| About the Lithuanian language |
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Stran 1 od 4 Introduction Andragoški zavod Maribor - Ljudska univerza is the author and the coordinator of the Language Festival project. Together with the partners from the Netherlands, Germany, Check Republic, Slovakia and Hungary we applied for financing with EU programme Socrates - Lingua 1. The project received positive feedback and was accepted by European Commission to be implemented between October 2003 and October 2005. In the project we prepared and organised the Language Festival in Maribor from 29th September to 2nd October 2004, held book exhibition of minor European languages, produced a web site and books on chosen languages. The Festival hosted many experts who introduced 24 European languages to general public in 4 days not only at AZM-LU but also at many schools and other institutions. In April 2005 we held book exhibition where we presented books and other materials on 17 minor European languages at Maribor Faculty of Education. We finalised the activities by producing the web site you're using at the moments. Here you can find some information regarding language connected culture, basic characteristics of relevant languages and language survival kits. Website language is Slovenian. Also German and English versions are available. In time we hope to achieve English, German and Esperanto descriptions for all languages. This website is still very much alive and constantly expanding. We plan to add new languages as well. Promotionally the project enjoyed great success. In cooperation with Mediamix we created an innovative way of attracting the public and received many awards at advertising festivals. Socrates Lingua declared the Language Festival project one of 50 best examples of promoting languages. Info regarding promotion of the Festival is available on: http://www.mediamix.si/slo/News/2005junij02.html Melita Cimerman and Zlatko Tišljar. Author: Daiva Aliukaite Historical excursus Along with Latvian, Lithuanian is one of the two surviving Baltic languages, comprising a separate branch of the Indo-European language family. (This Baltic branch is made up of present-day Lithuanian, Latvian and the extinct languages spoken by the Prussians, Yotvingians, Curonians, Selonians, and Semigallians). It has been established that Lithuanian and Latvian became separate languages in the 5th or 7th century A.D. The German linguist Ferdinand.Neselman was the first to use the name Balts. He derived the word from the name of the Baltic in 1845. This name was widely accepted and it replaced the term Aistians. That name in the form Aestiorum gentes was initially used in AD 98 by the Roman historian Cornelius Tacitus, who first mentions the Balts in his work "Germania". In fact, neither of these perfectly designates the Lithuanian tribes. The name Aistians (people who lived in the Eastern part of Lithuania) referred not to all the Balts but only to the Prussians. Furthermore, the name Aistians is sometimes confused with that of Estonians. The name Balts is not quite accurate either because in a geographical context it encompasses all Baltic states, i.e. Lithuanians, Latvians, Estonians, Finns etc. Only in pure philological terms does the name Balts indicate Lithuanian, Latvian, and Prussian ancestry. Notwithstanding the above-mentioned inaccuracies, the term Balts has been accepted and is widely used in scholarly publications. As has been mentioned, Balts are nations that evolved from the Indo-European parent nation and language. However, many contradictory theories and hypotheses have emerged over the centuries in attempts to explain how and when this separate development began. In the 15th and 16th centuries there was a widely held idea claiming that Lithuanians had descended from the Romans. This was due to the fact that Roman culture and the Latin language were very popular in Lithuania at that time. Another reason for the claim was that many Lithuanian words are similar to those of Latin, for instance, dievas – deus (English: God), vyras – vir (English: man), ugnis – ignis (English: fire), dantis – dens, gen. sg. dentis (English: tooth), senis — senex (English: old man), tu – tu (English: You) , esti – est (English: is), ėsti – edere (English: to consume), augti – augere (English: to grow), sėdėti – sedere (English: to sit), etc. These similarities popularized the view that the Lithuanian language is a relation of Latin and that Lithuanians are descended from ancient Romans. As a result there was even an interesting legend created about Publius Libon, later renamed as Palemonas, the father of Lithuanian rulers. He was commander in the Pompey navy and in the 1st c. BC, i.e. in the period of the Roman civil war he fled to the North with his wife, children and 500 Roman patricians. Having navigated around the world, they landed at the place, where twelve branches of a large river spread. From there they travelled up the river Neman (Memel) until they reached the confluence with the river Dubysa where they settled. This legend was wide-spread in Lithuania until the