Among the so-called »proto-languages« of individual branches of the Indo- -European linguistic world proto-Slavonic is a peculiar phenomenon. The homogeneity of proto-Slavonic in the middle of the first millenium of our era is perfectly exceptional. Today’s specialists could converse in proto-Slavonic without d fficully which would be impossible in the case of »proto-Germanic« or even »proto-Celtic« or »proto-Italic«. It is not a truism to say that proto-Slavonic as a phenomenon is something else in comparison with other Indo-European »proto-lan- guages« because it is younger — on the contrary, it is in fact younger because it differs from them. The Slavonic languages may be more easily compared with the Romance than with the Italic group of languages. Three basic questions are relevant in this connection: 1) What is the relative importance of the initial closeness of language substance (relations with the Iranians and, perhaps, with the Tocharians) and the length of the period while common innovations were still possible (relations with Germanic, first of all)? 2) What is the nature of the triple relat ons of the West Baitic, East Baltic and Slavonic? (In other words, the problem of the duality or unity of the Slavs and the »Balts« is a false dilemma). 3) From what theoretical and typological viewpoint should contemporary dialect relations be considered? (For the essence of the former »Balto«-Slavonic relations cannot be solved by means of the traditional historical comparative methods — rather than conjectures oE what the relations could have been in the past, it is better to analyse what they must have been formerly so as to now as they really are, if they are compared with, e. g. relations with contemporary Indo- -Iranian or even Romano-Celtic).
