Pontic Steppe
89-702: The Kaunas Synagogue , also known as the Choral Ohel Yaakov Synagogue ( Lithuanian : Kauno choralinė sinagoga ), is an Orthodox Jewish congregation and synagogue , located at 13 East Ožeškienės Street,, in Centras eldership , Kaunas , in the Kaunas County of Lithuania . Designed by Justyn Golinewicz and Edmund von Mikwitz in an eclectic mix of the Baroque Revival , Renaissance Revival , and Moorish Revival styles,
178-546: A French Jesuit who spent most of his life in India, had specifically demonstrated the analogy between Sanskrit and European languages. According to current academic consensus, Jones's famous work of 1786 was less accurate than his predecessors', as he erroneously included Egyptian , Japanese and Chinese in the Indo-European languages, while omitting Hindi . In 1818, Danish linguist Rasmus Christian Rask elaborated
267-493: A Lithuanian peasant. — Antoine Meillet Among Indo-European languages, Lithuanian is conservative in its grammar and phonology, retaining archaic features otherwise found only in ancient languages such as Sanskrit (particularly its early form, Vedic Sanskrit ) or Ancient Greek . Thus, it is an important source for the reconstruction of the Proto-Indo-European language despite its late attestation (with
356-677: A PIE homeland, the Kurgan and Anatolian hypotheses are the ones most widely accepted, and also the ones most debated against each other. Following the publication of several studies on ancient DNA in 2015, Colin Renfrew, the original author and proponent of the Anatolian hypothesis, has accepted the reality of migrations of populations speaking one or several Indo-European languages from the Pontic steppe towards Northwestern Europe. The table lists
445-652: A Proto-Balto-Slavic stage, from which the Baltic languages retain exclusive and non-exclusive lexical, morphological, phonological and accentual isoglosses in common with the Slavic languages , which represent their closest living Indo-European relatives. Moreover, with Lithuanian being so archaic in phonology, Slavic words can often be deduced from Lithuanian by regular sound laws ; for example, Lith. vilkas and Polish wilk ← PBSl. *wilkás (cf. PSl. *vьlkъ ) ← PIE *wĺ̥kʷos , all meaning " wolf ". Initially, Lithuanian
534-549: A conventional mark of reconstructed words, such as * wódr̥ , * ḱwn̥tós , or * tréyes ; these forms are the reconstructed ancestors of the modern English words water , hound , and three , respectively. No direct evidence of PIE exists; scholars have reconstructed PIE from its present-day descendants using the comparative method . For example, compare the pairs of words in Italian and English: piede and foot , padre and father , pesce and fish . Since there
623-453: A detailed, though conservative, overview of the lexical knowledge accumulated by 1959. Jerzy Kuryłowicz's 1956 Apophonie gave a better understanding of Indo-European ablaut . From the 1960s, knowledge of Anatolian became robust enough to establish its relationship to PIE. Scholars have proposed multiple hypotheses about when, where, and by whom PIE was spoken. The Kurgan hypothesis , first put forward in 1956 by Marija Gimbutas , has become
712-627: A language. From the 1870s, the Neogrammarians proposed that sound laws have no exceptions, as illustrated by Verner's law , published in 1876, which resolved apparent exceptions to Grimm's law by exploring the role of accent (stress) in language change. August Schleicher 's A Compendium of the Comparative Grammar of the Indo-European, Sanskrit, Greek and Latin Languages (1874–77) represented an early attempt to reconstruct
801-516: A result of a decrease in the usage of spoken Lithuanian in the eastern part of Lithuania proper, in the 19th century, it was suggested to create a standardized Lithuanian based on the Samogitian dialect. Nevertheless, it was not accomplished because everyone offered their Samogitian subdialects and the Eastern and Western Aukštaitians offered their Aukštaitian subdialects. In the second half of
890-500: A second language. Lithuanian is closely related to neighbouring Latvian , though the two languages are not mutually intelligible. It is written in a Latin script . In some respects, some linguists consider it to be the most conservative of the existing Indo-European languages , retaining features of the Proto-Indo-European language that had disappeared through development from other descendant languages . Anyone wishing to hear how Indo-Europeans spoke should come and listen to
979-627: A single language. At a minimum, transitional dialects existed until the 14th or 15th century and perhaps as late as the 17th century. The German Livonian Brothers of the Sword occupied the western part of the Daugava basin, which resulted in colonization of the territory of modern Latvia (at the time it was called Terra Mariana ) by Germans and had a significant influence on the language's independent development due to Germanisation (see also: Baltic Germans and Baltic German nobility ). There
