ABSTRACT
Lithuanian is the principal language of Lithuania, until recently one of the fifteen republics of the fonner Soviet Union. Standardized before the country's subjugation to the Soviet Union, and the consequent presence everywhere of Russian and its influence, the Lithuanian language managed to retain its orthography and independent grammatical standards. Perhaps part of the explanation of its survival lies in international recognition of its linguistic importance, but that would be to overemphasize the preoccupations of linguists and forget the real element in the retention of the language, the Lithuanians themselves. Other languages used in Lithuania include Russian, Belarusian, and Polish; until the Second World War Yiddish was a language of considerable social and cultural importance. For many years Poland and Lithuania shared the same political orbit, and as a result Lithuania retains an overwhelmingly Roman Catholic population, in contrast to the Lutheran allegiance of its geographical and linguistic neighbour, Latvia, and its other Baltic neighbour, Estonia. Lithuania is a small country of 25,170 sq m (65,200 sq km) and 3,740,000 inhabitants (1994), with a beautiful Baltic coastline, gentle landscape, and extraordinary language. If you ever wanted a challenge, here it is.
