Among Indo-European languages, Lithuanian is conservative in some aspects of its grammar and phonology, retaining archaic features otherwise found only in ancient languages such as Sanskrit[7] (particularly its early form, Vedic Sanskrit) or Ancient Greek. For this reason, it is an important source for the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language despite its late attestation (with the earliest texts dating only to c. 1500).[4]
Map of the prevalence of hydronyms of Baltic origin
According to hydronyms of Baltic origin, the Baltic languages were spoken in a large area east of the Baltic Sea, and in ~1000 BC it had two linguistic units: western and eastern.[8] The Greek geographer Ptolemy had already written of two Baltic tribe/nations by name, the Galindai and Sudinoi (Γαλίνδαι, Σουδινοί) in the 2nd century AD.[9][10] The Lithuanian language originated from the Eastern Balts subgroup and remained nearly unchanged until ~1 AD, however in ~500 AD the language of the northern part of Eastern Balts was influenced by the Finnic languages, which fueled the development of changes from the language of the Southern Balts (see: Latgalian language, which developed into the Latvian language, and now-extinct Curonian, Semigallian, Selonian languages).[8] The language of Southern Balts was less influenced by this process and retained its features which forms the Lithuanian language.[8] According to glottochronological researches, the Eastern Baltic languages split from the Western Baltic ones between 400 and 600 AD.[11][12]
Area of the Lithuanian language in the 16th century
The differentiation between Lithuanian and Latvian started after 800; for a long period, they could be considered dialects of a single language.[13] At a minimum, transitional dialects existed until the 14th or 15th century and perhaps as late as the 17th century.[13][14] The GermanSword Brethren occupied the western part of the Daugava basin, which resulted in colonization of the territory of modern Latvia (at the time it was called Terra Mariana) by Germans and had a significant influence on the language's independent development due to Germanisation (see also: Baltic Germans and Baltic German nobility).[13][15]
The Proto-Balto-Slavic language branched off directly from Proto-Indo-European, then sub-branched into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic. Proto-Baltic branched off into Proto-West Baltic and Proto-East Baltic.[7] Baltic languages passed through a Proto-Balto-Slavic stage, from which Baltic languages retain numerous exclusive and non-exclusive lexical, morphological, phonological and accentual isoglosses in common with the Slavic languages, which represent their closest living Indo-European relatives. Moreover, with Lithuanian being so archaic in phonology, Slavic words can often be deduced from Lithuanian by regular sound laws; for example, Lith. vilkas and Polishwilk ← PBSl.*wilkás (cf. PSl.*vьlkъ) ← PIE*wĺ̥kʷos, all meaning "wolf".
Lithuanian language mentioned as one of the languages of the participants of the Council of Constance in 1414–1418: Lingwa Lietowia (left) and Littowelch (right) in a 15th century Chronik des Konstanzer Konzils compiled by Ulrich of Richenthal
Although no writings in the Lithuanian language has survived from the 15th or earlier centuries,[20] the Lithuanian language (Latin: Lingwa Lietowia) was mentioned as one of the European languages of the participants of the Council of Constance in 1414–1418.[21][22][23]
Use of Lithuanian language continued at the Lithuanian royal court after the deaths of Vytautas the Great (1430) and Jogaila (1434).[28] For example, since the young Grand Duke Casimir IV Jagiellon was underage, the supreme control over the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was in the hands of the Lithuanian Council of Lords, presided by Jonas Goštautas, while Casimir IV Jagiellon was taught Lithuanian language and customs of Lithuania by appointed court officials.[32][33][34][25] Casimir IV Jagiellon's son Saint Casimir, who was subsequently announced as patron saint of Lithuania, was a polyglot and among other languages knew Lithuanian.[35]
The oldest surviving manuscript in Lithuanian (c.1503), rewritten from a 15th century original text
The earliest surviving written Lithuanian text is a translation dating from about 1503–1525 of the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary, and the Nicene Creed written in the Southern Aukštaitian dialect.[20] On 8 January 1547 the first Lithuanian book was printed – Catechism of Martynas Mažvydas.[20]
At the royal court in Vilnius of Sigismund II Augustus, the last Grand Duke of Lithuania prior to the Union of Lublin, both Polish and Lithuanian were spoken equally widely.[28] In 1552 Sigismund II Augustus ordered that orders of the Magistrate of Vilnius be announced in Lithuanian, Polish, and Ruthenian.[36] The same requirement was valid for the Magistrate of Kaunas.[37][38]
In 1776–1790 about 1,000 copies of the first Catholicprimer of the Lithuanian language – Mokslas skaitymo rašto lietuviško were issued annually, and its publishing continued until 1864, in total – over 15,000 copies were published.[39][40][41]
Geographic distribution of the Lithuanian language in the Russian Empire according to 1897 census.
