The BALTIC Languages (Lithuanian, Latvian, and Beyond)

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This video is all about the Baltic Language family, focusing mainly on its two living languages: Lithuanian and Latvian. But I also focus on the history and development of the Baltic languages more generally.
Special thanks to Domeniks Antonenko for his Latvian samples and feedback, and Rokas Stasiškis for his Lithuanian samples and feedback.
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[@Langfocus]

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[@jansenart0]

So glad you finally covered these languages! This must have taken forever to research.

[@netgnostic1627]

Hi Paul - something you can put in a video are some physical accompaniments to language. For example, the nod of the head, the shake of the head, and the side-nod. Others might be rolling the eyes or tilting the head. Have you ever considered a video about these, and how they have different meanings when coupled with different languages?

[@EeeEee-bm5gx]

Russians feel mortally insulted, Ukrainians sympathetic, and Lithuanians are freaking out about Balto-Slavic. My condolences and also congratulations on your comment section, Paul. Excellent video, though 👍

[@elegantslave0lolguy739]

Difference's are...

[@AndrisLelisTravelChanel]

We have place in Latvia, its name is Indra. Also some Indians was surprised about Latvian word "putra" and from many others

[@markmaskov4310]

As a Latvian I love how Lithuanian sounds. It is practically impossible for me to understand spoken Lithuanian, but I can understand separate words and simple sentences especially in written form. It’s so fun to pronounce Lithuanian being Latvian, it’s some kind of magic! I only wish that we’d have more exchange programmes between our countries. I respect my fellow Lithuanian brothers and sisters that they have conserved their language so well. We’ll only be strong if we hold on together and no external force will ever tear us and our languages apart. Aš myliu Lietuvą! Es mīlu Lietuvu! Mūsų broliai! Mūsu brāļi! 🇱🇹❤🇱🇻

[@HellDogas]

Awww, very sweet to hear, we Lithuanians love our brothers and sisters Latvians too 😍❤❤❤ I have learnt some Latvian in university, but for the most part it is the same, I can understand some written words and sentences, but speaking is a bit challenging. :)

[@justames5979]

As a Lithuanian, I really love Latvian as well! I come from the northern regions and can understand Samogitian, which helps a bit to understand written Latvian. But even then, if I heard Latvian spoken, I wouldn't understand a thing haha And I also agree it's a shame that we don't put in more effort to learn each other's languages, especially when our languages are so similar. There are courses for Latvian in my university for instance, but either no one takes it seriously or the course only goes through the bare basics. So even though our languages are similar enough that it wouldn't be a challenge to learn the other's language, we use some intermediary language instead :/ I do hope though that that changes in the future! Myliu Latviją! Mīlu Latviju! ❤️

[@bozhetsotyhtsesh1910]

Aww

[@javicruz9754]

Upon seeing the Russian warfare actions against Ukraine, and being told of what you have been through under the two Russian rules, I hope that everything goes well for both countries and if the situation escalates, fight them off and show no mercy to them, I hope that scenario never happens but in case it does, be yourselves and show them what you worth and fight them hard so that they would never think of messing around with you ever again!!

[@markmaskov4310]

@@justames5979 I know that Latgalian, which is spoken in eastern Latvia, is more similar to Lithuanian, and finally Latgalians don’t have to be ashamed anymore of their language (I call it a language to solidarise with our fellow Baltic brothers). I think Lithuanians could have a much better conversation with Latgalians than with Latvians because of their much more obvious similarities. Nū Latgolas iz sirds! Iš Latgalos iš širdies!

[@HoggyMayhem]

As an Estonian, my knowledge of Latvian and Lithuanian vocabulary comes primarily from triple-labelled groceries in Rimi.

[@zw4732]

Same, with Lithuanian and Estonian

[@piggyraccoon5464]

Buy kārums and support Latvian economy

[@piggyraccoon5464]

Buy kārums and support Latvian economy

[@piggyraccoon5464]

Buy kārums and support Latvian economy

[@Gunz_Men]

Wait they have that? ive never seen that in the rimi price labels, or maybe i just dont shop there as much idk

[@remigiuszfetzki7379]

I am polish, living in Latvia for 4years now. Speaking latvian fruently and proud to speak this beautiful language.

[@vicesia]

Jak się mieszka?

[@remigiuszfetzki7379]

@@vicesia pięknie. Mieszkamy w małym miasteczku przy granicy z Estonią. Wokół pełno lasów. Płaca nie jest aż tak wysoka, ale natura bardzo to nadrabia:) zapraszam na rogale do Łotwy.