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#17327946044771068-651: A single sound, the velar fricative [ x ] , while dz and dž are pronounced like straightforward combinations of their component letters (sounds): Dz dz [ dz ] (dzė), Dž dž [ dʒ ] (džė), Ch ch [ x ] (cha). The distinctive Lithuanian letter Ė was used for the first time in the Daniel Klein 's Grammatica Litvanica and firmly established itself in Lithuanian since then. However, linguist August Schleicher used Ë (with two points above it) instead of Ė for expressing
1157-613: A thousand years. According to the prevailing Kurgan hypothesis , the original homeland of the Proto-Indo-Europeans may have been in the Pontic–Caspian steppe of eastern Europe. The linguistic reconstruction of PIE has provided insight into the pastoral culture and patriarchal religion of its speakers. As speakers of Proto-Indo-European became isolated from each other through the Indo-European migrations ,
1246-422: Is a consistent correspondence of the initial consonants ( p and f ) that emerges far too frequently to be coincidental, one can infer that these languages stem from a common parent language . Detailed analysis suggests a system of sound laws to describe the phonetic and phonological changes from the hypothetical ancestral words to the modern ones. These laws have become so detailed and reliable as to support
1335-878: Is a translation dating from about 1503–1525 of the Lord's Prayer , the Hail Mary , and the Nicene Creed written in the Southern Aukštaitian dialect. On 8 January 1547 the first Lithuanian book was printed – the Catechism of Martynas Mažvydas . At the royal courts in Vilnius of Sigismund II Augustus , the last Grand Duke of Lithuania prior to the Union of Lublin , both Polish and Lithuanian were spoken equally widely. In 1552 Sigismund II Augustus ordered that orders of
1424-637: Is an East Baltic language belonging to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family . It is the language of Lithuanians and the official language of Lithuania as well as one of the official languages of the European Union . There are approximately 2.8 million native Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania and about 1 million speakers elsewhere. Around half a million inhabitants of Lithuania of non-Lithuanian background speak Lithuanian daily as
1513-442: Is augmented by the fact that Proto-Balto-Slavic is easily reconstructible with important proofs in historic prosody. The alleged (or certain, as certain as historical linguistics can be) similarities due to contact are seen in such phenomena as the existence of definite adjectives formed by the addition of an inflected pronoun (descended from the same Proto-Indo-European pronoun), which exist in both Baltic and Slavic yet nowhere else in
1602-572: Is believed to have had an elaborate system of morphology that included inflectional suffixes (analogous to English child, child's, children, children's ) as well as ablaut (vowel alterations, as preserved in English sing, sang, sung, song ) and accent . PIE nominals and pronouns had a complex system of declension , and verbs similarly had a complex system of conjugation . The PIE phonology , particles , numerals , and copula are also well-reconstructed. Asterisks are used by linguists as
1691-549: Is divided into West, North and South; Aukštaitian into West (Suvalkiečiai), South ( Dzūkian ) and East. Lithuanian uses the Latin script supplemented with diacritics . It has 32 letters . In the collation order, y follows immediately after į (called i nosinė ), because both y and į represent the same long vowel [ iː ] : In addition, the following digraphs are used, but are treated as sequences of two letters for collation purposes. The digraph ch represents
1780-637: Is known that Jogaila , being ethnic Lithuanian by the male-line , himself knew and spoke Lithuanian with Vytautas the Great , his cousin from the Gediminids dynasty. During the Christianization of Samogitia none of the clergy, who arrived to Samogitia with Jogaila, were able to communicate with the natives, therefore Jogaila himself taught the Samogitians about Catholicism ; thus he
1869-443: Is largely phonemic, i.e., one letter usually corresponds to a single phoneme (sound). There are a few exceptions: for example, the letter i represents either the vowel [ ɪ ] , as in English sit , or is silent and merely indicates that the preceding consonant is palatalized . The latter is largely the case when i occurs after a consonant and is followed by a back or a central vowel , except in some borrowed words (e.g.,
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#17327946044771958-424: Is the reconstructed common ancestor of the Indo-European language family . No direct record of Proto-Indo-European exists; its proposed features have been derived by linguistic reconstruction from documented Indo-European languages. Far more work has gone into reconstructing PIE than any other proto-language , and it is the best understood of all proto-languages of its age. The majority of linguistic work during