Jonas Jablonskis (1860–1930) made significant contributions to the formation of the standard Lithuanian language.[44] The conventions of written Lithuanian had been evolving during the 19th century, but Jablonskis, in the introduction to his Lietuviškos kalbos gramatika, was the first to formulate and expound the essential principles that were so indispensable to its later development.[44][45] His proposal for Standard Lithuanian was based on his native Western Aukštaitian dialect with some features of the eastern Prussian Lithuanians' dialect spoken in Lithuania Minor.[44][45] These dialects[clarification needed] had preserved archaic phonetics mostly intact due to the influence of the neighbouring Old Prussian language, while the other dialects had experienced different phonetic shifts.
Title page of Vyriausybės Žinios with articles of the 1922 Constitution of Lithuania. The sixth article established Lithuanian as sole official language of Lithuania.
In 1862–1944 the Lithuanian schools were completely banned in Lithuania Minor and the Lithuanian language was almost completely destroyed there.[45] The Baltic origin place names retained their basis for centuries in Prussia but were Germanized (e.g. Tilžė – Tilsit, Labguva – Labiau, Vėluva – Wehliau, etc.), however after the annexation of Königsberg region into the Russian SFSR they were changed completely regardless of previous tradition (e.g. Tilsit – Sovetskcode: rus promoted to code: ru , Labiau – Poleskcode: rus promoted to code: ru , Wehliau – Znamenskcode: rus promoted to code: ru , etc.).[48]
Distribution of the Baltic tribes, c.1200 (boundaries are approximate).Various schematic sketches of possible Balto-Slavic language relationships.
Lithuanian is one of two living Baltic languages, along with Latvian, and they constitute the eastern branch of Baltic languages family.[53] An earlier Baltic language, Old Prussian, was extinct by the 18th century; the other Western Baltic languages, Curonian and Sudovian, became extinct earlier. Some theories, such as that of Jānis Endzelīns, considered that the Baltic languages form their own distinct branch of the family of Indo-European languages, and Endzelīns thought that the similarity between Baltic and Slavic was explicable through language contact.[54] There is also an opinion that suggests the union of Baltic and Slavic languages into a distinct sub-family of Balto-Slavic languages amongst the Indo-European family of languages. Such an opinion was first represented by August Schleicher.[55] Some supporters of the Baltic and Slavic languages unity even claim that Proto-Baltic branch did not exist, suggesting that Proto-Balto-Slavic split into three language groups: Eastern Baltic, Western Baltic and Proto-Slavic.[56][57][58][59]Antoine Meillet and Jan Baudouin de Courtenay, on the contrary, believed that the similarity between the Slavic and Baltic languages was caused by independent parallel development, and the Proto-Balto-Slavic language did not exist.[60]
A map of European languages (1741) with the first verse of the Lord's Prayer in Lithuanian
An attempt to reconcile the opposing stances was made by Jan Michał Rozwadowski.[55] He proposed that the two language groups were indeed a unity after the division of Indo-European, but also suggested that after the two had divided into separate entities (Baltic and Slavic), they had posterior contact.[55] The genetic kinship view is augmented by the fact that Proto-Balto-Slavic is easily reconstructible with important proofs in historic prosody. The alleged (or certain, as certain as historic linguistics can be) similarities due to contact are seen in such phenomena as the existence of definite adjectives formed by the addition of an inflected pronoun (descended from the same Proto-Indo-European pronoun), which exist in both Baltic and Slavic yet nowhere else in the Indo-European family (languages such as Albanian and the Germanic languages developed definite adjectives independently), and that are not reconstructible for Proto-Balto-Slavic, meaning that they most probably developed through language contact.[61][62]
The Baltic hydronyms area stretches from the Vistula River in the west to the east of Moscow and from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south of Kyiv.[63][64] Vladimir Toporov and Oleg Trubachyov (1961, 1962) studied Baltic hydronyms in the Russian and Ukrainian territory.[65] Hydronyms and archeology analysis show that the Slavs started migrating to the Baltic areas east and north-east directions in the 6–7th centuries, before then, the Baltic and Slavic boundary was south of the Pripyat River.[66] In the 1960s Vladimir Toporov and Vyacheslav Ivanov made the following conclusions about the relationship between the Baltic and Slavic languages: a) the Proto-Slavic language formed from the peripheral-type Baltic dialects; b) the Slavic linguistic type formed later from the structural model of the Baltic languages; c) the Slavic structural model is a result of a transformation of the structural model of the Baltic languages. These scholars’ theses do not contradict the Baltic and Slavic languages closeness and from a historical perspective specify the Baltic-Slavic languages evolution.[67][68]
So, there are at least six points of view on the relationships between the Baltic and Slavic languages. However, with regard to the hypotheses associated with the “Balto-Slavic problem”, their certain distance from the comparative method and their focus, rather, on personal theoretical constructions, is noted.[69]
2,955,200 people in Lithuania (including 3,460 Tatars), or about 86% of the 2015 population, are native Lithuanian speakers; most Lithuanian inhabitants of other nationalities also speak Lithuanian to some extent. The total worldwide Lithuanian-speaking population is about 3,200,000.