[@vicesia]

@@remigiuszfetzki7379 o dobra przyjadę, hah Kraje Bałtyckie są warte odwiedzenia moim zdaniem Najchętniej to bym do Estonii się wybrała w sumie może kiedyś haha Możesz napisać coś po łotewsku? I czy to jest ciężki język?

[@remigiuszfetzki7379]

@@vicesia spoko, więc. Man sauc Remi. Es dzīvoju Latvijā seši gadi un jūtu šeit kā savējais. Strādāju kā maiznieks kas man ļoti patīk. Latviski nav tik sarežģīti kā izskatās. Runāt poļu valodā ir stipri grūtāk. Tāpēc labi ka viņš man bija iedots par brīvu :) Man ir divi bērni ar kuriem es runāju tikai latviski vai angliski tāpēc diezgan viegli varēju iemācīt.

[@vicesia]

@@remigiuszfetzki7379 Paldies 😉 No teraz tylko trzeba sobie to przetłumaczyć, a i język wygląda fajnie

[@miks8]

I''m Latvian, my wife is Lithuanian and the kids are, well... Baltic :) At first everything sounds very familiar but nothing makes sense. After a while it becomes easy to pick up on the differences and to get a fair level of understanding in each other's languages.

[@joachim7500]

If you don't mind my asking, what language did you speak to each other to make yourself understood, when you first started dating? :)

[@naktisnaktiss9880]

Linkėjimų Agotai, Mikeli 😉

[@kisutis]

That’s how I used to recognise Latvian - when you hear something that sounds like lithuanian but you don’t get the meaning then this is Latvian :)

[@EeeEee-bm5gx]

Baltic kids! LMAO 🤣

[@jonasgolubovas4567]

Labais. Man otrādi. Ieprecējos Latvijā un sieva man latviete. O aš pats iš pasienio, Joniškietis

[@morenauer]

A minute of silence for Prussian.

[@adminaccounts807]

I am here the Prussian we are in Australia

[@UnterVSK]

They still exist. Few hundred people speak prussian lungage. Thje guy below mixed up "Preusse" with "Alte Preusse".

[@darkodraco]

prussia was mean

[@remigijuslukauskas4517]

and not only, but also sėliai, jotvingiai, kuršiai, žemgalai, galdai.

[@eiramram2035]

Lol I thought that Prussians were just Germens (and never understood why it sounded like Russia)

[@hoangkimviet8545]

Others: “Are you Baltic?” Estonians: “Well, it depends on context. If it is geography, yes. If it is language, no.”

[@Langfocus]

Yes. :)

[@dzianish6223]

As far as I know most Estonians prefer to be assumed as Nordic region :)

[@EeeEee-bm5gx]

Latvians spent most of their prehistory with Lithuanians and most of their history with Estonians. As a result, the three Baltic states differ from each other a lot. The only thing they all share is the desire to burn down Moscow.

[@kristapsvalainis1671]

Estonians want into Nordic, but they're still our sister nation, because of history.

[@arunasimas]

And if it is genetics, yes as well. Kind of. We're all a mix of Baltic and Finnic.

[@mediantiba]

I was born in Syria, but I moved to Lithuania many years ago. I did my bachelor's degree in Computer Science at Vilnius University, but since the study programme was in Lithuanian language, I had to learn the language for my studies. Many years have passed since, I still live in Lithuania and I use Lithuanian every day to communicate with everyone. I'm very happy to be able to speak this beautiful language and I feel very much appreciated by people for such an achievement. I would love to learn some Latvian as well, but I never really got the chance to pursue this idea. In many ways, the two languages are so similar, yet so different that one cannot understand the other without learning the basics.

[@MightyJustas]

❤

[@cyrusthegreat1893]

Your English is also very good!

[@slepblog9261]

Lithuania on top!!! Sveiki visi Lietuviai!!!

[@crocolagerfelden6142]

Thank you for making an effort and learning our language, I assume it wasn't easy for you! We go crazy when foreigners learn Lithuanian, it's a sign of respect that we very much appreciate!

[@giedrestankeviciene34]

It's very nice to hear that. Šaunuolis!

