Geographically located in the Baltics in the northern part of Europe, the Republic of Lithuania has only one official language. In Lithuania, he proclaimed Lithuanian, which belongs to the Baltic group of Indo-European languages. It also "consists" of modern Latvian and the now dead Old Prussian and Yatvyazh languages.
Some statistics and facts
- The state language of Lithuania is divided into the Aukštait and emaitic dialects.
- The total number of Lithuanian speakers in the world is about 3 million.
- Borrowings are also present in the original vocabulary of the language. Most of them are Germanisms and Slavic words.
- The modified Latin alphabet, which is used in Lithuanian for writing, contains 32 letters.
- Abroad, most of all the state language of Lithuania is spoken in the USA - about 42 thousand inhabitants.
Lithuanian: history and modernity
Prabaltic is the forefather of the modern Lithuanian language. It was he who served as the basis for the current Latvian as well. Both Baltic languages began to separate around the 1st century AD, and after three centuries, the two branches were finally formed. In the 13th century, two Lithuanian dialects appeared - the Aukštait and emaitic dialects. Those who spoke the first of them lived upstream of the Neman River, and the second - below.
Each dialect has three groups of dialects and modern literary Lithuanian is based on the dialect of Western Aukštait.
The old period of Lithuanian history lasted from the 16th to the 18th century, and at that time its literary version began to form. The gap between it and popular dialects widened throughout the entire period, and in the first half of the 19th century a new stage began in the history of Lithuanian. Literary Lithuanian began to penetrate into most spheres of public life and spread to all areas of communication.
Prayers are considered the earliest written monument of the Lithuanian language. They are handwritten on a treatise published in Strasbourg in Latin. The inscription dates back to 1503. Typography in Lithuanian began forty years later, and the first book was the catechism.
Tourist notes
The middle and older generation of Lithuanians speaks excellent Russian, and young people speak English, which will help Russian tourists to avoid the language barrier in Lithuania. It is preferable to communicate in English, because for some historical reasons, Lithuanians are in no hurry to admit they know the Russian language.