As a result of decrease of the usage of the spoken Lithuanian language in the eastern part of Lithuania proper, in the 19th century it was suggested to create a standardized Lithuanian language based on the Samogitian dialect.[45] Nevertheless, it was not accomplished because everyone offered their Samogitian subdialects and the Eastern and Western Aukštaitians offered their Aukštaitian subdialects.[45]
In the second half of the 19th century, when the Lithuanian National Revival intensified and the preparations to publish a Lithuanian periodical press was taking place, the mostly south-western Aukštaitian revival writers did not use the 19th century Lithuanian language of Lithuania Minor as it was largely Germanized.[45] Instead, they used a more pure Lithuanian language which has been described by August Schleicher and Friedrich Kurschat and this way the written language of Lithuania Minor was transferred to the resurgent Lithuania.[45] The most famous standardizer of the Lithuanian language Jonas Jablonskis established the south-western Aukštaitian dialect, including the Eastern dialect of Lithuania Minor, as the basis of the standardized Lithuanian language in the 20th century, which led to him being nicknamed as the father of the standardized Lithuanian language.[45][44]
Currently, the Lithuanian language is divided into two dialects: Aukštaitian (Highland Lithuanian), and Samogitian (Lowland Lithuanian).[74][75] There are significant differences between standard Lithuanian and Samogitian and these are often described as separate languages.[74] The modern Samogitian dialect formed in the 13th–16th centuries under the influence of the Curonian language.[76] Lithuanian dialects are closely connected with ethnographical regions of Lithuania.[77] Even nowadays Aukštaitians and Samogitians can have considerable difficulties understanding each other if they speak with their dialects and not the standard Lithuanian language, which is mandatory to learn in the Lithuanian education system.[78]
Dialects are divided into subdialects. Both dialects have three subdialects. Samogitian is divided into West, North and South; Aukštaitian into West (Suvalkiečiai), South (Dzūkai) and East.[79]
Lithuanian uses the Latin script supplemented with diacritics. It has 32 letters. In the collation order, y follows immediately after į (called i nosinė), because both y and į represent the same long vowel [iː]:[80]
In addition, the following digraphs are used, but are treated as sequences of two letters for collation purposes. The digraph ch represents a single sound, the velar fricative [x], while dz and dž are pronounced like straightforward combinations of their component letters (sounds):
The distinctive Lithuanian letter Ė was used for the first time in the Daniel Klein's Grammatica Litvanica and firmly established itself in the Lithuanian language since then.[81][82][83][84] However, linguist August Schleicher used Ë (with two points above it) instead of Ė for expressing the same.[85] In the Grammatica Litvanica Klein also established the letter W for marking the sound [v], the use of which was later abolished in the Lithuanian language (it was replaced with V, notably by authors of the Varpas newspaper).[81][85]Venckienė 2017, p.16-20 The usage of V instead of W especially increased since the early 20th century, likely considerably influenced by Lithuanian press and schools.[86]
The Lithuanian writing system is largely phonemic, i.e., one letter usually corresponds to a single phoneme (sound). There are a few exceptions: for example, the letter i represents either the vowel [ɪ], as in the English sit, or is silent and merely indicates that the preceding consonant is palatalized. The latter is largely the case when i occurs after a consonant and is followed by a back or a central vowel, except in some borrowed words (e.g., the first consonant in lūpa[ˈɫûːpɐ], "lip", is a velarized dental lateral approximant; on the other hand, the first consonant in liūtas[ˈlʲuːt̪ɐs̪], "lion", is a palatalized alveolar lateral approximant; both consonants are followed by the same vowel, the long [uː], and no [ɪ] can be pronounced in liūtas).