[@zecblib]

I'm French and I had the opportunity to visit Vilnius last November. Not only they have a very beautiful city and a fascinating history, Lithuanians also have a pretty language. I can't wait to visit Latvia and others cities in Lithuania now. Even if it's a totally different language I also need to discover Estonia as well. I even started learning this very complex language. Respect to our baltic friends 🇱🇹❤🇱🇻❤🇪🇪❤🇫🇷

[@osasunaitor]

I studied in Vilnius for one year and a half, and still visit often. I agree that it's a captivating city (well, if we talk about the charming old town, because the Soviet block suburbs... not so much haha), and it's improving really fast! I first moved there in 2016, and every time I go back I can notice impressive changes. I'm confident that a great future awaits for them. Ačiū Vilniau, you will always have a place in my heart

[@vytautassulcas6494]

you need to visit Samogitia, their language sounds very similar to french, but dont expect to understand a word ;)

[@kerstas10]

Fun fact, at this moment french Air force are deployed in Lithuania, Šiauliai doing baltic air police mission, and will be here till may, with Rafael jet figters. Soo big thanks to France for keeping the sky safe above us.

[@gediminasgrazulis9366]

Love you

[@RustedCroaker]

I've heard France once had many local languages too, but then they were all ruthlessly destroyed by the central government. Is that true?

[@juriskucinskis4100]

I am Latvian who has learned Lithuanian language so I have a few things to mention regarding this topic. First of all in the beginning it was really hard to understand much in Lithuanian, but once you get used to fact that stress is variable in Lithuanian (it really does make some words harder to understand for Latvian) and get familiar with some consonant and vowel shifts (Latvian - Lithuanian dz - g, c - k, z - ž, ā - o, uo - an ) it gets much easier. I would say that ultimately some 60-70% of words in our vocabularies are the same/similar or with common roots. Also there are some things regarding different varieties (or dialects if you prefer) for example some words in Latgalian are closer to Lithuanian than standard Latvian, but some words in Samogitian are closer to Latvian than to standard Lithuanian. So if for some reason Samogitian and Latgalian languages would have been dominating in Lithuania and Latvia our languages could have been more similar. Recently I started to learn Estonian (which is similar to Livonian languages, which has left some impact on Latvian) and I recognized that some words from everyday Latvian vocabulary (which are unrecognizable in Lithuanian) are actually similar with Estonian words, so we really have borrowed some words from Livonian/Estonian. And yes of course there are quite a few funny false friend in our languages. For example 'bauda' lv- pleasure lt- penalty, 'dejuoti' lv- to dance lt - to lament, 'smags/smagus' lv- heavy lt- joyful. For Latvians reading this I can suggest my Latvian language channel called 'Laika doma', where in "Lietuviešu un Latviešu valoda, cik līdzīgas tās ir?" I explain how similar are Latvian and Lithuanian.

[@fidenemini111]

Thank you! I definitely will visit your chanel.

[@markykid8760]

Fascinating, thank you Juris.

[@astrusis_dantis3655]

And don't forget about "pūkis" - I laughed hysterically when I found out that it is not just a Lithuanian joke about Latvian language, but it is actually dragon in Latvian. :)

[@Pentium100MHz]

I guess now I know why a flywheel is called "smagratis" in Lithuanian. I guess we borrowed the word from Latvians, because "heavy wheel" makes much more sense than "joyful wheel".

[@APiesc]

@Juris It's great to have such an interesting information about these languages. I'm still learning Latvian and there's a lot of words from other (neighbour-) languages. So as "laiva", "maksā", "meža" (boat, price, forest/wood) from Finnish or Estonian language, and a lot more of other European origin. I think that Latvian is easier to learn than Lithuanian.

[@davidbowie5023]

I love our Baltic friends from Ireland. 🇮🇪🤝🏻🇱🇻🇱🇹

[@remishamisen6652]

I'm Lithuanian and we had a short exchange program with a school in Latvia. By the end of the week I could follow most conversations in Latvian. The ammount of false friend words is hilarious and it leads to a lot of funny misunderstandings.

[@Anna_Fortunka]

As a Pole, I've always been a bit curious about the Baltic languages. They are completely unintelligible to me so it takes a lot o trust in science to believe they're related to Slavic. That being said, similarly to Polish, they seem so wonderfully complicated and rich. I'm very glad they've been preserved.

[@johnb1145]

"Relatively" closer to slavic would be the key word here, cause if you dig deep enough back in time then all indo-european languages become obviously related.

