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Hello and welcome everyone.

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My name is Olga, I'm speaking now from Berlin.

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I'm currently completing my Masters degree in Comparative Indo-European Linguistics.

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at Humboldt University of Berlin.

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During my studies I learned several ancient languages,

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for example Sanskrit, Old Persian, Hittite, Hieroglyphics, Luwian, Latin,

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and for the past 3 years, my hobby was Lithuanian.

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I have been tutoring some lessons in Lithuanian and Sanskrit, and introductory courses in historical linguistics.

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I'm also currently working on a research project aimed at editting all Old Lithuanian texts up to 1000 words.

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But today I will be speaking of not Old Lithuanian, but the modern Lithuanian language.

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And I will try to uncover the truth behind its claimed antiquity.

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And I will demonstrate why this language is particularly important for Indo-European linguistics.

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The idea of this presentation hit me one day when I was searching the web

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for some exciting material for my students about ancient languages,

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so - my astonishment - the first recommended source about ancient languages

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was not only misleading, but it was quite nonsensical.

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It suggested that Lithuanian was 5000 years old, placed as 7th oldest world language.

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First of all, I would like to make clear

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this statement doesn't make any sense.

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Languages are evolving all the time,

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from one language into another.

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Since we don't know anything about the oldest language in the world,

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- the written sources developed much later than the first languages emerged -

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and the beginnings of the history of languages are not documented.

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It doesn't make any sense to talk about any single language as the oldest.

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Rather, we should talk about 'conservative features' of particular languages.

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Historical linguists who study the evolution of languages

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were able to prove that from this list,

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Sanskrit, Greek, Lithuanian and Farsi

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are in fact all descendants of the same language,

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which we call the Proto-Indo-European,

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and they are therefore of the same age.

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The Proto-Indo-European,

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according to the most widespread hypothesis,

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was spoken somewhere here,

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in the Pontic-Caspian Steppe

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approximately 3000/4000 years Before Christ.

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Somewhere north of the Caucasian Mountains,

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where today there's the border between eastern Ukraine and southwest Russia.

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Proto-Baltic peoples/tribes migrated to the north,

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(probably in unity with the Slavic tribes,

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which we can infer due to multiple similarities between the Baltic and Slavic languages,

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not only in the words, but in the language structure).

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When they settled down, Proto-Baltic tribes had contacts with Finns in the north,

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(and in fact, the Finns during that period were still nomadic peoples).

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The Finns learned the settled way of life from the Balts.

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This can be shown from [linguistic paleontology]; multiple borrowings in Finnic languages are related to [Baltic] agricultural terms and animal husbandry.

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The Balts also had other contacts,

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such as Ilyrians, Drakkians(?), Scythians - but all those languages have died out.

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From that Indo-European homeland,

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Indo-European languages have spread to every single (inhabited) continent of our planet.

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In fact, the Indo-European language family, is the most widespread in the world.

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With 3.2 billion native speakers,

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spread out almost everywhere around the globe.

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On this map you can see,

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dark blue countries have an Indo-European language spoken natively by the majority of the population;

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light blue countries have an Indo-European language as an official language, among others.

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The Indo-European language family is not only the most widespread,

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it is also the best researched language family in the world.

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The research of the Indo-European language family started approx. 200 years ago.

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The first publication came out in 1816 in Berlin.

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Since then, a lot of discoveries have been made.

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And a lot of artefacts have been found by archaeologists,

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who can study the relationship between the languages and the language's archaeological origins.

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It is common to show linguistic relationships in the form of a tree.

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This practice originates in Darwin's theory of evolution.

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If you look at this particular tree

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it doesnt show all IE languages,

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but it tries to show the amount of speakers of several IE languages,

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including our Lithuanian!

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Only around 3 millions speakers worldwide; just a tiny branch on the tree.

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On this other, more schematic representation of the language tree,

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Here's our Balto-Slavic branch of languages.

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As I told you, Baltic and Slavic peoples left the IE homeland together,

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so their languages also evolved together, until a certain point in time,

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and then they split into 2 separate groups,

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and then the Baltic languages, in turn, split into 2 different groups as well,

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eastern and western groups.