Title pages of the Lithuanian language primers (both printed in Lithuania's capital Vilnius): Moksłas skaytima raszta lietuwiszka (1783 edition) and Mažas lietuviškas elementorius (1905 edition), demonstrating changes of Lithuanian orthography in the 19th–20th centuries
Due to the Polish influence, the Lithuanian alphabet included sz, cz and the Polish Ł for the first sound and regular L (without a following i) for the second: łupa, lutas.[83] During the Lithuanian National Revival in the 19th century the Polish Ł was abolished, while digraphssz, cz (that are also common in the Polish orthography) were replaced with š and č from the Czech orthography because formally they were shorter.[83][85]Venckienė 2017, p.20-25 Nevertheless, another argument to abolish sz and cz was to distinguish the Lithuanian language from the Polish language.[85] The new letters š and č were cautiously used in publications intended for more educated readers (e.g. Varpas, Tėvynės sargas, Ūkininkas), however sz and cz continued to be in use in publications intended for less educated readers as they caused tension in society and prevailed only after 1906.[87][88]
The Lithuanians also adopted the letter ž from the Czechs.[83]
A macron (on u), an ogonek (on a, e, i, and u), a dot (on e), and y (in place of i) are used for grammatical and historical reasons and always denote vowel length in Modern Standard Lithuanian. Acute, grave, and tilde diacritics are used to indicate pitch accents. However, these pitch accents are generally not written, except in dictionaries, grammars, and where needed for clarity, such as to differentiate homonyms and dialectal use.
All Lithuanian consonants except /j/ have two variants: the non-palatalized one represented by the IPA symbols in the chart, and the palatalized one (i.e. /b/– /bʲ/, /d/– /dʲ/, /ɡ/– /ɡʲ/, and so on). The consonants /f/, /x/, /ɣ/ and their palatalized variants are only found in loanwords.
/t͡ɕ, d͡ʑ, ɕ, ʑ/ have been traditionally transcribed with ⟨t͡ʃʲ, d͡ʒʲ, ʃʲ, ʒʲ⟩, but they can be seen as equivalent transcriptions, with the former set being somewhat easier to write.[90]
Vowels
Lithuanian has six long vowels and four short ones (not including disputed phonemes marked in brackets). Length has traditionally been considered the distinctive feature, though short vowels are also more centralized and long vowels more peripheral:
/e, ɔ/ are restricted to loanwords. Many speakers merge the former with /ɛ/.[91]
Diphthongs
Lithuanian is traditionally described as having nine diphthongs, ai, au, ei, eu, oi, ou, ui, ie, and uo. However, some approaches (i.e., Schmalstieg 1982) treat them as vowel sequences rather than diphthongs; indeed, the longer component depends on the type of stress, whereas in diphthongs, the longer segment is fixed.
The Lithuanian prosodic system is characterized by free accent and distinctive quantity (i.e. syllable weight). Its word prosody of Lithuanian is sometimes described as a restricted tone system, also called a pitch accent system.[93] In Lithuanian, lexical words contain a single syllable that is prominent or stressed. Among those, heavy syllables—that is, those containing a long vowel, diphthong, or a sonorant coda—bear either one of two tones: a falling (or acute tone) or a rising (or circumflex tone). Light syllables (syllables with short vowels and optionally also obstruent codas) do not have the two-way contrast of heavy syllables.
Daniel Klein's Grammatica Litvanica, the first printed grammar of the Lithuanian language, published in Königsberg in 1653Universitas lingvarum Litvaniae, published in Vilnius in 1737, the oldest surviving grammar of the Lithuanian language published in the territory of the Grand Duchy of LithuaniaLietuviškos kalbos gramatika (English: Grammar of the Lithuanian language) by Jonas Jablonskis, published in Tilsit in 1901
In one of the first Lithuanian grammars – Compendium Grammaticae Lithvanicae, published in 1673, most of the given examples are with Lithuanian endings (e.g. names Jonas = Jonas, Jonuttis = Jonutis, etc.), therefore it allows to highlight the tendency of spelling the endings of words in the Old Lithuanian writings.[100]
The first scientific Compendium of Lithuanian language was published in German in 1856/57 by August Schleicher, a professor at Charles University in Prague.[103][104] In it he describes Prussian-Lithuanian, which later became the "skeleton" (Būga) of modern Lithuanian. Schleicher asserted that the Lithuanian language can compete with the Greek and Roman (Old Latin) languages in perfection of forms.[105]
Lithuanian is a highly inflected language. In Lithuanian, there are two grammatical genders for nouns (masculine and feminine) and three genders for adjectives, pronouns, numerals and participles (masculine, feminine and neuter). Every attribute must agree with the gender and number of the noun. The neuter forms of other parts of speech are used with a subject of an undefined gender (a pronoun, an infinitive etc.).
Nouns and other parts of nominal morphology are declined in seven cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative (inessive), and vocative. In older Lithuanian texts, three additional varieties of the locative case are found: illative, adessive and allative. The most common are the illative, which is still used, mostly in spoken language, and the allative, which survives in the standard language in some idiomatic usages. The adessive is nearly extinct. These additional cases are probably due to the influence of Uralic languages, with which Baltic languages have had a longstanding contact. (Uralic languages possess a great variety of noun cases, a number of which are specialised locative cases.)