appearance of King Mindaugas in its history (first mentioned in 1219). On the basis of some similarities between Lithuanian and Roman pagan cults as well as some affinity between the Lithuanian and Latin languages, Polish historian Jan Dlugosz (1415–1480) also supported the opinion that Lithuanians derived from Romans. He claimed that the Lithuanian nation had settled their present territory in Caesarean times. While evidence for direct links with Latin are somewhat sketchy, there are far more similarities evident in Balto-Slavic vocabulary. Consider, for example, these Russian and Lithuanian words which are very similar: galva – голова (English: head), draugas – друг (English: friend), bėgu – бегу (English: I run), nešti – нести (English: to carry), ranka – рука (English: hand). Thus it is quite natural that Aeneas Silvius Piccolomini, a contemporary of Jan Dlugosz and later Pope Pius II (1405-1464) considered the Lithuanians to be a nation with Slavic origins. Jodoch Willich, a 16th century chronicler maintained that Prussian was a form of pidgin Greek and that he himself had used Greek to communicate with Prussians. (As mentioned earlier, Prussians are one of the extinct Baltic tribes, neighbours of Lithuania). In the Romantic period, Pranciškus Ksaveras Bogušas (1746-1820) considered that Lithuanians had their ancestors in the tribe of Herulians (Gerulians), i.e. a Germanic tribe (some scholars claim that it was a Thracian tribe, others consider it to be Baltic). Similarly, a Latvian pastor K. Vatsons (1777-1826) gave a Herulian ancestry to the Latvians. A famous Lithuanian linguist Jonas Basanavičius (1851-1927) tried to prove that ancient Thracians and Phrygians were the ancestors of the Lithuanian people, that is to say Lithuanians were the progeny of Asia Minor and Thrace. Having rejected these and other groundless hypotheses, modern linguistics has proposed several newer and more reasonable theories. Currently, two hypotheses about the origin of Balts stand out among all the others. One of them claims that there was a common Balto-Slavic parent language, which split into two separate languages, i.e. Baltic and Slavic. This hypothesis was raised by August Schleicher and is currently supported by many Polish scholars. If there had been a Balto-Slavic parent language, there would nowadays still be dialects midway between Baltic and Slavic languages. With no existing connecting links, it is impossible to prove whether such a parent language as Balto-Slavic ever existed. Aware of this, Polish linguist Jan Otrębski (1889-1971) put forward the hypothesis that ancient Yotvingians (an extinct West Baltic tribe) were a link between the Balts and the Slavs. Yotvingian dialect is extinct. There are no remaining conclusive written records of this dialect. Some documents exist which contain a very small number of loosely recorded place-names, personal names and individual words, and these do not provide a sufficient basis for serious and convincing conclusions to be drawn. At present, rigorous discussions are taking place among linguists about this very issue. Some linguists support the hypothesis, while others vehemently oppose it. The initiator of a different opinion was the French philologist Antoine Meillet. According to his work, both Baltic and Slavic languages derived from cognate Indo-European dialects, which, in their turn, underwent separate development. This position also has its adamant adherents, among them (such linguists as J. Enzelynas (Latvian), K. Būga (Lithuanian). The Lithuanian language has changed from its proto-language less than any other existing language within the Indo-European family. Accordingly, it is quite natural that Lithuanian is rich in archaisms. This would seem to indicate that Lithuanians did not migrate as far from the original motherland as other ethnic groups. For this reason, in ancient times other non-Indo-European languages had less of an impact on Lithuanian. Linguists all over the world are rightly appreciative of Lithuanian because of its preserved features, its richness, and its sheer beauty. Lithuanian assumes a significant place for all those involved in the study of comparative linguistics. For this reason, it is taught in many prestigious universities throughout the world. It is worth noting that the name of Lithuania first emerged in historical sources in 1009, when the Quedlinburg Annals (Annales Quedlinburgenses) makes use of it. King Mindaugas, the first and, indeed, the only King of Lithuania, was converted to Christianity in 1251 and crowned in 1253. (Lithuania was the last country in Europe to be christianized with its conversion dating only from 1387). Even nowadays Lithuanians tend to treat their national identity in historical terms taking particular pride in the glorious past of Lithuanian Dukes. (They make great play of celebrations held on 15 July marking the anniversary of the 1410 Battle of Grunwald, which saw the might of the Teutonic Order routed. Lithuanians are also proud of their country’s independence, proclaimed in 1918 and re-established in 1991). Other important dates for Lithuania