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Western Baltic is only represented by the now extinct Old Prussian language.

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Its last speaker died in the early 18th century.

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Both Eastern Baltic languages (Lithuanian and Latvian) are still spoken today.

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The West and the East Balts,

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began to diverge in their speech around 1000 BC.

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Their languages became distinct no later than 300 BC.

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Approx. 800 years later, (c.500 AD),

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the language of the northern part of the East Slavic tribes began to change rapidly.

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The final syllables became shortened.

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The stress patterns changed.

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The whole linguistic system became restructured.

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Those East Balts which settled in a different territory to the north;

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they gave rise to the language which we call Latvian.

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The southern part of the East Balts remained,

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and their language stayed very archaic.

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This is the language we now call Lithuanian.

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Since we've now established the lineage of Lithuanian,

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I would like to now talk about possible reasons why people claim that Lithuanian is one of the oldest languages in the world.

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Why would anyone call a language old?

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Due to its textual transmission?

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If we examine Lithuanian, this is certainly not the case.

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The oldest written record of an Indo-European language

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is in the written Hittite language,

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an ancient language of Anatolia.

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The oldest written Hittite document, the so-called Anitta text, was transmitted around 2000 BC.

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This is very different to Lithuanian!

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Writing was introduced in Lithuania during the Middle Ages, along with Christianity.

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During that time, Lithuanian readers maintained their contacts with western nations. And the Pope in Rome, and Latin.

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Latin was the language of the scholarly elite.

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Unsurprisingly, the first publications concerning Lithuanian history and culture were in the Latin language.

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One of the most notable such works is

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De moribus tartarorum, lituanorum et moscorum

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It is a treaty published by a person under pseudonym

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Michalonis Lithuani.

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This treatise was written as late as the mid 16th century, and not published until 1615.

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It contains some historical information,

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on Lithuanians and other peoples, their neighbours.

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It compares Lithuanian pagan traditions to ancient Roman traditions.

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It also lists 74 Lithuanian words, which are compared with similar sounding Latin words.

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Numerous Latin books were written by Lithuanian authors during that time.

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They published in Krakow, Riga and Vilnius.

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In fact Vilnius's first printing press started in in 1522.

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In the 16th century, there were 158 Latin books published in Vilnius.

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But the first book to be actually written in the Lithuanian language, rather than Latin,

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was the Catechism by Martynas Mažvydas

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which printed in 1547 in Königsberg (today's Kalingrad).

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This book marks the beginning of Lithuanian literature, and is therefore considered to be the most important artefact of Lithuanian history.

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It consists of a primer, a catechism, a book of songs with musical notes, a prayer book, a translation of Holy Writ, and original prefaces and dedications.

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The book was aimed at spreading the Protestant religion,

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and fighting the remains of pagan beliefs.

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It was very important to Martynas Mažvydas the author to make it accessible

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to a broader audience, so he also called it

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'The simple words of catechism' and the language used is quite simple.

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Here is the first page of the catechism's text.

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Excuse me for the suboptimal quality.

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There's one thing I'd like to show you.

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The first/title page of the catechism doesn't mention the authorship.

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But the author perpetuated his own name by composing an acrostic poem.

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When reading the initial letters of lines 3–19 of the preface, it spells out MARTJNVS MASVJDJVS, or the name Martynas Mažvydas in Latin.

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Another Lithuanian book I would like to share with you is the 'Postil of Littau'.

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As the title suggests, it was written in German.

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Which was quite common practice,

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lots of Germans had contacts with Lithuanians and wrote books about them.

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This is the first ethnographic account of Lithuanians.

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Though it was written in 1690, it is very accessible to a modern reader.

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It is extremely entertaining.

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Although not everything is politically correct,

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and not all 'facts' are really true,

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but the interesting thing is

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that out of 15 chapters, dealing with religion, culture, and the customs of the Lithuanian people,

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it features one chapter on the Lithuanian language.

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There are some riddles and proverbs and fun facts about the Old Lithuanian language,

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and a few theories about genetic relationships.

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So now, obviously Lithuanian's claimed antiquity is not due to its attestation.

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Let's turn to the writing system.

