satemization was a "central" development of the latest stage of proto-Indo-European, which did not reach "peripheral" dialects already separated geographically.
Satem - Biocrawler(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-30)
By contrast, in the remainder of the Indo-European family (the then-called Centumlanguages), palato-velars lost their palatal component and merged with plain velars, while labio-velars remained distinct.
The Satem shift is conveniently illustrated with the word for '100', Proto-Indo-European *ḱmtom, which became e.g.
Avestansatem (hence the name of the group), Lithuanian šimtas, Russian sto, etc., as contrasted with Latincentum (pron.
Satemlanguages lost the distinction between labiovelar and pure velar sounds, and at the same time assibilated the palatal velars.
Geographically, the "eastern" languages belong in the Satem group: Indo-Iranian and Balto-Slavic (but not including Tocharian and Anatolian); and the "western" languages represent the Centum group: Germanic, Italic, and Celtic.
The Satem-Centum isogloss runs right between the Greek (Centum) and Armenian (Satem) languages (which a number of scholars regard as closely related), with Greek exhibiting some marginal Satem features.
Black and white copies of the Centum chart and the Satem chart are also available if you wish to print out a copy.
The various charts of Indo-European languages and the maps showing the spread of each Indo-European language, were created by Daniel M. Short for his website at http://www.danshort.com/.
web.cn.edu /kwheeler/IE_Main.html (478 words)
Centum and Satem(Site not responding. Last check: 2007-10-30)
Based upon the difference in the word "hundred" in Latin (centum) and Asvestan (satem) two language families have been identified.
The western, centum, family includes Greek, Latin (with the Italic dialects), Venetic, Germanic, Celtic, Hittite and Tocharian although this latter does not occur in the West.
Those languages with the s- (sh-) sound are classified satem (after the 'hundred' word in Avestan), those which have a k- sound are the centumlanguages (after the Latin word).
Note that in the satemlanguages, the labial element is lost.
As observed above, the centumlanguages retain the PIE articulation better than the satem group: the velars (/palato-velars) in the centum group did not become sibilants and the labial element was retained.
And here we discover something very interesting: according to the most up-to-date scholarly sources, the Albanianlanguage is neither satem nor centum, but in fact has elements of both centum and satem in its sound-change patterns.
In fact, what seems to have happened is that the Thracian and Dacian languages were basically Centum, and became partly satemized under the influence of Phrygian and proto-Albanian.
This idea is given credence by this fact: the Thracian toponyms that end in '-diza/-deiza' are almost all in the extreme southeast corner of Thrace, the region surrounding Buzantion, and this region was closest to the Phrygians.
Later sound changes within a specific branch of Indo-European that are similar to one of the changes, such as the palatalization of Latin k to s in some Romancelanguages or the merger of *k?
For words and groups of words, which do not appear in any language with labialized velar-sound, [the "pure velars"] it must for the present be left undecided whether they ever had the u?
-, Fewer examples of incomplete Satemization are also known from Indo-Iranian, such as Sanskrit guru "heavy" < *g?er-, kulam "herd" < *k?el-; kuru "make" < *k?er- may be compared, but it arises only post-Rigvedic in our attested texts.
If you have read anything about the IE language groups you might have run across the terms satem and centum...well here is the quick and dirty.
The original *k sound of PIE is preserved in some IE languages for the most part (except for the Asian IE language, Tocharian) these languages are found in the western IE world, in other words Europe.
The Satem family is named after the Irainian word for hundred.