[@giedre7836]

As a Lithuanian “a tiny bit” related to slavic

[@polishhussarmapping258]

🇵🇱 Zima bez śniegu 🇱🇻 Ziema bez sniega

[@mindaug25]

@@polishhussarmapping258 ziema be sniego

[@krumuvecis]

@@polishhussarmapping258 PL: na zewnątrz jest zamieć; LV: ārā putina

[@brunosipavicius7867]

I'm half Lithuanian and half Brazilian, I'm too happy with this video. For years I ask Paul for video about Lithuanian. And did this, because they are balta languages.

[@n.m.m5460]

I did see some Lithuanian descendants in South Brazil, in Rio Grande

[@brunosipavicius7867]

@@n.m.m5460 I'm from São Paulo. Lithuanian Brazilian embassy is here in São Paulo. Vila Zelina, in east São Paulo in where lithuanian colony is.

[@n.m.m5460]

@@brunosipavicius7867 that's super cool. Salve!

[@brunosipavicius7867]

But I hope this video will be better than Esperanto in which you miss many points, from story of Dr Zamenhof and it's gramatical structures.

[@A201053]

I'm lithuanian, I live in Kaunas I have relatives in Brazil

[@giannisa134]

Please make more videos about both languages! In Greek melanos can mean either black or blue and especially the similarity to the lithuanian melynas is stunning!

[@albanian_barcelona_fan]

While in albanian, Mëllënjë means blackbird

[@MrVykis]

I've heard stories that there was a theory in the interwar Lithuania, that their language originated long time ago from greek. It was disproven, but still it's kind of cool that these 2 languages have a lot of words that end with -is or -as

[@rryyttee]

As a Lithuanian who lived some time in Cyprus I can verify there are some similarities with greek language.

[@troelspeterroland6998]

They are indeed cognates

[@osasunaitor]

I remember a Greek saying that the first time he watched a Lithuanian basketball game (most popular sport there) for a moment he thought all the players were Greek, because all the masculine names and surnames ended with -s, like in Greek. Both Lithuanian and Greek are very conservative languages that retain a lot from PIE, so it's not strange that they share so many features even today

[@Wolod1402]

I think that it's super cool that Baltic people put so much effort in preserving their culture. Keep up the good work Baltic friends! Greeting from Ukraine ;)

[@jonasjonava]

Литва. Каунас. Сестри і Брати, Українці. Молимось за вашу перемогу. Слава Україні.!!!🇱🇹❤🇺🇦

[@user-xs1ot3zi8n]

@@jonasjonava вами тоже надо заняться

[@jonasjonava]

@@user-xs1ot3zi8n 🧐🤭🙂🙃🙂Mort aux occupants russes ! Gloire à l'Ukraine ! Lithuanie, ville de Kaunas.

[@user-xs1ot3zi8n]

@@jonasjonava вы там на наших купленных у Швеции землях не сильно сорите?

[@crocolagerfelden6142]

@@user-xs1ot3zi8n Have you run out of the washing machines you stole from Ukraine, do you need more? Perhaps we should switch from fundraising for ammo for Ukraine to collecting funds to buy you the "fancy" appliances you seem to be so impressed with, maybe that would stop the war? Come on. You can simply ask. No need to play tough ;) Anyway, We've seen your "Russian World" when you tried to russify us again and again, banned our language, sent our people to Siberia, exterminated our elites. So eff off, will ya.

[@ben-taobeneton3945]

Wow! As a Latvian, I'm genuinely surprised by how qualitative this video has been made. I've seen many videos about my homeland but they explain partly or have not researched enough to grasp the full TRUE picture. In general dogwater. Butt his was really, really good. I'm proud if this production. I have no complaints at all. _Cieņā!_ (Respect) Videos like these show the true reality of my people and give awareness to other people of that my country exists. Thank you for that! _Paldies!_ 🙏

[@ramunasmakelis]

Same from Lithuanian side - I really like cherry picking, as of language side - no inconsistencies found. Some minor issues with historical facts only.

[@u1zha]

@@ramunasmakelis Did you mean nitpicking... (Sorry for nitpicking)

[@ramunasmakelis]

@@u1zha maybe.

[@manometras]

Same opinion from Lithuania. No bs, it all is correct and important to tell to the world.

[@order_truth_involvement6135]

About time! Baltic languages are interesting

[@galaxydave3807]

What about time?

[@ashmckinlay1402]

The forgotten flavour.

[@mihanich]

Unironiacally Baltic languages are one of the most interesting ones among Indo-European ones

[@shimokitazawa1217]

Honestly, I would listen to another hour about Baltic languages with great pleasure.