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Perhaps most of you know that the first writing system that we know of

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was developed by the Sumerian people

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in Mesopotamia about 3000 BC -

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and obviously not by Lithuanians,

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Lithuanians only adopted writing during the Christian period,

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using Latin at first,

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so they also adapted the Latin alphabet to their needs.

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The Lithuanian alphabet has changed slightly over time.

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It is currently comprised of 32 letters,

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with some additional diacritical marks to mark vowel length and the typical Baltic/Slavic palatalized sounds (Č, Š, and so on).

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It is largely a phonetic writing system, so you can learn to read Lithuanian almost instantly.

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There are some digraphs used.

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One curious fact about the Lithuanian alphabet is that the letters F and H, as well as the digraph CH, denote sounds only appearing in loanwords.

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They were not actually used way back in time.

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So for example France is called Prancūzija in Lithuanian.

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Another idea about antiquity comes from Lithuanian lexemes,

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because the Lithuanian language retained very many ancient lexemes.

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In the area marked here, there are rivers with names which can be etymologized to Lithuanian or Baltic words.

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This was the area of impenetrable forests populated by the Balts approximately 2000 BC to 1000 BC.

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They were basically undisturbed by anyone, for example the major migrations didn't come into this area.

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That's why they could retain quite a bit of archaic vocabulary.

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Today the territory where Baltic languages are spoken is much, much smaller.

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Native speakers will tell you "our language is particularly old and ancient because there are many words in Sanskrit that are just the same in Lithuanian".

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It is true. For example this list shows some of the lexemes between those 2 languages.

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But we should not make theories based on languages' genetic relationships based only on lexemes.

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Just imagine this scenario:

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Due to computers and the internet being so often referred to in the English language, all around the world,

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a future linguist might assume that English is the root of all other languages.

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The real true way to establish a genetic relationship between several languages is a systematic comparison of their grammatical features.

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So, quoting Wikipedia's page on Lithuanian grammar; "Lithuanian grammar retains many archaic features from Proto-Indo-European that have been lost in other Indo-European languages and is consequently very complex".

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This claim is true. All aspects of Lithuanian language, (including phonetics, grammatical structure, lexicon)

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are still comparatively archaic compared to other modern Indo-European languages.

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I will now present some facts about those some of those archaic features.

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One of the less complex features of Lithuanian is the future tense.

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In order to build future tense in Lithuanian you have to remove the T element of the infinite of the word of the verb.

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For example, "dirbti" (to work) you would remove the T element (which marks the infinitive),

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and you add the suffix S, and attach personal endings to that suffix.

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This suffix S (and its sound) is very old, in fact its also used in Sanskrit to build future tense.

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Quite unique!

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Another important archaic feature of Lithuanian is the nominal declension.

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So apart from some loan words such as "taboo" or "taxi",

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all Lithuanian words including proper names are inflected.

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There are 7 inherited cases in in total. The nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative, and vocative.

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So depending on the last vowel or last sound of the stem of the noun stem,

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nouns are divided into 5 declension types.

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This is a really ancient feature of the Proto-Indo-European.

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Maybe some of you who learned a Classical language like Latin or Sanskrit know this feature;

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that you you don't learn one declension but you systematically learn one after another.

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This is the case in Lithuanian as well.

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Look at this table; compare this to the English language.

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In English, if you want to to to express something like this, all you need to know is the word itself and how to build a plural.

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Book --> Books... sometimes more complicated... Mouse --> Mice.

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In Lithuanian, you need to first identify the stem class which the word belongs to,

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and then you need to think about its grammatical gender,

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then you need to think about the number,

0:24:16.833,0:24:23.001
and afterwards you think about the function in the sentence,

0:24:23.001,0:24:28.129
and only afterwards you need to pick the right ending from this table.

0:24:28.129,0:24:31.929
You attach it to the word and then you're done.

0:24:31.929,0:24:39.559
You could say that English is an extreme example of an analytical language,

0:24:39.559,0:24:49.329
but some other languages like Russian also have a complex system of nominal declension,

0:24:49.329,0:24:54.579
but in the nominal declension of Lithuanian, there are some special archaic features;

0:24:54.579,0:24:59.157
the locative case for example is constructed without a preposition,

0:24:59.157,0:25:02.108
so in order to say "in Berlin" in Lithuanian,

0:25:02.108,0:25:12.995
you just say "Berlynas" without any preposition like you would need to use in Russian or English.

