🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <1992Jul25.223032.17461@enea.se>, sommar@enea.se (Erland Sommarskog) writes:
> 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!

I don't see why you say that it must be a case of false cognates.
Lithuanian and Latvian are both Indo-European languages. Can you
elaborate?

Also, I'm not surprised by the work "balt" meaning white, considering
how prevalent b*l* words meaning 'white' are in Indo-European languages,
as in "Belgrade" (now Beograd), "Byelorus", "blanc", and even Old English
"Beowulf" (I believe - correct me on Beo\wulf if that is an incorrect
derivation).

I would suspect - someone please confirm if possible - that the Baltic
Sea was referred to, at least in ancient times if not now, as the White Sea
by its nieghbours and that this pruduced the term for the region, including
White Russia.