Lithuanian language

The Lithuanian language is a Baltic language. It is from Lithuania, spoken in a few countries in Europe, as well as in the Americas and Australia.

Lithuanian
lietuvių kalba
Native to	Lithuania
Region	Europe
Native speakers	2.96 million (Lithuania) 170,000 (Abroad) 3.13 million (Worldwide)  (date missing)
Language family	Indo-European Balto-Slavic Baltic Eastern Baltic Lithuanian
Dialects	Samogitian, Aukštaitian
Writing system	Roman script
Official status
Official language in	Lithuania European Union
Recognised minority language in	Poland
Regulated by	Commission of the Lithuanian Language
Language codes
ISO 639-1	lt
ISO 639-2	lit
ISO 639-3	lit
Linguasphere	54-AAA-a

Lithuanian and Latvian are the only remaining Baltic languages. Both languages have much in common. Lithuanian, however, adopted fewer words and phrases from German and other languages. However, many words were adopted into Lithuanian by Slavic languages long ago, but in 1920, the Lithuanian philologist Jonas Jablonskis and others replaced them with native Lithuanian words.

File:Mazvydo katekizmas.jpg

The front cover of the Katekizmas, published in East Prussia in 1547.

There are two main dialects of Lithuanian. Samogitian is used mostly in West Lithuania, and the other that is widely used in the whole country is Aukštaitian (Highlanders' dialect). Standard Lithuanian comes from West Aukštaitian.

The first book written in Lithuanian is Katekizmas by Martynas Mažvydas. It was published in East Prussia in 1547.

Even though Lithuanian was written down relatively recently, it is known for being close to old Proto-European languages by keeping old traits that are found only in early languages like Vedic Sanskrit and have been lost in later languages.

Lithuanian Language Media

• Area where Lithuanian was spoken in the 16th century

• The Grand Duke of Lithuania, Alexander Jagiellon, specified that the Roman Catholic priests in these 28 churches must know the Lithuanian language, according to his letter of 18 September 1501, which was addressed to the Bishop of Vilnius Albertas.

• The oldest surviving manuscript in Lithuanian (c. 1503), rewritten from a 15th century original text.

• Vilnia, Lidzkaja-Franciškanskaja. Вільня, Лідзкая-Францішканская (J. Bułhak, 1912).jpg

  Lithuanian school in Vilnius in 1902

• Title page of Vyriausybės Žinios which includes articles of the 1922 Constitution of Lithuania (6 August 1922 edition).jpg

  Title page of Vyriausybės Žinios with articles of the 1922 Constitution of Lithuania. The sixth article established Lithuanian as the sole official language of Lithuania.

• Baltic Tribes c 1200.svg

  Distribution of the Baltic tribes, c. 1200 (boundaries are approximate).

• Balto-Slavic theories 2.svg

  Various schematic sketches of possible Balto-Slavic language relationships.

• A map of European languages (1741) with the first verse of the Lord's Prayer in Lithuanian

• A woman speaking in Lithuanian