0:25:12.995,0:25:19.032
This air element is also very archaic,

0:25:19.032,0:25:34.943
as well as the S element in the locative plural of Lithuanian.

0:25:34.943,0:25:39.793
Another case is the vocative case.

0:25:39.793,0:25:46.120
This is the list of all the endings you would need to know for the vocative case,

0:25:46.120,0:25:59.300
so if you address a person um by name or profession or family status or something similar,

0:25:59.300,0:26:08.600
you would need to learn all of those endings and if you just say "Vytautas" (a very popular Lithuanian name),

0:26:08.600,0:26:15.540
it's just the nominative case and if you would want to talk to or ask Vytautas something,

0:26:15.540,0:26:19.540
you would need to say "Vytautai".

0:26:19.540,0:26:25.350
Why did Lithuanian retain all those endings?

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Why is the nominal declension system so intact compared to others Indo-European languages?

0:26:31.557,0:26:38.245
This is due to the accentuation.

0:26:38.245,0:26:43.640
Accentuation in other Indo-European languages has changed massively.

0:26:43.640,0:26:48.110
The example of Germanic languages is perhaps best.

0:26:48.110,0:27:00.580
So before the Germanic languages split into separate languages and developed into what we know as know as modern English, Swedish, Danish, German and so on..

0:27:00.580,0:27:07.904
earlier Germanic langauges fixed stress on the initial syllable at the very beginning of the word.

0:27:07.904,0:27:16.885
When languages do that, the tendency is for the last syllable to be pronounced less effectively.

0:27:16.885,0:27:23.435
Over the centuries, those syllables were lost.

0:27:23.435,0:27:28.565
That's how Germanic languages lost their declension endings.

0:27:28.565,0:27:33.415
Lithuanian kept the accentuation.

0:27:33.415,0:27:44.953
Although it didn't keep the original Proto-Indo-European accentuation, it kept the pitch accent and mobile stress.

0:27:44.973,0:27:53.293
This is unfortunately not marked in the everyday texts,

0:27:53.293,0:28:01.287
and is one of the hardest features to learn.

0:28:01.287,0:28:07.297
Some learner textbooks unfortunately don't mark the stressed syllable.

0:28:07.297,0:28:19.214
If I had chosen to include the tables of all the the stress patterns, then my slides would be doubled and there would be no end to my presentation!

0:28:19.214,0:28:28.952
So let's leave this topic for now, by saying that the accentuation of Lithuanian is a complicated matter.

0:28:28.952,0:28:39.231
It's been studied for decades, but it's still a very complicated topic.

0:28:41.567,0:28:45.057
The last point is the Lithuanian syntax.

0:28:45.057,0:28:56.297
It is normally an SVO language, but it does have a comparatively free order.

0:28:56.297,0:29:02.674
You can change sentences' word order,

0:29:02.674,0:29:10.369
but keep in mind that with the changed order you would stress different information and different parts of the sentences.

0:29:13.134,0:29:20.134
So to finish off, I would like to also mention some innovations of Lithuanian.

0:29:20.134,0:29:24.705
So Lithuanian has seen multiple phonological changes.

0:29:24.705,0:29:30.915
For instance all the palatalizations which are common both to Baltic and Slavic languages,

0:29:30.915,0:29:37.885
it lost ablative case and adopted additional locative cases.

0:29:37.885,0:29:47.295
It developed definite adjectives, it regularized the gradation of adjectives and adverbs,

0:29:47.295,0:29:51.525
especially the verbal system which has been drastically reduced.

0:29:51.525,0:29:56.465
Some tenses such as aorist and perfect tense were lost.

0:29:56.465,0:29:59.505
The optitive mood was lost.

0:29:59.505,0:30:04.633
The middle voice was also lost, and instead Lithuanian uses reflexive verbs for that,

0:30:04.633,0:30:09.813
It developed a very complex system of participles.

