Lithuanian and Latvian Charms: Searching for Parallels

The Lithuanian and Latvian languages, both representatives of the same Baltic branch of Indo-European languages, are very similar. The folklores of the two nations, however, are different: not all the phenomena of Lithuanian and Latvian folklore are comparable. For example, the Lithuanian and Latvian song structure, subjects, and performance characteristics are dissimilar, providing almost no possibilities for comparison. But comparison of Lithuanian and Latvian folk narratives demonstrates that their subjects are fairly close, which is also the case as regards riddles and proverbs. In this comparative context, it is of great interest to look into the tradition of Lithuanian and Latvian charms: what is the relationship between their national characteristics, shared Baltic roots, and international characteristics? Which common subjects can we identify, and how many of these are there? These keywords were added by machine and not by the authors. This process is experimental and the keywords may be updated as the learning algorithm improves.