Lithuanian verbal morphology shows a number of innovations; namely, the loss of synthetic passive (which is hypothesized based on other archaic Indo-European languages, such as Greek and Latin), synthetic perfect (formed by means of reduplication) and aorist; forming subjunctive and imperative with the use of suffixes plus flexions as opposed to solely flections in, e.g., Ancient Greek; loss of the optative mood; merging and disappearing of the -t- and -nt- markers for the third-person singular and plural, respectively (this, however, occurs in Latvian and Old Prussian as well and may indicate a collective feature of all Baltic languages).
On the other hand, the Lithuanian verbal morphology retains a number of archaic features absent from most modern Indo-European languages (but shared with Latvian). This includes the synthetic form of the future tense with the help of the -s- suffix and three principal verbal forms with the present tense stem employing the -n- and -st- infixes.
present perfect (esu nešęs), past perfect (buvau nešęs), past iterative perfect (būdavau nešęs), future perfect (būsiu nešęs)
past inchoative (buvau benešąs), past iterative inchoative (būdavau benešąs), future inchoative (būsiu benešąs)
The indirect mood, used only in written narrative speech, has the same tenses corresponding to the appropriate active participle in nominative case; e.g., the past of the indirect mood would be nešęs, while the past iterative inchoative of the indirect mood would be būdavęs benešąs. Since it is a nominal form, this mood cannot be conjugated but must match the subject's number and gender.
The subjunctive (or conditional) and the imperative moods have three tenses. Subjunctive: present (neščiau), past (būčiau nešęs), inchoative (būčiau benešąs); imperative: present (nešk), perfect (būk nešęs) and inchoative (būk benešąs).
The infinitive has only one form (nešti). These forms, except the infinitive and indirect mood, are conjugative, having two singular, two plural persons, and the third person form common both for plural and singular.
In the passive voice, the form number is not as rich as in the active voice. There are two types of passive voice in Lithuanian: present participle (type I) and past participle (type II) (in the examples below types I and II are separated with a slash). They both have the same moods and tenses:
Indicative mood: present (esu nešamas/neštas), past (buvau nešamas/neštas), past iterative (būdavau nešamas/neštas) and future (būsiu nešamas/neštas)
Indirect mood: present (esąs nešamas/neštas), past (buvęs nešamas/neštas), past iterative (būdavęs nešamas/neštas) and future (būsiąs nešamas/neštas).
Imperative mood: present (type I only: būk nešamas), past (type II only: būk neštas).
Subjunctive / conditional mood: present (type I only: būčiau nešamas), past (type II only: būčiau neštas).
Lithuanian has the richest participle system of all Indo-European languages, having participles derived from all simple tenses with distinct active and passive forms, and two gerund forms.
In practical terms, the rich overall inflectional system makes the word order have a different meaning than in more analytic languages such as English. The English phrase "a car is coming" translates as "atvažiuoja automobilis" (the theme first), while "the car is coming" – "automobilis atvažiuoja" (the theme first; word order inversion).
Lithuanian also has a very rich word derivation system and an array of diminutive suffixes.
Today there are two definitive books on Lithuanian grammar: one in English, the Introduction to Modern Lithuanian (called Beginner's Lithuanian in its newer editions) by Leonardas Dambriūnas, Antanas Klimas and William R. Schmalstieg; and another in Russian, Vytautas Ambrazas' Грамматика литовского языка (The Grammar of the Lithuanian Language). Another recent book on Lithuanian grammar is the second edition of Review of Modern Lithuanian Grammar by Edmund Remys, published by Lithuanian Research and Studies Center, Chicago, 2003.
Vocabulary
The Grand Dictionary of the Lithuanian language consists of 20 volumes and contains more than half a million headwords.Page from a Lithuanian-language primer Naujas moksłas skaytima diel maźū waykū Źemaycziu yr Lietuwos illustrating the letters D, E and G
Indo-European vocabulary
Lithuanian retains cognates to many words found in classical languages, such as Sanskrit and Latin. These words are descended from Proto-Indo-European. A few examples are the following:
Lith. sūnus and Skt. sūnu (son)
Lith. avis and Skt. avi and Lat. ovis (sheep)
Lith. dūmas and Skt. dhūma and Lat. fumus (fumes, smoke)
Lith. antras and Skt. antara (second, the other)
Lith. vilkas and Skt. vṛka (wolf)
Lith. ratas and Lat. rota (wheel) and Skt. ratha (carriage)
Lith. senis and Lat. senex (an old man) and Skt. sanas (old)
Lith. vyras and Lat. vir (a man) and Skt. vīra (man)
Lith. angis and Lat. anguis (a snake in Latin, a species of snakes in Lithuanian)
Lith. linas and Lat. linum (flax, compare with English 'linen')
Lith. ariu and Lat. aro (I plow)
Lith. jungiu and Lat. iungo, and Skt. yuñje (mid.), (I join)
Lith. gentys and Lat. gentes and Skt. játi (tribes)
Lith. mėnesis and Lat. mensis and Skt. masa (month)
Lith. dantis and Lat. dens and Skt. danta (tooth)
Lith. naktis and Lat. noctes (plural of nox) and Skt. naktam (night)
Lith. ugnis and Lat. ignis and Skt. agni (fire)
Lith. sėdime and Lat. sedemus and Skt. sīdama (we sit)
This even extends to grammar, where for example Latin noun declensions ending in -um often correspond to Lithuanian -ų, with the Latin and Lithuanian fourth declensions being particularly close. Many of the words from this list are similar to other Indo-European languages, including English and Russian. The contribution of Lithuanian was influential in the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language.