0:30:11.864,0:30:17.196
This list is not exhaustive! If it were, I'd need to give another full presentation!

0:30:17.196,0:30:23.295
But what i would like you to take away from this presentation,

0:30:23.295,0:30:31.141
is the the fact that Lithuanian is a very archaic language, with multiple conservative features,

0:30:31.141,0:30:36.637
and that is why it is very important for Indo-European linguists.

0:30:36.637,0:30:40.637
Thank you very much for your attention, and now it's question time.

0:30:55.530,0:31:07.880
This is a very good question, this is a question that has been disputed since since the very beginnings of Indo-European studies.

0:31:07.880,0:31:21.510
To me, it is quite clear that that Baltic and Slavic developed together, and later split from each other,

0:31:21.510,0:31:29.077
and then even later, the East and West Baltic languages split in their turn.

0:31:29.077,0:31:42.272
Most of the similarities between them are due to close contact since there was no consequent migration during those times.

0:31:42.272,0:31:46.272
I hope that answers your question.

0:31:57.006,0:32:00.596
Yes and no.

0:32:00.596,0:32:08.592
I don't think that globalization is the reason why Lithuanian is losing its conservative features,

0:32:08.592,0:32:18.216
but yes, Lithuanian is losing its conservative features all the time right now.

0:32:18.216,0:32:37.466
Young people in towns, especially Vilnius and Kaunas, are not using accentuation markings.

0:32:37.466,0:32:46.266
They are stressing syllables in a different way. Not in the way of the textbook.

0:32:46.266,0:33:00.336
This is causing some immediate changes in the morphological structure of the language.

0:33:00.336,0:33:15.766
For example, "ska-NUS" is the textbook word for "tasty", with the stress on the last syllable.

0:33:15.766,0:33:22.106
Lihutanian youth often say "SKA-nus" instead.

0:33:22.106,0:33:30.226
So you can see this shift in stress from the end of the words to the beginning of the word.

0:33:30.226,0:33:39.659
Linguists understand that the last syllable is pronounced less and less stressed and at some point it will disappear,

0:33:39.659,0:33:45.499
but this will not be in our lifetime languages don't evolve that fast.

0:33:56.782,0:34:01.252
Complexity is a difficult question to assess.

0:34:01.252,0:34:13.912
If you assess by the elements of actual sounds that are present in the ending syllables, then yes it is indeed.

0:34:13.912,0:34:20.152
One of the well preserved features of Lithuanian which I mentioned earlier...

0:34:20.152,0:34:40.891
Lithuanians attach the endings "-as" to many nouns.

0:34:40.891,0:34:44.891
So the obvious example are names.

0:34:44.891,0:34:50.481
People called Thomas are lucky. Honorary Lithuanian citizens thanks to the "-as" ending!

0:34:50.481,0:34:58.720
But if you're called Niels, for example, you would become Nielsas in Lithuanian.

0:34:58.720,0:35:12.500
This is not a feature of Slavic languages. It's an ancient element.

0:35:12.500,0:35:19.130
It also appears primarily but not exclusively in the nominative case.

0:35:19.130,0:35:28.890
Do you accept this as a measure of complexity? If so, then the answer to your question is "Yes, the Lithuanian system is more complex".

0:35:28.890,0:35:41.926
It is one of the main reasons why Lithuanian rather than a Slavic language is seen as an example of an archaic Indo-European language.

0:35:49.745,0:35:55.213
Well there are multiple differences between Latvian and Lithuanian.

0:35:55.213,0:36:06.613
If a Lithuanian takes a written text in Latvian, they would be able to understand some words,

0:36:06.613,0:36:11.223
but the two languages are not mutually intelligible in conversation.

0:36:11.223,0:36:22.563
Slavic languages are famous for having the fewest divergences between each other,

0:36:22.563,0:36:27.922
compared to all other sub-branches/sub-groups of Indo-European languages,

0:36:27.922,0:36:37.252
so if you happen to speak one Slavic language and you go to a different Slavic country, you will probably be understood.

0:36:37.252,0:36:42.622
This is not the case with Latvian and Lithuanian.

