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 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.


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.

 References 

Category:Lithuanian culture
Category:Baltic languages
Category:Languages of Europe