Lexical and grammatical similarities between Baltic and Slavic languages suggest an affinity between these two language groups. On the other hand, there exist a number of Baltic (particularly Lithuanian) words without counterparts in Slavic languages, but which are similar to words in Sanskrit or Latin. The history of the relationship between Baltic and Slavic languages, and our understanding of the affinity between the two groups, remain in dispute (see: Balto-Slavic languages).
Loanwords
In a 1934 book entitled Die Germanismen des Litauischen. Teil I: Die deutschen Lehnwörter im Litauischen, K. Alminauskis found 2,770 loanwords, of which about 130 were of uncertain origin. The majority of the loanwords were found to have been derived from the Polish, Belarusian, and German languages, with some evidence that these languages all acquired the words from contacts and trade with Prussia during the era of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania.[107] Loanwords comprised about 20% of the vocabulary used in the first book printed in the Lithuanian language in 1547, Martynas Mažvydas's Catechism.[108] But as a result of language preservation and purging policies, Slavic loanwords currently constitute only 1.5% of the Standard Lithuanian lexicon, while German loanwords constitute only 0.5% of it.[109] The majority of loanwords in the 20th century arrived from the Russian language.[110]
Towards the end of the 20th century, a number of words and expressions related to new technologies and telecommunications were borrowed from the English language. The Lithuanian government has an established language policy that encourages the development of equivalent vocabulary to replace loanwords.[111] However, despite the government's best efforts to avoid the use of loanwords in the Lithuanian language, many English words have become accepted and are now included in Lithuanian language dictionaries.[112][113] In particular, words having to do with new technologies have permeated the Lithuanian vernacular, including such words as:
These words have been modified to suit the grammatical and phonetic requirements of the Lithuanian language, mostly by adding -as suffix, but their foreign roots are obvious.
Old Lithuanian
The earliest known Lithuanian glosses (~1520–1530) written in the margins of Johannes Herolt book Liber Discipuli de eruditione Christifidelium. Left: word ßch[ÿ]kſtu[m]aſ (parsimony); Right: words teprÿdav[ſ]ʒÿ (let it strike) and vbagÿſte (indigence).
The language of the earliest Lithuanian writings, in the 16th and 17th centuries, is known as Old Lithuanian and differs in some significant respects from the Lithuanian of today.
Besides the specific differences given below, nouns, verbs, and adjectives still had separate endings for the dual number. The dual persists today in some dialects. Example:
Case
"two good friends"
Nom-Acc
dù gerù draugù
Dat
dvı̇́em gerı̇́em draugám
Inst
dviem̃ geriem̃ draugam̃
Pronunciation
The vowels written ą, ę, į, ų were still pronounced as long nasal vowels,[114] not as long oral vowels as in today's Lithuanian.
The original Baltic long ā was still retained as such, e.g. bralis "brother" (modern brólis).
Nouns
Compared to the modern language, there were three additional cases, formed under the influence of the Finnic languages. The original locative case had been replaced by four so-called postpositive cases, the inessive case, illative case, adessive case and allative case, which correspond to the prepositions "in", "into", "at" and "towards", respectively. They were formed by affixing a postposition to one of the previous cases:
The inessive added *-en > -e to the original locative in singular and to the accusative in plural.
The illative added *-nā > -n(a) to the accusative.
The adessive added *-pie > -p(i) to the original locative in singular and to the inessive in plural.
The allative added *-pie > -p(i) to the genitive.
The inessive has become the modern locative case, while the other three have disappeared. Note, however, that the illative case is still used occasionally in the colloquial language (mostly in the singular): Lietuvon "to Lithuania", miestan "to the city". This form is relatively productive: for instance, it is not uncommon to hear "skrendame Niujorkan (we are flying to New York)".
The uncontracted dative plural -mus was still common.
Adjectives
Adjectives could belong to all four accent classes in Old Lithuanian (now they can only belong to classes 3 and 4).
