Lithuanian Language

Lithuanian is a Baltic language spoken mainly in the Eastern European country of Lithuania. It is one of the oldest existing languages in the world, retaining many qualities of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language that is the basis of most modern European languages. About four million people worldwide speak Lithuanian today.

History and Classification

The Proto-Indo-European language from which Lithuanian descends is the ancient language of the earliest peoples of Europe. As these people scattered across the continent, settling into their own territories, the common language they spoke gradually diverged into regional dialects. Over many years, these dialects became entirely new languages. Lithuanian is related to some of the earliest known languages, including Sanskrit, Latin, and Ancient Greek.

One of the language families that eventually developed from Proto-Indo-European was Baltic, which arose in northeastern Europe in the area of present-day Lithuania and Latvia. The common Baltic base later split into several dialects that changed so much over time that they became their own languages. Such was the case with Lithuanian and Latvian, the two languages that made up the Western branch of the Baltic family. These were originally closely related dialects, but as the speakers of each language moved away from one another, the languages began to diverge.

The Lithuanian language’s break from Latvian began in about 800 CE. The process was gradual, with Lithuanian transitioning through numerous phases—such as the earliest form, Old Lithuanian—before becoming its own complete language by the sixteenth century. Today modern Lithuanian and Latvian are the only existing Baltic languages; the rest became extinct in the medieval period. Despite this fact, however, neither language can be understood by speakers of the other language.

Despite all the lingual stages through which it had been filtered—evolving on its own after developing from the Western branch of the Baltic family of European languages—Lithuanian still had not been altered drastically from the original Proto-Indo-European by the time it finished developing in the sixteenth century. Along with Latvian, therefore, Lithuanian is preserved as one of the oldest surviving descendant languages of this ancient lingual base.

In 1863, however, the very existence of the Lithuanian language was placed in jeopardy when the Russian Empire, which had ruled Lithuania since 1795, began oppressing the Lithuanian people after the Uprising of 1863. As punishment for the people’s failed rebellion, Russia closed Lithuanian schools, which taught children the Lithuanian language, and outlawed the use of the Latin alphabet, in which Lithuanian was normally written. Instead, to write or publish anything, Lithuanians were forced to use the Cyrillic alphabet, the script used to write in Russian and numerous other Slavic languages.

In the early twentieth century, despite the cultural devastation still taking place around them, Lithuanians formally standardized their language. They created rules of grammar and usage that would preserve Lithuanian and protect it from becoming lost among other languages.

Russia retained control of Lithuania and most of its surrounding countries until 1917, when the empire was dissolved and replaced by the Soviet Union. With the declaration of Lithuanian independence in 1918, the Lithuanian language returned to mainstream Lithuanian society and became the country’s official language in 1930.

This period of liberty lasted only until 1941, at which time the Soviet Union overtook Lithuania and most other eastern and central European countries at the beginning of World War II. Over the next fifty years of Soviet control, the Lithuanian language and culture became oppressed once again.

In 1990, however, with the dissolution of the Soviet Union imminent, Lithuania again became an independent nation with Lithuanian as its official language. In 2004, when the country joined the European Union, the political and economic partnership of most European countries, Lithuanian was made one of the official languages of that organization.

Language Characteristics

Lithuanian is a phonemic language, which means that every letter in a word is pronounced (unlike languages such as English, which has many silent letters and sounds). Lithuanian is also an inflected language, which means the functions of words in sentences are indicated through the vocal stresses of the speaker.

The Lithuanian script uses diacritics, special accent marks, on its written letters to distinguish one sound from another; these diacritics are important. The letter a in Lithuanian is pronounced entirely differently from an a with a diacritic attached to it.

Another characteristic of Lithuanian is its disposition for adding loanwords, or adopted foreign words, to its vocabulary. Lithuanian borrows frequently from other languages, mostly new scientific or technological terms. The language is especially friendly to English, from which it has borrowed many words that now appear in Lithuanian dictionaries. Modern Lithuanian literature, however, has endeavored to replace German, Polish, Ukrainian, and Belorussian loanwords that often appeared in older works with Lithuanian translations.

Geographic Distribution and Modern Usage

About 4 million people worldwide speak Lithuanian. Most of these— about 3.5 million—live in Lithuania. The other 500,000 live in Latvia, Poland, Belarus, parts of Russia, and various other countries around the world.

Modern Lithuanian has two main regional dialects: Aukstaitian, and Samogitian, which translate respectively as Highland Lithuanian and Lowland Lithuanian. Highland Lithuanian is the standard, most common form of the language, though each dialect features its own set of subdialects. Additionally, Lithuania’s historically close association with Russia means that many Lithuanians also speak or understand Russian.

Bibliography

Dalby, Andrew. "Georgian." Dictionary of Languages. London: A&C Black, 2004. 360–361. Print.

"History of Lithuanian." Europe-Cities. Europe-Cities.com. Web. 14 Aug. 2015. http://europe-cities.com/destinations/lithuania/history-language/

"The Lithuanian Language." Department of Lithuanian Studies. Vilnius University. Web. 14 Aug. 2015. http://www.lsk.flf.vu.lt/en/department/courses-for-foreigners/lithuanian-language/

"Lithuanian Language." Effective Language Learning. Effective Language Learning. Web. 14 Aug. 2015. http://www.effectivelanguagelearning.com/language-guide/lithuanian-language

"Timeline: Soviet Union." BBC. British Broadcasting Corporation. Web. 17 Aug. 2015. http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/1112551.stm