ABSTRACT
Lithuanian belongs, with Latvian, to the East Baltic branch of Indo-European. They are not mutually intelligible. No other Baltic languages survive, though the less closely related Old Prussian – a West Baltic language – lived into the seventeenth century. The total number of speakers, including the sizeable émigré communities in Canada, the USA, the former Soviet Union, Australia and elsewhere, is probably getting on towards 4 million. It is an official language of the European Union.