[@nikitazogas3676]

Konnichiwa!

[@antonsdefrancua]

Hi from Latvia, to my brothers Lithuania. I love you all good people. It was such important that we stayed on Baltic way. I am proud how such a small nations could be powerful of changes. I love my best neighbors Lithuania and Estonia.

[@lissandrafreljord7913]

Can we just take a moment to appreciate how insanely educational and in-depth Paul's videos always are. This stuff must have taken a lot of research and studying to learn the features of new languages, and compress it in a 16-minute-long video. Legit PhD quality level.

[@SphereofCygnus]

​@Россия всё To me, Paul seems like the kind of guy who would seek out more reliable sources of information than Wikipedia. Paul's videos are more substantial than Wikipedia, as far as I'm concerned!

[@eternaltale6552]

I am from Latvia. Latvians have some interesting language, because we use some Estonian words too. For example word- a hause, is same as in Estonia- māja, but we also use Lithuanian Baltic variant - nams.

[@zamanium7517]

Латышский язык звучит красиво

[@EeeEee-bm5gx]

Latvian only has like 15 loanwords from Finnic languages. It doesn't compare to ~150 loanwords from Slavic languages and ~ 1500 loanwords from Germanic languages. The main thing Latvian gets from their Finnic neighbors is the stress pattern. I guess Latvian is Lithuanian spoken with an Estonian accent.

[@Fin4L6are]

@@EeeEee-bm5gx Latvian has at least 200-300 words from Livonian (if not more), which is a Finnic language.

[@BichaelStevens]

Kāda daļa mūsu ikdienas vārdu ir aizgūti no lībiešiem, tāpēc. Labs piemērs ir "puika", tas pats kas mūsdienās somu valodā "poika".

[@phirion6341]

@@EeeEee-bm5gx Livonian had a huge influence

[@mikahamari6420]

As a native speaker of Finnish I can recognize that Latvian is "the most Finnic" Indo-European language there is, Livonian connection is so strong. The relation is mutual, Finnic languages are "the most Baltic" languages in Uralic family, which is understandable when you look at the map. There are many old Baltic loan words in Finnic languages, we have lived together here up North, borrowed and shared culture. Some Latvian words and place names sound very Estonian, very beautiful. As Latvian, also Lithuanian language sounds beautiful, it has distinctive, pleasant sound with interesting word structures. Using -s for example in last names is recognizable feature in it, as in Latvian (I usually recognize, which names are Latvian and which Lithuanian). It would be nice to hear more of Lithuanian language in media. I am glad that we have KZbin for all who are interested, thank you for great video, as always.

[@vikingninja8487]

latvians are estonian speaking lithuanians or lithuanian speaking estonians🤣

[@mikahamari6420]

@@vikingninja8487 That's funny, thank you. 🙂 Interference between native and learned language would cause somewhat similar effect as borrowing and co-existence in geographical area. It is not in all ways comparable between dialects, but also in them, those dialects that are in-between and have heritage/influence from many directions, are special cases of mutual resemblance. Finnish dialects that sound most like Finnish standard language are those spoken on the border between traditional line of Eastern and Western dialects in the Middle parts of Finland. It is what our Standard language is, the mixture of Western and Eastern features, of course deliberately chosen ones.

[@vikingninja8487]

@@mikahamari6420 i as a latvian also feel some weird connection with finns. latvians are one of the few, that call fiinns "somi" same as you call yourselves and when i watch finnish movies everything feels somewhat familiar......i can't explain it. i personally have always felt closer to finns and estonians than lithuanians although i have no clue what you guys are saying.

[@mikahamari6420]

@@vikingninja8487 Yes, when I noticed it, I thought immediately that also it tells about close connection, that like Estonian, also Latvian and Lithuanian use of Finland word "Suomi" (of course with slightly different versions). There is a strong, deeper, connection, and I am glad to hear that also you feel it. 👍

[@einar5652]

Speaking of loan words, as a Lithuanian I've been always interested in that even our language has a bit of finnic loanwords or vice-versa (Kirvis - axe, laivas - boat/ship come to mind). Also I've read that a lot of our hydronyms have finno ugric roots. This would always make me wonder of how the ancient baltic and finnic people interacted all along the baltic region.

[@AdamZugone]

I took an evening trip to Klaipėda, Lithuania from Liepāja, Latvia a couple days ago and my friends and I found a sentence on a monument in the city that was almost identical to Latvian - "esame viena tauta, viena žemė, viena Lietuva" (in Latvian it would be "esam viena tauta, viena zeme, viena Lietuva"). We found it so fun how Latvian and Lithuanian can sometimes be almost identical. It's an interesting situation we live in.

