Ancient languages in today's world

2012 March Cocentaina

Lithuania is located in eastern Europe

bordering the Baltic

Sea, between

Latvia, Poland,

Belarus and Russia

(Kaliningrad region)

Lithuanian language

The Lithuanian language is of a wonderful structure, more perfect than either Sanskrit , more copious than Latin, and exquisitely refined than any of these .

Roots from 2000 B.C

There is a similar reason for supposing that the Heruli, Rugians, Goths, Old Prussians, and Latvians, and their language, had the same origin, for they were ancient Lithuanian people.

Scholars have recognized the Lithuanians as exponents of the primitive Aryan culture and civilization.

Renowned philologists have agreed that the Lithuanian is not only the oldest language in the world today, but the language used by Aryans before the invention of evolution of Sanskrit.

The antiquity of Lithuanian language and its grammatical structure place it in the same period with the oldest Sanskrit - 2000 B.C. or earlier.

Lithuanian is a Proto-Aryan, and to the renowned linguists, it was known to be unwritten language in Europe for many centuries. However, recent linguistic investigations have definitely proven that the Lithuanian language was written even before the Christian era, though how far before it is difficult to determine with any degree of accuracy. But from the linguistic evidence and ancient writings in India and Persia, it is possible to assume that Lithuanian language must have been written as far back as one thousand years ago before the birth of Christ.

Doubts

Indo-European branch

Before the year 6000-8000, was neither Lithuanian nor Latvian nor Russian, nor Polish nor German, nor in many other nations. Then there branch Indo-European, from which, over time many of the current European and Asian nations belonging to the large Indo-European family and is now making up nearly half of all mankind.This is, of course, had to be Indo-European language which they understand each other. The Proto-Indo-European was once spoken by the ancestors.

Lithuanian language most ancient in style

The richest cultural heritage of the Lithuanian people is their language, which represents one of highest achievements of all mankind.

It surpasses all other European languages in its antiquity, the purity of its sounds, and its wonderful grammatical structure.

It can be clearly seen, by a study of the highest developed grammar and the natural and beautiful sounds of their language, that the Lithuanians indeed possessed a creative genius in a very early era of our civilization.

The vowel system of the Lithuanian language is the most ancient in its style. It antedates Sanskrit, Latvian, Greek and Latin in that order.

The oldest living Indo-European language

Since the 19th century, when the similarity between Lithuanian and Sanskrit was discovered, Lithuanians have taken a particular pride in their mother tongue as the oldest living Indo-European language.

To this day, to some Lithuanians their understanding of their nationality is based on their linguistic identity. It is no surprise then that they proudly quote the French linguist Antoine Meillet, who said, that anyone who wanted to hear old Indo-European should go and listen to a Lithuanian farmer.

The 19th century maxim - the older the language the better - is still alive in Lithuania

The morphology of the Lithuanian language clearly reveals to us many unsolved historical mysteries of ancient civilization, significantly expands the horizon of linguistic science and broadens mankind's knowledge of his dark past.

The discovery of the remarkable similarity of the Lithuanian language to Avesta (Old Persian) and Sanskrit has clearly opened new frontiers in the field of linguistic science according to the conclusions of comparative morphology. Moreover, the morphology of the Lithuanian language definitely proves that the ruling class, or the kings of

the ancient Hittite (Gittitis) nation, had surnames similar to Lithuanian surnames

First mentioned LITUA

Lithuanian language as a separate branch of the Eastern Baltic language began to evolve from the seventh century.

Lithuania (Slavic form LITUA) for the first time mentioned in Latin, written form in 1009.

Quedlinburg annals.

Lithuanian language teritory in XIII For the Balts, the early 13th

century was when they emerged from oblivion to enter European history and become permanent participants in it.

This was the time when the two German orders, the Teutonic and the Livonian Order, first appeared on the territories inhabited by the Balts and slowly settled in the areas of the old Prussian and Latvian tribes.

Language transformation

Lithuanians were the only one of Balts whose territory the XIII-XV centuries even reached the Black Sea.

Culture Balts ancestry included not only the Baltic coast, but the Volga-Oka-Don and Dnieper basins.

With Western Europe correspondence was in Latin language, and with East - the old Russian language.

Writing Lithuanian language appeared only in the sixteenth century.

Common Lithuanian language began in the nineteenth century.

At the end - in the twentieth century the beginning of the western dialect Highlanders Kaunas basis.

Baltic tribes

Baltic languages , as well as the Germanic, Slavic, Romance, constitute a distinct Indo-European language group.

Baltic language group of the other distinguished by its archaic and, therefore, is explored in many research centers.

It consists of living in Lithuanian, Latvian and dead - Prussian, Yotvingian, Curonian, Semigallians, Selonian.

Lithuanian and Latvian languages are now spoken by about 4.7 million. people (mainly in the territories of Latvia and Lithuania). All other Baltic languages , except for the Prussians, left no written monuments, and about them and about the number of people who spoke a little known.

Baltic language today

However, When Lithuania became a part of the Russian Empire in 1863, the publication of Lithuanian books was banned, as well as the use of the Latin alphabet (Cyrillic )replaced the Latin letters).

After illegal Lithuanian-language book smuggling and a nationalist surge, the ban on Lithuanian publications was lifted.

Modern Lithuanian

According to linguistic palaeontology, it is true that of all languages, only Lithuanian has preserved the purity of the primitive Aryan speech from that remote period of antiquity to the modern age.

Many ancient languages have vanished long ago from the knowledge of mankind; however,

the Lithuanian language is like an ancient monument of white marble - it still stands untarnished after many centuries of

man's long history.

Trakai

Aldona Droseikiene

Thank you