Languages
Native
Lithuanian
85%
Language Samples
Labas, kaip laikotės?
Hello, how are you?
Aš laikausi labai gerai, ačiū.
I am very well, thanks.
Vienas, du, trys, keturi, penki, šeši, septyni, aštuoni, devyni, dešimt.
One, two, three, four, five, six, seven, eight, nine, ten.
Linguistic History
Lithuanian is the most archaic living Indo-European language, preserving grammatical features and vocabulary forms that disappeared from most other IE branches thousands of years ago. It belongs to the Baltic branch alongside Latvian and the extinct Old Prussian. The earliest written Lithuanian texts date to the 16th century, though the language was codified and standardised in the 19th and early 20th centuries. Lithuanian survived centuries of Polish and later Russian cultural dominance, emerging as a cornerstone of national identity during the Lithuanian National Revival. Today it is spoken by around three million people in Lithuania and diaspora communities worldwide.
Similar Languages
Latvian
80%
Media
Did You Know
01
Lithuanian retains the dual grammatical number, a feature found in Sanskrit but lost in almost all other modern Indo-European languages.
02
The Lithuanian word for 'fire' (ugnis) is nearly identical to the Sanskrit word 'agni', illustrating how archaic the language is.
03
Lithuanian was declared the state language in the 1922 constitution and played a vital role in resisting Soviet assimilation during the 20th century.