Additional remnants of i-stem adjectives still existed, e.g.:
loc. sg. didimè pulkè "in the big crowd" (now didžiame)
loc. sg. gerèsnime "better" (now geresniamè)
loc. sg. mažiáusime "smallest" (now mažiáusiame)
Additional remnants of u-stem adjectives still existed, e.g. rūgštùs "sour":
Case
Newer
Older
Inst sg
rūgščiù
rūgštumı̇̀
Loc sg
rūgščiamè
rūgštumè
Gen pl
rūgščių̃
rūgštų̃
Acc pl
rū́gščius
rū́gštus
Inst pl
rūgščiaı̇̃s
rūgštumı̇̀s
No u-stem remnants existed in the dative singular and locative plural.
Definite adjectives, originally involving a pronoun suffixed to an adjective, had not merged into a single word in Old Lithuanian. Examples:
The optative mood (i.e. the third-person imperative) still had its own endings, -ai for third-conjugation verbs and -ie for other verbs, instead of using regular third-person present endings.
Syntax
Word order was freer in Old Lithuanian. For example, a noun in the genitive case could either precede or follow the noun it modifies.
↑ Zinkevičius, Z. (1993). Rytų Lietuva praeityje ir dabar[Eastern Lithuania in the Past and Now] (in Lithuanian). Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla. p.9. ISBN5-420-01085-2. ...linguist generally accepted that Lithuanian language is the most archaic among live Indo-European languages...
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 Zinkevičius, Zigmas. "Lietuvių kalbos kilmė"[The origin of the Lithuanian language]. Visuotinė lietuvių enciklopedija (in Lithuanian). Retrieved 21 January 2023.
1 2 3 "History". Balticlanguage.space. Retrieved 22 January 2023.
↑ Ramat, Anna Giacalone; Ramat, Paolo (1998). "The Baltic Languages". The Indo-European Languages. Routledge. pp.454–479. ISBN9781134921867. OCLC908192063.
↑ Vytautas the Great; Valkūnas, Leonas (translation from Latin). Vytauto laiškai [ Letters of Vytautas the Great ](PDF) (in Lithuanian). Vilnius University, Institute of Lithuanian Literature and Folklore. p.6. Retrieved 4 March 2023. Juk pirmiausia Jūs padarėte ir paskelbėte sprendimą dėl Žemaičių žemės, kuri yra mūsų paveldėjimas ir mūsų tėvonija iš teisėtos prosenolių bei senolių įpėdinystės. Ją ir dabar nuosavybėje turime, ji dabar yra ir visada buvo viena ir ta pati Lietuvos žemė, nes yra viena kalba bei tie patys gyventojai. (...) Taip pat Žemaitijos žmonės nuo senų laikų save vadino lietuviais ir niekada žemaičiais, ir dėl tokio tapatumo (sic) savo rašte mes nerašome apie Žemaitiją, nes viskas yra viena, vienas kraštas ir tie patys gyventojai.
↑ Ulčinaitė, Eugenija; Jovaišas, Albinas (2003). Lietuvių literatūros istorija: XIII-XVIII amžius. Vilnius: Lietuvių literatūros ir tautosakos institutas. pp.13–66. ISBN995547551X.
↑ "Šventojo Kazimiero gyvenimo istorija". Vilnius Cathedral (in Lithuanian). Retrieved 3 March 2023. Jo gyvenimą tyrinėjo popiežiaus Leono X legatas vyskupas Z. Ferreri. 1521 m. jis išspausdino biografiją „Vita beati Casimiri, scripta Vilniae" — tai vienintelis XVI a. šaltinis, kalbantis apie asketišką Kazimiero gyvenimą. Autorius akcentuoja, kad Kazimieras mokėjęs lietuvių, lenkų, vokiečių ir lotynų kalbas, turėjęs nemažai dorybių: buvo teisingas, susivaldantis, tvirtos dvasios, išmintingas.
↑ "Kauno rotušė". Autc.lt (in Lithuanian). Retrieved 12 February 2023.
↑ Butėnas, Domas (1997). Lietuvos Didžiosios Kunigaikštystės valstybinių ir visuomeninių institucijų istorijos bruožai XIII–XVIII a. Vilnius: Lietuvos istorijos instituto leidykla. pp.145–146.
↑ Dini 2000, p.362 "Priešingai nei skelbė leninietiškos deklaracijos apie tautas ("Jokių privilegijų jokiai tautai ir jokiai kalbai"), reali TSRS politika – kartu ir kalbų politika – buvo ne kas kita kaip rusinimas77. Ir 1940–1941 metais, iš karto po priverstinio Pabaltijo valstybių įjungimo į TSRS, ir vėliau vyraujanti kalbos politikos linija Lietuvos TSRS ir Latvijos TSRS buvo tautinių kalbų raidos derinimas su socialistinių nacijų raida78. Tokia padėtis tęsėsi penkiasdešimt metų79."