0:36:42.622,0:36:50.772
In fact, I just started learning Latvian, and it's like starting from scratch.

0:36:50.772,0:36:56.421
I know some differences due to historical phonology between those two languages,

0:36:56.421,0:37:01.951
but the accentuation of Latvian has changed,

0:37:01.951,0:37:17.754
and when the those two languages split from each other around 500-600 AD, the differences were really massive

0:37:17.754,0:37:23.203
So you need to separately learn each of those languages.

0:37:31.954,0:37:34.606
Oh, I'm very happy you asked!

0:37:34.606,0:37:46.943
Visit Lithuania, spend some time there.

0:37:46.943,0:37:49.778
I visited Lithuania several times.

0:37:49.778,0:38:00.748
If you're a student, you might want to check some scholarships offered by the Lithuanian government and do a summer course there.

0:38:00.748,0:38:19.810
Non-students can also participate in the summer courses of Kaunas University and Vilnius University, and possibly others.

0:38:19.810,0:38:27.760
If you're a student you can also take a semester in Lithuania through the Erasmus program,

0:38:27.760,0:38:32.850
and do one semester with different courses - not only Lithuanian languages courses,

0:38:32.850,0:38:36.850
but also other subjects, through the medium of Lithuanian.

0:38:36.850,0:38:47.620
Another tip - if you happen to come from Berlin and there is a summer course in Berlin, free of charge.

0:38:47.620,0:38:57.790
But the the participant number is very limited, so if you're interested in this course please contact me privately; send me an email, or so on.

0:38:57.790,0:39:08.850
Otherwise you can also contact me. I am doing online lessons on Lithuanian language, so that would be another possibility to learn Lithuanian.

0:39:08.850,0:39:24.560
Well the last recommendation is; there are accentuated books on the Lithuanian language, some learning materials - use those.

0:39:24.560,0:39:43.974
Contact me by email or in the Polyglot Gathering telegram group, let me know your mother tongue, and I will happily recommend you some materials.

0:39:53.489,0:39:57.489
Well, yes, I think I've already answered that question.

0:39:57.489,0:40:04.572
It is one of those things that parents and children often argue about.

0:40:04.572,0:40:14.822
The older generation view the youth's use of Lithuanian as incorrect.

0:40:24.742,0:40:28.742
The ones I presented today are all kept in the regular speech.

0:40:28.742,0:40:36.422
There are some others in Old Lithuanian which are not, but I did not include those in my presentation.

0:40:36.422,0:40:42.312
For example, in Old Lithuanian there is a "dual number system".

0:40:42.312,0:40:46.312
So the Proto-Indo-European had 3 numbers.

0:40:46.312,0:40:52.872
If you thought that the numeral declension of of Lithuanian was complex, you should check out the Proto-Indo-European declension system!

0:40:52.872,0:40:56.872
It's 8 cases, and 3 different numbers.

0:40:56.872,0:41:11.012
So Old Lithuanian has some "rests of duel" and some other archaic features lost to modern Lithuanian.

0:41:11.012,0:41:20.462
But those which I covered in my presentation are all still used nowadays.

0:41:36.558,0:41:44.965
Yes. It is a clear tendency to do that.

0:41:44.965,0:42:00.435
New and complex Lithuanian words are often formed to express something more widely known as an English word [for example new types of technology].

0:42:00.435,0:42:06.575
Language evolves naturally.

0:42:06.575,0:42:20.916
You can't really force changes. You can try, but it will be impossible to completely remove words like (?)"chatas" from Lithuanian.

0:42:34.973,0:42:41.709
Yes. They do. It's the same as that which is also used in Sanskrit. [i.e. Proto-Indo-European].

0:42:44.076,0:42:47.561
So, thank you very much for your questions.

0:42:47.561,0:42:54.289
If you happen to have any more questions, or if you happen to have a particular interest in the Lithuanian language,

0:42:54.289,0:42:57.106
or in historical linguistics,

0:42:57.106,0:42:59.446
please feel free to contact me.

0:42:59.446,0:43:04.606
I'd be happy to answer all your questions.

0:43:04.606,0:43:08.921
Thank you very much and have fun with the rest of the event.