2047-708: The Compendium Grammaticae Lithvanicae singled out that the Lithuanians of the Vilnius Region ( Latin : in tractu Vilnensi ) tend to speak harshly, almost like Austrians , Bavarians and others speak German in Germany . Due to the historical circumstances of Lithuania , Lithuanian-speaking territory was divided into Lithuania proper and Lithuania Minor , therefore, in the 16th–17th centuries, three regional variants of
2136-764: The Galindai ( Γαλίνδαι ) and Sudinoi ( Σουδινοί ), in the 2nd century AD. Lithuanian originated from the Eastern Baltic subgroup and remained nearly unchanged until c. 1 AD, however in c. 500 AD the language of the northern part of Eastern Balts was influenced by the Finnic languages , which fueled the development of changes from the language of the Southern Balts (see: Latgalian , which developed into Latvian , and extinct Curonian , Semigallian , and Selonian ). The language of Southern Balts
2225-582: The Grand Duchy of Lithuania (1/3 residents in Lithuania proper and up to 1/2 residents in Samogitia ) and 53% of residents in Lithuania Minor (more than 90% of the deceased were Prussian Lithuanians ). Since the 19th century to 1925 the amount of Lithuanian speakers in Lithuania Minor (excluding Klaipėda Region ) decreased from 139,000 to 8,000 due to Germanisation and colonization . As
2314-558: The Indian subcontinent became aware of similarities between Indo-Iranian languages and European languages, and as early as 1653, Marcus Zuerius van Boxhorn had published a proposal for a proto-language ("Scythian") for the following language families: Germanic , Romance , Greek , Baltic , Slavic , Celtic , and Iranian . In a memoir sent to the Académie des Inscriptions et Belles-Lettres in 1767, Gaston-Laurent Coeurdoux ,
2403-811: The January Uprising , Mikhail Muravyov , the Russian Governor General of Lithuania , banned the language in education and publishing and barred use of the Latin alphabet altogether, although books continued to be printed in Lithuanian across the border in East Prussia and in the United States . Brought into the country by book smugglers (Lithuanian: knygnešiai ) despite the threat of long prison sentences, they helped fuel growing nationalist sentiment that finally led to
2492-587: The Lithuanian nobility to participate in the social-political life of the state. In 1599, Mikalojus Daukša published his Postil and in its prefaces he expressed that the Lithuanian language situation had improved and thanked bishop Merkelis Giedraitis for his works. In 1776–1790 about 1,000 copies of the first Catholic primer in Lithuanian – Mokslas skaitymo rašto lietuviško – were issued annually, and it continued to be published until 1864. Over 15,000 copies appeared in total. In 1864, following
2581-588: The Magistrate of Vilnius be announced in Lithuanian, Polish, and Ruthenian. The same requirement was valid for the Magistrate of Kaunas . In the 16th century, following the decline of Ruthenian usage in favor of Polish in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, the Lithuanian language strengthened its positions in Lithuania due to reforms in religious matters and judicial reforms which allowed lower levels of
2670-591: The Neogrammarian hypothesis : the Indo-European sound laws apply without exception. William Jones , an Anglo-Welsh philologist and puisne judge in Bengal , caused an academic sensation when in 1786 he postulated the common ancestry of Sanskrit , Greek , Latin , Gothic , the Celtic languages , and Old Persian , but he was not the first to state such a hypothesis. In the 16th century, European visitors to
2759-633: The Russian and Ukrainian territory. Hydronyms and archaeology analysis show that the Slavs started migrating to the Baltic areas east and north-east directions in the 6–7th centuries, before then, the Baltic and Slavic boundary was south of the Pripyat River . In the 1960s, Vladimir Toporov and Vyacheslav Ivanov made the following conclusions about the relationship between the Baltic and Slavic languages: These scholars' theses do not contradict
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2848-768: The Supreme Soviet of the Lithuanian SSR restored Lithuanian as the official language of Lithuania, under from the popular pro-independence movement Sąjūdis . On 11 March 1990, the Act of the Re-Establishment of the State of Lithuania was passed. Lithuanian was recognized as sole official language of Lithuania in the Provisional Basic Law (Lithuanian: Laikinasis Pagrindinis Įstatymas ) and
2937-413: The United States , Uruguay , and Spain . 2,955,200 people in Lithuania (including 3,460 Tatars ), or about 86% of the 2015 population, are native Lithuanian speakers; most Lithuanian inhabitants of other nationalities also speak Lithuanian to some extent. The total worldwide Lithuanian-speaking population is about 3,200,000. Lithuanian is the state language of Lithuania and an official language of
3026-653: The comparative method . Lithuanian is spoken mainly in Lithuania . It is also spoken by ethnic Lithuanians living in today's Belarus , Latvia , Poland , and the Kaliningrad Oblast of Russia, as well as by sizable emigrant communities in Argentina , Australia , Brazil , Canada , Denmark , Estonia , France , Germany , Iceland , Ireland , Norway , Russia , Sweden , the United Kingdom ,