[@rlupara]

esam viena tauta, viena zeme, viena Lietuva could be said in Lithuanian aswell

[@zimriel]

I had that experience (English speaker) listening to "Here Comes The Sun" by Rammstein

[@jakubpietrzak7338]

First, I have to admit, that this channel is really great. Paul, big congratulations for everything you did here so far. Second - I really waited for video covering baltic languages. Now - being native Polish, having some knowledge about russian language (people from my generation HAD to learn it at school since 5th grade), and - more - being a sound engineer and having worked on Lithuanian and Latvian projects with professional voice actors, I have say that baltic languages are incomprehensible for me, even loan words sound so different, that you just cannot connect them with original words. Here in Poland we have a Lithuanian tv station on cable tv, I watched it many times trying to understand it… and sorry, it is just impossible. You might recognise some written loan or common words, but it is not obvious. Yes, Lithuanian and Latvian grammar is similar to Polish (7 cases, lots of inflections, variable word order and so on), but in most Slavic languages there are no tones and articles, like “a” or “the” (only Bulgarian have such articles); This simply means, that baltic languages and slavic languages split quite long time ago - so relationship between those families can be deducted rather from a history and grammar, not from today’s vocabulary similarities. Slavic languages are still similar to each other - I have no problem with basic conversation with Czechs, Slovaks, Slovens, Croats, Serbs and vice versa. After February the 24th last year, lots of Ukrainians came to my home country - no problem with communication al all. But Baltic languages looks like a “different beast”. I really like hearing those 2 languages, as they have beautiful melody and kind of accentuation. Sound-wise - they are far from russian.

[@antanaslomsargis8952]

I’ve already wrote in other thread, that russian language is a mixture of baltic/slavic & turkish languages, so some words are unrecognisible as aliens. According connection of languages known as slavic and languages known as baltic: there is a need of math action: if knowing baltic, you want to catch slavic word, you need to assemble two or more words, like sokyra => su kyra => su kirviu (with axe) => o, thats kirvis (axe). In oposite direction, you need to strip. And of cause, speed of speach, makes that imposible to do that online.

[@AARB-]

Was waiting for this for YEARS! Really appreciate you covered LT and LV, and also I do appreciate all that you are doing for languages of the world. You rock! Sėkmės!

[@AthulMcMohan77]

Does your name by any chance mean “rising sun” ? Cf. “Aruna” meaning rising sun in Sanskrit.

[@AARB-]

@@AthulMcMohan77 it derives from Aras (means Eagle in old-Lithuanian), but it's possible it came up from Sanskrit, originally, just the meaning and/or ending took some slight turn.

[@arniskalnins1441]

Ir patiess prieks, ka kāds izrāda interesi par mūsu valodu, pat, ja esam maza tauta. Jāpiekrīt, ka šo valodu nav tik viegli apgūt.

[@andriusbrusokas2282]

Kad maža tauta, tai nereiškia, kad kažkuo esam prastesnis vieni už kitus, brolau.

[@Eeksus]

As a lithuanian understood only "esam maza tauta" we are small nation

[@TNCo230]

Ačiū. Sveikinimai broliukams 🙂

[@drixcel2741]

You explained the part about "Mazulis raud." and the Lithuanian cognate "Mažylis rauda" very well. As a Lithuanian I often notice that I can understand latvian sayings, but I'm aware that my primary translation most likely wouldn't be understood by a Latvian. I wonder if that is true more generally, are there really more Latvian expressions understandable to Lithuanians but not vice versa? And overall, a very well researched video! It only lacked the elnias (brieži) - briedis (alnis) situation - moose means dear and dear means moose😆

[@markykid8760]

Crazy! Just don't buy venison from the other country.

[@Sidavs]

I guess that in most cases it would be the other way around because Lithuanians have a lot of archaic words that Latvians have preserved as rarely used or poetic forms that can still be understood.