deserve mention here. In 1547 the first Lithuanian book, “Catechism” by Martynas Mažvydas was published. The first Lithuanian book of fiction appeared much later in 1818. It was a poem “The Year” by Kristijonas Donelaitis, a pastor from Lithuania Minor. In parallel with the general history of Lithuania, the social history of the language has undergone several extremely trying periods. For instance, written education in Lithuanian was forbidden by the Russian Czar in the period between the years 1864 and 1904. In the times of the Grand Duchy of Lithuania and in the period of the Rzeczpospolita Lithuanian was ousted from public use. That is why Mikalojus Daukša, one of the pioneers of Lithuanian writing, in the preface to his work “Postile” (1599) makes an appeal to the Lithuanian nobility insisting that each nation should speak its own language. The writer makes use of an original analogy. He shows how the world would be brought into total chaos if dogs were to sing like birds and if crows were to moo like cows. To avoid such chaos among humans, all Lithuanians must speak their own language. A linguistic element in cementing a Lithuanian identity continued to be sought right up until the end of the 19th century, when the process of language standardisation began. Language and Society Since Lithuanians make up 80 percent of the population of the Republic of Lithuania, more than 3 million people declare Lithuanian to be their mother tongue. Beyond the borders of Lithuania, Lithuanian is also used by people in those neighbouring areas of Poland and Belarus and, of course by emigrants in different countries. The largest Lithuanian settlements abroad are found in the United States of America, Australia, and Argentina. Since the beginning of the 19th century, i.e. from the birth of comparative linguistics when the striking similarity between Lithuanian and Sanskrit was discovered, Lithuanian has been glorified as being the oldest surviving Indo-European language. Even today many Lithuanians view their nationality rather “linguistically”. Therefore it is quite natural that they should take pride in the French linguist Antoine Meillet’s assertion that anyone wishing to hear how Proto-Indo-European would have sounded, should go and listen to a Lithuanian peasant. Lithuania still places great value on the 19th century idea that the older the language the better. A linguist would say that the Lithuanian language contains many features of the Indo-European parent-language morphology that have changed only slightly. In somewhat simplistic terms, Lithuanian grammar is “archaic”. For the foreigner with a knowledge of a dead Indo-European language, such as Latin or Greek, Lithuanian grammar will be more approachable than for those who have studied only modern languages, such as English, Spanish, Italian, French, or German. In his work “On the customs of Tartars, Lithuanians and Muscovites” (De moribus tartarorum, lithuanorum et moschorum, 1548), Mykolas Lietuvis (one of the pioneering Lithuanian authors) presented some 40 examples from Lithuanian sharing similarities with their Latin counterparts, for instance, ugnis and agnis (English: fire), mater and moteris (English: woman), vyras and vir (English: man), Dievas and Deus (English: God) etc. Grammatical traits lead the majority of students of Lithuanian as a non-native language to complain bitterly that the language is very complex. They are put off by having to learn five distinct noun declensions each with its seven cases and two numbers. The average English speaker, for example, finds the mere concept of a case ending hard enough to grasp. Another frequent area of dismay is the awareness of the unpredictable shifting stress, which even for Lithuanians happens to “shift too far”. But this is the price to pay for the proud heritage from the Indo-European parent language. Socio-linguistic history appears to show some inconsistencies in attitudes to the Lithuanian language. Its findings demonstrate that rulers and noblemen in Medieval Lithuania spoke Lithuanian while in the Renaissance period there was a marked switch to Polish. Gradually, the dominant language in cultural life became Polish. For this reason it happens quite often that Lithuanians voice pride in those ancient rulers who spoke Lithuanian, and look askance at those Lithuanians throughout the centuries who turned their backs on the Lithuanian language. In the historical treatment of European languages describing them as dominant or dominated, Lithuanian is assigned to the category of dominated. Within the dominant languages (English, French, Italian, Portuguese) a common standard form was established not later than in the Renaissance period, while in dominated languages the process dates only from the 19th century because of insufficient cultural forces. Such languages as Lithuanian, Bulgarian, Croatian and Slovak belong here. The foundations for a standardised Lithuanian language were laid quite late, i.e. in the second half of the 19th century. The dialect of the Užnemunė (Upper Lithuania) was selected as the basis for the standard language. |