↑ Dahl, Östen; Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria (2001). Dahl, Östen; Koptjevskaja-Tamm, Maria (eds.). Circum-Baltic Languages. Studies in Language Companion Series 55. Vol.II: Grammar and Typology. John Benjamins Publishing. p.43. doi:10.1075/slcs.55.02dah. ISBN9789027230591.
↑ 104Plg. J. Otrębski 1956–1965 I, p. 44; Schmitt-Brandt 1972. Griežtai prieš baltų (ir baltų-slavų) prokalbės hipotezę pasisakė Mayer 1981.“
↑ Kortlandt, Frederik (2009), Baltica & Balto-Slavica, p.5, Though Prussian is undoubtedly closer to the East Baltic languages than to Slavic, the characteristic features of the Baltic languages seem to be either retentions or results of parallel development and cultural interaction. Thus I assume that Balto-Slavic split into three identifiable branches, each of which followed its own course of development.
↑ Derksen, Rick (2008), Etymological Dictionary of the Slavic Inherited Lexicon, p.20, I am not convinced that it is justified to reconstruct a Proto-Baltic stage. The term Proto-Baltic is used for convenience's sake.
1 2 Milinienė, Audronė; Subačius, Giedrius (30 September 2017). "Kas išrado raidę Ė?"[Who invented the letter Ė?]. Ve.lt (in Lithuanian). Retrieved 16 January 2023.
↑ Gedutienė, Audronė. "Danieliaus Kleino knyga"[Daniel Klein's book]. Maironiomuziejus.lt (in Lithuanian). Retrieved 16 January 2023.
↑ Venckienė, Jurgita (2004). "Dvejopa XIX a. pabaigos lietuviškų laikraščių rašyba". Raidžių draudimo metai. Vilnius: Lithuanian Institute of History Press: 207–213.
↑ Šilas, Vytautas; Sambora, Henrikas. "Karaliaučius, Tvangystė". National Commission for Cultural Heritage of the Republic of Lithuania (in Lithuanian). Retrieved 15 January 2023.
Ambrazas, Vytautas; Geniušienė, Emma; Girdenis, Aleksas; Sližienė, Nijolė; Valeckienė, Adelė; Valiulytė, Elena; Tekorienė, Dalija; Pažūsis, Lionginas (1997), Ambrazas, Vytautas (ed.), Lithuanian Grammar, Vilnius: Institute of the Lithuanian Language, ISBN9986-813-22-0
Dambriūnas, Leonardas; Antanas Klimas, William R. Schmalstieg, Beginner's Lithuanian, Hippocrene Books, 1999, ISBN0-7818-0678-X. Older editions (copyright 1966) called "Introduction to modern Lithuanian".
Dini, P. U. (2000). Baltų kalbos: Lyginamoji istorija[Baltic Languages: A Comparative History] (in Lithuanian). Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas. ISBN5-420-01444-0.
Remys, Edmund, Review of Modern Lithuanian Grammar, Lithuanian Research and Studies Center, Chicago, 2nd revised edition, 2003.
Remys, Edmund, General distinguishing features of various Indo-European languages and their relationship to Lithuanian, Indogermanische Forschungen, Berlin, New York, 2007.
Zinkevičius, Zigmas, "Lietuvių kalbos istorija" ("History of Lithuanian Language") Vol.1, Vilnius: Mokslas, 1984, ISBN5-420-00102-0.
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The Curonian language, or Old Curonian, was a nearly unattested Baltic language spoken by the Curonians, a Baltic tribe who inhabited the Courland Peninsula and the nearby Baltic shore.
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Lithuanians are a Baltic ethnic group. They are native to Lithuania, where they number around 2,378,118 people. Another two millions make up the Lithuanian diaspora, largely found in countries such as the United States, United Kingdom, Brazil, Russia, and Canada. Their native language is Lithuanian, one of only two surviving members of the Baltic language family along with Latvian. According to the census conducted in 2021, 84.6% of the population of Lithuania identified themselves as Lithuanians, 6.5% as Poles, 5.0% as Russians, 1.0% as Belarusians, and 1.1% as members of other ethnic groups. Most Lithuanians belong to the Catholic Church, while the Lietuvininkai who lived in the northern part of East Prussia prior to World War II, were mostly Lutherans.
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Zigmas Zinkevičius was a Lithuanian academician, baltist, linguist, linguistic historian, dialectologist, politician, and the former Minister of Education and Science of Lithuania (1996–1998). Zinkevičius authored over a hundred books, including the popular six-volume "History of the Lithuanian language" (1984–1994), and over a thousand articles, both in Lithuanian and other languages. He was an academician of the Lithuanian Catholic Academy of Science since 1991 and a full member of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences from 1990 to 2011, when he became an emeritus member.
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