Lithuanian
Language · official in 1 country
Lithuanian (lietuvių kalba) has kept grammar and sounds that Proto-Indo-European lost almost everywhere else, which is why comparative linguists have studied it since the 19th century. It is an East Baltic language written in a Latin alphabet of 32 letters, the state language of Lithuania and an official language of the European Union.
The language on record
- Own name
- lietuvių
- ISO 639-1
- LT
- ISO 639-3
- LIT
- Script
- Latin
- Family
- Baltic
- Official in
- 1 country
Where Lithuanian is official
One sovereign state holds Lithuanian as its official language, and holds it alone: the 1992 Constitution names no other.
About Lithuanian
Why linguists read Lithuanian beside Sanskrit
Lithuanian is conservative in grammar and phonology, keeping archaic features otherwise found in Vedic Sanskrit and Ancient Greek. That made it a source for reconstructing Proto-Indo-European, even though its earliest texts date only to about 1500. Franz Bopp, August Schleicher and Ferdinand de Saussure were among those who studied it. Latvian is its closest living relative, and the two split after about 800 AD; they are not mutually intelligible today.
When the first book appeared
The earliest surviving text, a translation of the Lord's Prayer, the Hail Mary and the Nicene Creed, dates from about 1503 to 1525. The first printed book, the Catechism of Martynas Mažvydas, came out on 8 January 1547.
After the January Uprising of 1864 the Russian authorities banned Lithuanian printed in the Latin alphabet. Books were printed across the border in East Prussia and in the United States and carried in by book smugglers, the knygnešiai, until the ban was lifted in 1904.
Who shaped the standard
Jonas Jablonskis (1860 to 1930) set out its principles in his grammar and based the standard on his own Western Aukštaitian dialect, with features of the Prussian Lithuanian spoken in Lithuania Minor. He also added the letter ū. The spelling took š, č and ž from Czech in the 19th century, replacing the Polish sz and cz, and kept ą and ę from Polish.
Two dialects remain, Aukštaitian and Samogitian, and speakers of each can struggle to follow the other unless both switch to the standard, which every school teaches.
How official status came and went
Lithuanian became the official language when statehood was restored in 1918, and the 1922 Constitution made it the sole one. Under Soviet rule Russian took precedence. The Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR restored Lithuanian as the official language on 18 November 1988, and the Provisional Basic Law of 1990 and the Constitution of 1992 kept it as the only one.
Common questions
Questions about Lithuanian
Can Lithuanians and Latvians understand each other?
No. The two are the only living Baltic languages and share a common ancestor, but they have been separating since about 800 AD and are not mutually intelligible.
What was the Lithuanian press ban?
From 1864 to 1904 the Russian Empire forbade printing Lithuanian in the Latin alphabet and banned it in schools. Book smugglers brought in texts printed in East Prussia and the United States, and the ban was lifted in 1904.
How many letters does the Lithuanian alphabet have?
Thirty-two. It is the Latin alphabet with diacritics, and y is sorted directly after į because the two letters stand for the same long vowel. Pitch accents are marked only in dictionaries and grammars, or where a homonym needs it.
Why is Lithuanian compared with Sanskrit?
Because it kept grammatical and phonological features that otherwise survive only in old languages such as Vedic Sanskrit and Ancient Greek, which made it useful for reconstructing Proto-Indo-European.