3115-692: The industrialization in the Soviet Union ). Russian consequently came into use in state institutions: the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Lithuania (there were 80% Russians among the 22,000 Communist Party members in the Lithuanian SSR in 1948), radio and television (61–74% of broadcasts were in Russian in 1970). Lithuanians passively resisted Russification and continued to use their own language. On 18 November 1988,
3204-467: The 13th–16th centuries under the influence of Curonian . Lithuanian dialects are closely connected with ethnographical regions of Lithuania . Even nowadays Aukštaitians and Samogitians can have considerable difficulties understanding each other if they speak with their dialects and not standard Lithuanian, which is mandatory to learn in the Lithuanian education system. Dialects are divided into subdialects. Both dialects have three subdialects. Samogitian
3293-581: The 18th century, was successful due to many publications and research. In contrast, the development of Lithuanian in Lithuania proper was obstructed due to the Polonization of the Lithuanian nobility , especially in the 18th century, and it was being influenced by the Samogitian dialect. The Lithuanian-speaking population was also dramatically decreased by the Great Northern War plague outbreak in 1700–1721 which killed 49% of residents in
3382-478: The 19th century was devoted to the reconstruction of PIE and its daughter languages , and many of the modern techniques of linguistic reconstruction (such as the comparative method ) were developed as a result. PIE is hypothesized to have been spoken as a single language from approximately 4500 BCE to 2500 BCE during the Late Neolithic to Early Bronze Age , though estimates vary by more than
3471-512: The 19th century, when the Lithuanian National Revival intensified, and the preparations to publish a Lithuanian periodical press were taking place, the mostly south-western Aukštaitian revival writers did not use the 19th-century Lithuanian of Lithuania Minor as it was largely Germanized . Instead, they used a more pure Lithuanian language which has been described by August Schleicher and Friedrich Kurschat and this way
3560-464: The Baltic and Slavic languages closeness and from a historical perspective, specify the Baltic-Slavic languages' evolution. So, there are at least six points of view on the relationships between the Baltic and Slavic. However, as for the hypotheses related to the "Balto-Slavic problem", it is noted that they are more focused on personal theoretical constructions and deviate to some extent from
3649-403: The Baltic languages form their own distinct branch of the family of Indo-European languages , and Endzelīns thought that the similarity between Baltic and Slavic was explicable through language contact. There is also an opinion that suggests the union of Baltic and Slavic languages into a distinct sub-family of Balto-Slavic languages amongst the Indo-European family of languages. Such an opinion
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3738-523: The Constitution of 1992, written during the Lithuanian constitutional referendum . Lithuanian is one of two living Baltic languages , along with Latvian , and they constitute the eastern branch of Baltic languages family. An earlier Baltic language, Old Prussian , was extinct by the 18th century; the other Western Baltic languages, Curonian and Sudovian , became extinct earlier. Some theories, such as that of Jānis Endzelīns , considered that
3827-640: The European Union . In the Compendium Grammaticae Lithvanicae , published in 1673, three dialects of Lithuanian are distinguished: Samogitian dialect ( Latin : Samogitiae ) of Samogitia , Royal Lithuania ( Latin : Lithvaniae Regalis ) and Ducal Lithuania ( Latin : Lithvaniae Ducalis ). Ducal Lithuanian is described as pure ( Latin : Pura ), half-Samogitian ( Latin : SemiSamogitizans ) and having elements of Curonian ( Latin : Curonizans ). Authors of
3916-637: The European languages of the participants in the Council of Constance in 1414–1418. From the middle of the 15th century, the legend spread about the Roman origin of the Lithuanian nobility (from the Palemon lineage ), and the closeness of the Lithuanian language and Latin, thus this let some intellectuals in the mid-16th century to advocate for replacement of Ruthenian with Latin, as they considered Latin as
4005-673: The Indo-European family (languages such as Albanian and the Germanic languages developed definite adjectives independently), and that is not reconstructible for Proto-Balto-Slavic, meaning that they most probably developed through language contact. The Baltic hydronyms area stretches from the Vistula River in the west to the east of Moscow and from the Baltic Sea in the north to the south of Kyiv . Vladimir Toporov and Oleg Trubachyov (1961, 1962) studied Baltic hydronyms in
4094-569: The North Adriatic region are sometimes classified as Italic. Albanian and Greek are the only surviving Indo-European descendants of a Paleo-Balkan language area, named for their occurrence in or in the vicinity of the Balkan peninsula . Most of the other languages of this area—including Illyrian , Thracian , and Dacian —do not appear to be members of any other subfamilies of PIE, but are so poorly attested that proper classification of them
