Lithuanian: An Ancient Baltic Language of Europe

Lithuanian is the official language of Lithuania, a Baltic nation in Europe. It belongs to the Indo-European family, Baltic branch of Balto-Slavic.

Key Features

• Closely related to Latvian; partially mutually intelligible.
• Archaic, preserving many Proto-Indo-European features.
• Highly inflectional: 7 cases, 3 genders, 2 numbers.
• Rich vocabulary with German, Polish, Russian loanwords.
• ~3 million speakers worldwide; most in Lithuania, diaspora in US, Canada, UK.

History

Split from Latvian ~10th century; first written records 16th century; standardized 19th century. Suppressed under Soviet rule; revived after 1991 independence.

Writing System

Roman alphabet (32 letters, including 9 digraphs) adopted 16th century.