[@Krista1D]

yeah, i've hear as well that generally lithuanians can understand latvian better than latvians understand lithuanians. although sometimes i see a lithuanian word or a sentence and it is understandable because the words are similar to "old"/poetic words that are used in latvian literature and poetry, which would typically not be used in everyday context

[@TomasJknOnYT]

In addition to elnias vs briedis, balos vs pelkės are swapped if I remember correctly - balos means puddles and pelkės means swamps in Lithuanian, while in Latvian it's the other way arround :)

[@Sofi00]

@@TomasJknOnYT i don’t really know what balos could be in Latvian (swamp is purvs) but peļķe is a puddle😄

[@Teskalis]

Lithuanian here, looking forward to this video

[@Roop1962]

My mother tongue is Bangla (Bengali) and I did Sanskrit in school for four years. In addition, I speak Hindi, English and French. Now out of these languages, it was Sanskrit that the Baltic languages were most strongly redolent of. Thanks for bringing us these wonderful videos.

[@Aditya-te7oo]

Biswaroop Chatterjee এখানে একজন বাঙালিকে দেখে খুশি হলাম।

[@Roop1962]

@আদিত্য (Aditya) আমিও 😊

[@NuisanceMan]

Probably, Sanskrit is closer because Classical Sanskrit is over 2500 years old and therefore retains much of Proto-Indo-European, being closer to it in time, and Lithuanian is very conservative and so conserves it well even today.

[@Roop1962]

@Michael Lubin - Agree totally

[@starvid1310]

@Biswaroop Chatterjee You are right. Those similarities found between Baltic l-ges & Sanscrit demonstrate why the language family is called Indo-European.

[@Aappeellssiinniinnee]

I am lithuanian and i grew up near the Latvian border and some of my distant relatives are latvians (my dad's cousins). So I remember those rare occasions when they meet, each side speaks their own language and both sides understand each other well. Me personally, not so good, although it is always very interesting to compare written lithuanian to latvian on product packages etc

[@NuisanceMan]

@Vaidas K You keep pasting that comment over and over, but you don't know what you're talking about. Baltic and Slavic are connected, but much more distantly than the different Baltic language are to each other or than the different Slavic language are to each other.

[@dominykasjonasblynas9312]

@Vaidas K nerašyk sąmokslo teorijų, nebent turi gerų įrodymų

[@fidenemini111]

@@dominykasjonasblynas9312 Iš tikrųjų tai ne sąmokslo teorija - nemažai kalbininkų, tame tarpe ir rusų slavistų (Sankt Peterburgo mokyklos atstovų) neigia bendrą baltoslavišką fazę, nes tarp baltų ir slavų kalbų yra 19 amžiaus kalbininko Augusto Šleicherio (tos teorijos autoriaus) nepastebėtų ar nežinotų fundamentalių skirtumų, darančių neįmanomu bendros prokalbės buvimą. Baltų-slavų prokalbės taip ir nepavyksta įtikinamai rekonstruoti. Akademikas Vladimiras Toporovas manė, kad praslavai susiformavo iš atskilusių nuo vakarų batų periferinių genčių. Tai būtų psnašu į Rozwadowskio schemą, tik batoslavišką fazę reikėtų pakeisti baltiška. Pasiskaitykit lituanus.org esantį 1967 m. daktaro Antano Klimo straipsnį BALTO-SLAVIC OR BALTIC AND SLAVIC? (The Relationship of Baltic and Slavic Languages). baltistica.lt rusų kalba PDF formate yra V.K. Žuravliovo straipsnis K PROBLEME BALTO-SLAVIANSKIH JAZYKOVYH OTNOSHENIJ. Taip pat peržvelgkite rusiško forumo lingvoforum.net temoje esančia diskusiją (Slavianskaja prarodina ibalto-slavianskaja gipoteza). Bus tikrai įdomu😁.

[@manometras]

@@dominykasjonasblynas9312 , jis nerašo sąmokslo teorijų. Čia elementarus teiginys, kad lingvistai ginčijasi dėl to, kaip vystėsi ir kaip vienos kitas veikė baltų ir slavų kalbos. O geri įrodymai yra sudėtingi, moksliniai, labai mažai žmonių yra kompetentingi juos pateikti ir suprasti, kad priimtų ar atmestų. Vargu ar bent du tokie profesionalūs r8mti žmonės susitiks čia komentaruose ir pradės rimtai diskutuoti.

[@karkevicius]

@@NuisanceMan Baltic and Slavic languages have a common ancestor just like Slavic and Germanic languages have a common ancestor. They’re really not related whatsoever

[@MoonlightCtl]

And in all of this there's me from Italy learning Lithuanian for personal culture only. It sounds quite melodious and I got the grasp of it!

[@321tms2]

interesting hobby. i really respect your choice :)

[@MoonlightCtl]

@@321tms2 thanks!