4183-436: The Polish Ł for the first sound and regular L (without a following i) for the second: łupa , lutas . During the Lithuanian National Revival in the 19th century the Polish Ł was abolished, while digraphs sz , cz (that are also common in the Polish orthography ) were replaced with š and č from the Czech orthography because formally they were shorter. Nevertheless, another argument to abolish sz and cz
4272-406: The Polish courtiers. Casimir IV Jagiellon's son Saint Casimir , who was subsequently announced as patron saint of Lithuania, was a polyglot and among other languages knew Lithuanian. Grand Duke Alexander Jagiellon also could understand and speak Lithuanian as multiple Lithuanian priests served in his royal chapel and he also maintained a Lithuanian court. In 1501, Erazm Ciołek , a priest of
4361-459: The Polish dialect in the Vilnius Region and in the northeastern areas in general are very interesting variant of the Polish language as this dialect developed in a foreign territory which was mostly inhabited by the Lithuanians who were Belarusized (mostly) or Polonized, and to prove this Otrębski provided examples of Lithuanianisms in the Tutejszy language . In 2015, Polish linguist Mirosław Jankowiak [ pl ] attested that many of
4450-411: The Pontic–Caspian steppe and into eastern Europe. Other theories include the Anatolian hypothesis , which posits that PIE spread out from Anatolia with agriculture beginning c. 7500–6000 BCE, the Armenian hypothesis , the Paleolithic continuity paradigm , and the indigenous Aryans theory. The last two of these theories are not regarded as credible within academia. Out of all the theories for
4539-455: The Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Kartvelian languages due to early language contact , as well as some morphological similarities—notably the Indo-European ablaut , which is remarkably similar to the root ablaut system reconstructible for Proto-Kartvelian. The Lusitanian language was a marginally attested language spoken in areas near the border between present-day Portugal and Spain . The Venetic and Liburnian languages known from
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#17327946044774628-644: The Vilnius Cathedral, explained to the Pope that the Lithuanians preserve their language and ensure respect to it ( Linguam propriam observant ), but they also use the Ruthenian language for simplicity reasons because it is spoken by almost half of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania. A note written by Sigismund von Herberstein in the first half of the 16th century states that, in an ocean of Ruthenian in this part of Europe, there were two non-Ruthenian regions: Lithuania and Samogitia where its inhabitants spoke their own language, but many Ruthenians were also living among them. The earliest surviving written Lithuanian text
4717-447: The Vilnius Region's inhabitants who declare Polish nationality speak a Belarusian dialect which they call mowa prosta (' simple speech '). Currently, Lithuanian is divided into two dialects: Aukštaitian (Highland Lithuanian), and Samogitian (Lowland Lithuanian). There are significant differences between standard Lithuanian and Samogitian and these are often described as separate languages. The modern Samogitian dialect formed in
4806-464: The Vilnius Region, especially when Vilnius Voivode Ludwik Bociański issued a secret memorandum of 11 February 1936 which stated the measures for suppressing the Lithuanians in the region. Some Lithuanian historians, like Antanas Tyla [ lt ] and Ereminas Gintautas, consider these Polish policies as amounting to an " ethnocide of Lithuanians". Between 1862 and 1944, the Lithuanian schools were completely banned in Lithuania Minor and
4895-435: The acquirement of a foreign speech." Lithuanian was studied by several linguists such as Franz Bopp , August Schleicher , Adalbert Bezzenberger , Louis Hjelmslev , Ferdinand de Saussure , Winfred P. Lehmann and Vladimir Toporov , Jan Safarewicz, and others. By studying place names of Lithuanian origin, linguist Jan Safarewicz [ pl ] concluded that the eastern boundaries of Lithuanian used to be in
4984-518: The anniversary of Hitler 's birthday, a sign saying "Jews out" and "Hitler was right" ("Juden raus" "Hitleris buvo teisus") were hung in front of the synagogue. [REDACTED] Media related to Ohel Yaakov Synagogue in Kaunas at Wikimedia Commons This article about a synagogue or other Jewish place of worship in Lithuania is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . Lithuanian language Lithuanian ( endonym : lietuvių kalba , pronounced [lʲiəˈtʊvʲuː kɐɫˈbɐ] )
5073-401: The building was completed in 1872 and is one of two operating choral synagogues in Lithuania. In 1902, before the Holocaust in Lithuania , it was one of over 25 synagogues and Jewish prayer houses in the city. The radically designed synagogue claims to have one of the most beautiful arks in the entire Jewish world. The plot for the new synagogue was bestowed to the Kovno Jewish community by
