The languages of the Baltic group that have survived to this day. This language group also included obsolete Old Prussian and Yatvazh. Three million citizens of the country and ethnic Lithuanians in other countries communicate in Lithuanian. There are diasporas in the former Soviet republics, as well as in the USA, Canada and European countries.
In the morphology and phonetics of Lithuanian, the features of the Proto-Baltic language are clearly traced. Written monuments dating back to the 16th century have been found. There are two dialects in the language: Aukshtaitsky, on which the literary form is based, Izhemaitsky.
History of the Lithuanian language
From the beginning of the first millennium, the divergence of the Lithuanian and Latvian languages began, which ended in the 7th century. The currently existing dialects, the Aukshtaitian and Samogitian dialects, were formed around the 13th-14th centuries. The formation of literary Lithuanian began in the 16th century. and ended in the 18th century, when the differences between the folk and literary language were already clearly visible. The transition to the Aukshtaitian dialect was gradual and ended by the beginning of the 20th century. This language is today the state language of Lithuania.
The first handwritten inscription in Lithuanian (the text of a prayer) was found on the page of a book published in 1503, and the first book - a textbook of Lithuanian letters - was printed in 1547. In 1595, another catechism with accents in words was published in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. The dictionary of the literary language was compiled and printed in 1620; subsequently it was reprinted five times. In 1653, D. Klein prepared and published the Lithuanian Grammar Textbook.
In 1795, the Commonwealth was partitioned, as a result of which Lithuania became part of the Russian Empire. Russification of Lithuania was accompanied by a ban on the Latin alphabet, in 1864 the language was translated into the Cyrillic alphabet, specially developed by I. Kornilov. For 40 years, books in Lithuanian have been published abroad and brought into the country illegally. It was only at the beginning of the 20th century that the ban was lifted, and from 1904 the literary Lithuanian language was actively formed.
In 1940, Lithuania was annexed to the Soviet Union and the second stage of Russification began. Bilingualism has become very common in the republic, and men who served in the Soviet army knew Russian more often and better. The Russian-speaking population in the post-war years massively settled in Lithuanian cities, the national language was almost completely ousted from the media, education, and production. Lithuanian was supplemented by numerous borrowings from the Russian language. The resumption of the status of the state language of Lithuania occurred after the collapse of the USSR, at present the number of fluent Lithuanian speakers has increased significantly.
- Lithuanian is one of the oldest languages. Phonetics is close to the structure of the Proto-Indo-European language - the ancestor of all European languages. Modern linguists who recreate the Proto-Indo-European language rely on Sanskrit and Lithuanian.
- The similarity of the Lithuanian language with Sanskrit, which belongs to another language group, is amazing. In both languages there are Proto-Indo-European elements, there are coincidences in grammar, meaning and phonetics of words.
- The modern literary Lithuanian language was created artificially. Before him, four ethnic groups spoke their own dialects, the differences between which made it difficult to understand.
- Lithuanian female surnames change depending on the marital status of the lady. The surname of an unmarried woman ends in -aitė, -iūtė, -ytė, for married women the ending is -ienė. Modern Lithuanians are increasingly limited to adding the ending -e to hide their marital status.
- There are practically no swear words in the Lithuanian language, one of the most brutal curses is translated as “toad”.
- Young Lithuanians who went to school after the collapse of the Soviet Union do not know Russian. However, even ethnic Lithuanians who speak the language are reluctant to admit it.
- There are no double consonants in Lithuanian.
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The biggest language problem that a tourist runs the risk of encountering in Lithuania is simply not being understood. Well, or they will pretend. Our article is how to make it so that they “do not pretend”. The recipe is not complicated at all and is very effective. Shall we try?
In general, Lithuanians are friendly and hospitable towards the guests of their country.
However, unlike Latvia, where the Russian language is extremely common, or Estonia, where the majority of the population (and almost all young people) speak English at some level, which facilitates communication, in Lithuania it is quite possible to face a situation where you simply will not be understood in Russian, but in English.
At the same time, the most surprising thing is that the above is true not only in relation to the rural outback, but to quite tourist places.
Why go far there, we ourselves found ourselves in a similar situation in Palanga, where in a restaurant on the promenade a pretty girl, the waiter, could not express herself either in English or in Russian.
On the other hand, a local resident is pleased when a guest says at least a few words in his native language - this is especially true for small nations. So we recommend learning fifteen phrases in Lithuanian, and you can be sure that a friendly smile on the face of the interlocutor is guaranteed!
Please note that the Lithuanian language is not characterized by length, so try to pronounce the words at a normal pace (you should not try to keep up with Tina Kandelaki, but there is no need to stretch in the Estonian manner).
Bold type indicates stress in words, which, as a rule, falls on the first syllable. Note that the above Lithuanian phrases are somewhat similar to Latvian ones, so that, in a slightly modified form, they can also be used when visiting Latvia.
| Phrase | Translation into Lithuanian | Transcription |
| Hello! | Labas! | L A bass! |
| Good morning! | Labas rytas! | L A bass r And tas! |
| Good afternoon | Laba diena! | L A ba d e on the! |
| Good evening! | Labas vakaras! | L A bass in A karas! |
| Good night! | Labanakt! | L A banakt! |
| Goodbye! | Viso hero! | IN And with g I ro! |
| Yes | Taip | T uh yp |
| No | Ne | H I |
| Thank you! | Acizu! | A whoa! |
| Please! | Prasau! | Etc A shaw! |
| Sorry! | Atsiprasau! | Atsi-pr A shaw! |
| What is your name? | Kuo jus vardu? | TO at O Yu with ward at? |
| My name is.. | Mano vardas.. | M A but in A rdas.. |
| Where is.. | Kur yra.. | TO at R And ra.. |
| I don't speak Lithuanian | As nekalbu lietuviskai | A sh n I kalbu yo at vishkay |
In addition, here is a list of some symbols that you may encounter during your trip:
- gatve (g.) - street
- prospektas (pr.) - avenue
- kelias - road
- rajonas (raj.) - district
- plentas - highway
- aleja (al.) - alley
- kaimas - village
- miestas - city
And, finally, such a sweet word for any man, and even more so on vacation - beer - alus. By the way, in Latvian a noble drink sounds exactly the same.
As you can see, everything is not so complicated, but even such a small vocabulary, especially under a good “alus”, can work wonders. Try it and see for yourself.
