🚀 go-pugleaf

In English we talk about the Baltic Sea and say "The Baltcis"
for the countries Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania. In Swedish
we call the sea "\stersj|n" (The East Sea), but we still
talk about "Baltikum" to refer to the area. I never wondered
where this name comes from, it's only a name I assumed.

However, while looking through a Latvian-English dictionary I
found that Whiterussia was "Baltkrevija" in Latvia. "Huh, Baltic
Russia?", I thought. Anyway, I looked up "balt" in the dictionary 
and sure enough "balt" is the Latvian word for "white".

But then comes the question is just "balt" = "white" a random
coincidence, or is there really a connection with name of
the area or the sea?

Speaking of coincidences, the Swedish word for "street" is "gata",
Latvia has "gate" (although "iela" is more widely used) and
Lithuanian has "gatve". Here, however, it must either be a case
of false cognates, or a loan in some direction.
-- 
Erland Sommarskog - ENEA Data, Stockholm - sommar@enea.se
Dabras Laiks!