5162-607: The common language emerged. Lithuanians in Lithuania Minor spoke Western Aukštaitian dialect with specifics of Įsrutis and Ragainė environs (e.g. works of Martynas Mažvydas , Jonas Bretkūnas , Jonas Rėza , and Daniel Klein 's Grammatica Litvanica ). The other two regional variants of the common language were formed in Lithuania proper: middle, which was based on the specifics of the Duchy of Samogitia (e.g. works of Mikalojus Daukša , Merkelis Petkevičius , Steponas Jaugelis‑Telega , Samuelis Boguslavas Chylinskis , and Mikołaj Rej 's Lithuanian postil ), and eastern, based on
5251-476: The common origin of Sanskrit, Persian, Greek, Latin, and German. In 1833, he began publishing the Comparative Grammar of Sanskrit, Zend , Greek, Latin, Lithuanian, Old Slavic, Gothic, and German . In 1822, Jacob Grimm formulated what became known as Grimm's law as a general rule in his Deutsche Grammatik . Grimm showed correlations between the Germanic and other Indo-European languages and demonstrated that sound change systematically transforms all words of
5340-451: The earliest texts dating only to c. 1500 AD , whereas Ancient Greek was first written down about three thousand years earlier in c. 1450 BC). According to hydronyms of Baltic origin, the Baltic languages were spoken in a large area east of the Baltic Sea , and in c. 1000 BC it had two linguistic units: western and eastern. The Greek geographer Ptolemy had already written of two Baltic tribe/nations by name,
5429-480: The eastern Prussian Lithuanians ' dialect spoken in Lithuania Minor . These dialects had preserved archaic phonetics mostly intact due to the influence of the neighbouring Old Prussian , while other dialects had experienced different phonetic shifts . Lithuanian became the official language of the country following the restoration of Lithuania's statehood in 1918. The 1922 Constitution of Lithuania (the first permanent Lithuanian constitution ) recognized it as
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#17327946044775518-527: The effects of hypothetical sounds which no longer exist in all languages documented prior to the excavation of cuneiform tablets in Anatolian. This theory was first proposed by Ferdinand de Saussure in 1879 on the basis of internal reconstruction only, and progressively won general acceptance after Jerzy Kuryłowicz 's discovery of consonantal reflexes of these reconstructed sounds in Hittite. Julius Pokorny 's Indogermanisches etymologisches Wörterbuch ('Indo-European Etymological Dictionary', 1959) gave
5607-432: The first consonant in lūpa [ˈ ɫ ûːpɐ] , "lip", is a velarized dental lateral approximant ; on the other hand, the first consonant in liūtas [ˈ lʲ uːt̪ɐs̪] , "lion", is a palatalized alveolar lateral approximant ; both consonants are followed by the same vowel, the long [ uː ] , and no [ ɪ ] can be pronounced in liūtas ). Due to Polish influence , the Lithuanian alphabet included sz , cz and
5696-426: The formation of standard Lithuanian. The conventions of written Lithuanian had been evolving during the 19th century, but Jablonskis, in the introduction to his Lietuviškos kalbos gramatika , was the first to formulate and expound the essential principles that were so indispensable to its later development. His proposal for Standard Lithuanian was based on his native Western Aukštaitian dialect with some features of
5785-419: The highest population literacy rates: Vilna Governorate (in 1897 ~23.6–50% Lithuanian of whom 37% were literate), Kovno Governorate (in 1897 66% Lithuanian of whom 55.3% were literate), Suwałki Governorate (in 1897 in counties of the governorate where Lithuanian population was dominant, 76,6% of males and 50,2% of females were literate). Jonas Jablonskis (1860–1930) made significant contributions to
5874-413: The independent Republic of Lithuania to the Lithuanian Soviet Socialist Republic within the Soviet Union . Soviet authorities introduced Lithuanian– Russian bilingualism, and Russian, as the de facto official language of the USSR, took precedence and the use of Lithuanian was reduced in a process of Russification. Many Russian-speaking workers and teachers migrated to the Lithuanian SSR (fueled by
5963-622: The language was almost completely eliminated there. The Baltic-origin place names retained their basis for centuries in Prussia but were Germanized (e.g. Tilžė – Tilsit , Labguva – Labiau , Vėluva – Wehliau , etc.); however, after the annexation of the Königsberg region into the Russian SFSR , they were changed completely, regardless of previous tradition (e.g. Tilsit – Sovetsk , Labiau – Polesk , Wehliau – Znamensk , etc.). The Soviet occupation of Lithuania in 1940 , German occupation in 1941 , and eventually Soviet re-occupation in 1944 , reduced
6052-630: The lifting of the ban in 1904. According to the Russian Empire Census of 1897 (at the height of the Lithuanian press ban), 53.5% of Lithuanians (10 years and older) were literate, while the average of the Russian Empire was only 24–27.7% (in the European part of Russia the average was 30%, in Poland – 40.7%). In the Russian Empire Lithuanian children were mostly educated by their parents or in secret schools by "daractors" in native Lithuanian language, while only 6.9% attended Russian state schools due to resistance to Russification . Russian governorates with significant Lithuanian populations had one of
