Lithuanian language
| Lithuanian | |
|---|---|
| lietuvių kalba | |
| Native to | Lithuania |
|
Native speakers
|
3.0 million (2012) |
|
Indo-European
|
|
| Dialects | |
|
Latin (Lithuanian alphabet) Lithuanian Braille |
|
| Official status | |
|
Official language in
|
Lithuania European Union |
|
Recognised minority
language in |
|
| Regulated by | Commission of the Lithuanian Language |
| Language codes | |
| ISO 639-1 | lt |
| ISO 639-2 | |
| ISO 639-3 | Either: lit – Modern Lithuanian olt – Old Lithuanian |
| Glottolog | lith1251 |
| Linguasphere | 54-AAA-a |
 |
|
Lithuanian (lietuvių kalba) is the official state language of Lithuania and is recognized as one of the official languages of the European Union. There are about 2.9 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 200,000 abroad. Lithuanian is a Baltic language, related to Latvian. It is written in a Latin alphabet. Lithuanian is often said to be the most conservative living Indo-European language, retaining many features of Proto-Indo-European now lost in other Indo-European languages.
Anyone wishing to hear how Indo-Europeans spoke should come and listen to a Lithuanian peasant.
Among Indo-European languages, Lithuanian is extraordinarily conservative, retaining many archaic features otherwise found only in ancient languages such as Sanskrit or Ancient Greek. For this reason, it is one of the most important sources in the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language despite its late attestation (with the earliest texts dating only to c. 1500 AD). The phonology and especially the nominal morphology of Lithuanian is almost certainly the most conservative of any living Indo-European language, although its verbal morphology is less conservative and may be exceeded by the conservatism of Modern Greek verbs, which maintain a number of archaic features lacking in Lithuanian, such as the synthetic aorist and mediopassive forms.
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Wikipedia