6141-654: The main Indo-European language families, comprising the languages descended from Proto-Indo-European. Slavic: Russian , Ukrainian , Belarusian , Polish , Czech , Slovak , Sorbian , Serbo-Croatian , Bulgarian , Slovenian , Macedonian , Kashubian , Rusyn Iranic: Persian , Pashto , Balochi , Kurdish , Zaza , Ossetian , Luri , Talyshi , Tati , Gilaki , Mazandarani , Semnani , Yaghnobi ; Nuristani Commonly proposed subgroups of Indo-European languages include Italo-Celtic , Graeco-Aryan , Graeco-Armenian , Graeco-Phrygian , Daco-Thracian , and Thraco-Illyrian . There are numerous lexical similarities between
6230-446: The merchant Lewin Boruch Minkowski, the father of Oskar Minkowski and Hermann Minkowski ; until 1873 he also subsidized the major part of its construction. A memorial to the estimated 50,000 Lithuanian Jewish children killed during the Holocaust can be found at the rear of the building, complete with 37 stone tablets showing in which towns and cities they lost their lives and just how many of them died in each one. On 20 April 2011,
6319-423: The most popular. It proposes that the original speakers of PIE were the Yamnaya culture associated with the kurgans (burial mounds) on the Pontic–Caspian steppe north of the Black Sea. According to the theory, they were nomadic pastoralists who domesticated the horse , which allowed them to migrate across Europe and Asia in wagons and chariots. By the early 3rd millennium BCE, they had expanded throughout
6408-500: The native language of Lithuanians. Initially, Latin and Church Slavonic were the main written ( chancellery ) languages of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, but in the late 17th century – 18th century Church Slavonic was replaced with Polish. Nevertheless, Lithuanian was a spoken language of the medieval Lithuanian rulers from the Gediminids dynasty and its cadet branches: Kęstutaičiai and Jagiellonian dynasties . It
6497-482: The proto-Indo-European language. By the early 1900s, Indo-Europeanists had developed well-defined descriptions of PIE which scholars still accept today. Later, the discovery of the Anatolian and Tocharian languages added to the corpus of descendant languages. A subtle new principle won wide acceptance: the laryngeal theory , which explained irregularities in the reconstruction of Proto-Indo-European phonology as
6586-428: The regional dialects of Proto-Indo-European spoken by the various groups diverged, as each dialect underwent shifts in pronunciation (the Indo-European sound laws ), morphology, and vocabulary. Over many centuries, these dialects transformed into the known ancient Indo-European languages. From there, further linguistic divergence led to the evolution of their current descendants, the modern Indo-European languages. PIE
6675-547: The same. In the Grammatica Litvanica Klein also established the letter W for marking the sound [v], the use of which was later abolished in Lithuanian (it was replaced with V , notably by authors of the Varpas newspaper). The usage of V instead of W especially increased since the early 20th century, likely considerably influenced by Lithuanian press and schools. The Lithuanian writing system
6764-733: The set of correspondences in his prize essay Undersøgelse om det gamle Nordiske eller Islandske Sprogs Oprindelse ('Investigation of the Origin of the Old Norse or Icelandic Language'), where he argued that Old Norse was related to the Germanic languages, and had even suggested a relation to the Baltic, Slavic, Greek, Latin and Romance languages. In 1816, Franz Bopp published On the System of Conjugation in Sanskrit , in which he investigated
6853-801: The shape of zigzags through Grodno , Shchuchyn , Lida , Valozhyn , Svir , and Braslaw . Such eastern boundaries partly coincide with the spread of Catholic and Orthodox faith, and should have existed at the time of the Christianization of Lithuania in 1387 and later. Safarewicz's eastern boundaries were moved even further to the south and east by other scholars (e.g. Mikalay Biryla [ be ] , Petras Gaučas [ lt ] , Jerzy Ochmański [ pl ] , Aleksandras Vanagas , Zigmas Zinkevičius , and others). Proto-Balto-Slavic branched off directly from Proto-Indo-European, then sub-branched into Proto-Baltic and Proto-Slavic . Proto-Baltic branched off into Proto-West Baltic and Proto-East Baltic. The Baltic languages passed through
6942-499: The sole official language of the state and mandated its use throughout the state. The improvement of education system during the interwar period resulted in 92% of literacy rate of the population in Lithuania in 1939 (those still illiterate were mostly elderly). Following the Żeligowski's Mutiny in 1920, Vilnius Region was detached from Lithuania and was eventually annexed by Poland in 1922. This resulted in repressions of Lithuanians and mass-closure of Lithuanian language schools in
7031-695: The specifics of Eastern Aukštaitians, living in Vilnius and its region (e.g. works of Konstantinas Sirvydas , Jonas Jaknavičius , and Robert Bellarmine 's catechism ). In Vilnius University , there are preserved texts written in the Lithuanian language of the Vilnius area, a dialect of Eastern Aukštaitian, which was spoken in a territory located south-eastwards from Vilnius: the sources are preserved in works of graduates from Stanislovas Rapolionis -based Lithuanian language schools, graduate Martynas Mažvydas and Rapalionis relative Abraomas Kulvietis . The development of Lithuanian in Lithuania Minor, especially in
7120-411: The writings has survived. The first recorded Lithuanian word, reported to have been said on 24 December 1207 from the chronicle of Henry of Latvia , was Ba , an interjection of a Lithuanian raider after he found no loot to pillage in a Livonian church. Although no writings in Lithuanian have survived from the 15th century or earlier, Lithuanian ( Latin : Lingwa Lietowia ) was mentioned as one of
7209-462: The written language of Lithuania Minor was transferred to resurgent Lithuania. The most famous standardizer of the Lithuanian, Jonas Jablonskis , established the south-western Aukštaitian dialect, including the Eastern dialect of Lithuania Minor, as the basis of standardized Lithuanian in the 20th century, which led to him being nicknamed the father of standardized Lithuanian. According to Polish professor Jan Otrębski 's article published in 1931,
7298-431: Was a spoken language in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and Duchy of Prussia , while the beginning of Lithuanian writing is possibly associated with the introduction of Christianity in Lithuania when Mindaugas was baptized and crowned King of Lithuania in 1250–1251. It is believed that prayers were translated into the local dialect of Lithuanian by Franciscan monks during the baptism of Mindaugas, however none of
7387-480: Was able to communicate in the Samogitian dialect of Lithuanian. Soon afterwards Vytautas the Great wrote in his 11 March 1420 letter to Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor , that Lithuanian and Samogitian are the same language. The use of Lithuanian continued at the Lithuanian royal court after the deaths of Vytautas the Great (1430) and Jogaila (1434). For example, since the young Grand Duke Casimir IV Jagiellon
7476-500: Was caused by independent parallel development, and the Proto-Balto-Slavic language did not exist. An attempt to reconcile the opposing stances was made by Jan Michał Rozwadowski . He proposed that the two language groups were indeed a unity after the division of Indo-European, but also suggested that after the two had divided into separate entities (Baltic and Slavic), they had posterior contact. The genetic kinship view
7565-472: Was fascination with the Lithuanian people and their language among the late 19th-century researchers, and the philologist Isaac Taylor wrote the following in his The Origin of the Aryans (1892): "Thus it would seem that the Lithuanians have the best claim to represent the primitive Aryan race , as their language exhibits fewer of those phonetic changes, and of those grammatical losses which are consequent on
7654-468: Was first represented by August Schleicher . Some supporters of the Baltic and Slavic languages unity even claim that Proto-Baltic branch did not exist, suggesting that Proto-Balto-Slavic split into three language groups: East Baltic , West Baltic and Proto-Slavic . Antoine Meillet and Jan Baudouin de Courtenay , on the contrary, believed that the similarity between the Slavic and Baltic languages
7743-463: Was less influenced by this process and retained many of its older features, which form Lithuanian. According to glottochronological research, the Eastern Baltic languages split from the Western Baltic ones between c. 400 BC and c. 600 BC. The differentiation between Lithuanian and Latvian started after c. 800 AD; for a long period, they could be considered dialects of
7832-818: Was to distinguish Lithuanian from Polish . The new letters š and č were cautiously used in publications intended for more educated readers (e.g. Varpas , Tėvynės sargas , Ūkininkas ), however sz and cz continued to be in use in publications intended for less educated readers as they caused tension in society and prevailed only after 1906. Proto-Indo-European language Caucasus East Asia Eastern Europe Northern Europe Pontic Steppe Northern/Eastern Steppe Europe South Asia Steppe Europe Caucasus India Indo-Aryans Iranians East Asia Europe East Asia Europe Indo-Aryan Iranian Indo-Aryan Iranian Others European Proto-Indo-European ( PIE )
7921-677: Was underage, the supreme control over the Grand Duchy of Lithuania was in the hands of the Lithuanian Council of Lords , presided by Jonas Goštautas , while Casimir IV Jagiellon was taught Lithuanian and customs of Lithuania by appointed court officials. During the Polish szlachta 's envoys visit to Casimir in 1446, they noticed that in Casimir's royal court the Lithuanian-speaking courtiers were mandatory, alongside
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