[@Bdrbs]

@@MoonlightCtl Lithuanian language superiority!!! But i guess you will have really hard time to learn pronouncing Lithuanian words in a correct way.

[@eh1702]

@@Bdrbs I would think most Italians would have no problem at all pronouncing Lithuanian. I guess it depends what Italian dialect they have, but I’ve heard Italians who have really similar “plain”, open vowel sounds. There are one or two diphthongs, but again I see no problem for Italians: (eg “ua” comes out as a quick oo-ah.) The consonants - they are the same, except in Lithuanian some are smooshed together, as in “žmogus”. It is very easy for most Scottish people to make the sounds of Lithuanian too.

[@MoonlightCtl]

@@Bdrbs Thanks! I'm sure I'm getting the stress wrong on 99% of the words haha

[@onelungg]

for the question of the day "mazulis raud" example perfectly answers it. many times as lithuanian if you read a latvian sentance you have to insert confused thinking meme and there is a big chance that the meaning will come to you

[@tomsmansvards]

Yeah, and weirdly it often doesn't work in other direction as for Latvian words "kūdikis" and "verkia" mean completely nothing. I've heard it from many that it is easier for Lithuanians to understand Latvian than for Latvians to understand Lithuanian.

[@BichaelStevens]

@@tomsmansvards Yea. They're aliens to me.

[@doomsday248842]

@@tomsmansvards Agree. Maybe if i squint really hard, i see similarity between word "verkia" and "verkšķ", but i wouldn't use "verkšķ" - way too much negative connotation (For english speakers - "verkšķēt" means loud, obnoxious, annoying crying for no reason.)

[@042n8.]

@@doomsday248842 If that's true, I think you've cracked the code ;D And 'If I squint really hard' feeling is 100% relatable when we try make sense of Latvian words xD Cheers, my squinting brother!

[@blueeyedbaer]

@@doomsday248842 In Lithuanian "verkia" is a general verb for any kind of crying, while "rauda" means loud, painful crying, weeping. "Rauda" sounds more archaic to me as it's not so common and comes often in folklore.

[@harrietamidala1691]

Oh my God, I have been waiting for this video for a very long time. You don’t know how long I’ve been anticipating the day langfocus would cover the Baltic languages.

[@brunosipavicius7867]

Yes, me too

[@Vhisper]

@Vaidas K Hey Vaidas! I read your articles on Quora! Good to see you there! Thank you for your job, you inspired me a lot!

[@MrKapostins]

"Dēli ar dēli nosita dēli." - in this example you change pronunciation of a letter "ē" in Latvian and get three words with a whole different meaning. Love my language

[@ApusApus]

In similar vein, I remember a quote from a non-native speaker: "[Latviešu valoda ir viena dīvaina valoda] - to puik ir dēle, to plank ir dēle un to kukain ir dēle"

[@--Mar]

Another version is 'Dēli sita dēli ar dēli'.

[@ok-vk9fv]

Dēli, kā bērni, dēli kā koks, kas ir trešais? Dēle?

[@chipzys5487]

@@ok-vk9fv Dēlē , kā ezera dēle.

[@ok-vk9fv]

@@chipzys5487 ja

[@JP-2303]

What a pleasant surprise! I have been watching Langfocus over the last few days and, being of Lithuanian heritage myself, I was coincidentally wondering when Paul would make a language profile video on the Baltic languages.

[@Vhisper]

Yeees! Was waiting for this video for a while now!

[@CookieFonster]

When I got to the part about the seven noun cases that these languages have, I couldn't help but laugh at how complicated that seemed. But I know that these cases have a hidden advantage: they let your sentences become more expressive because of the free word order, and you can move the part of the sentence you want to highlight to the front. You can do that to some extent in German, which has four noun cases (one of which is nearly exclusive to formal writing), but the Baltic languages seem like another level. To native speakers, I can only imagine how expressive and creative you can get with them. Also, I find it endearing that in the comments, Latvians and Lithuanians are saying that they love the other country but crack up at each other's languages.

[@mikahamari6420]

You are correct about the cases. Word forms in agglutinative languages are like suitcases tightly packed with meaning. Of course pre- and postpositions have same kind of tasks, but packing everything in one word form is handy when you learn the system. They give peculiar syntax and give high variation of subtle nuances. 7 cases is a lot. I am not Latvian or Lithuanian, but my native language is Finnish, which has 15 cases. For example Hungarian in Uralic family has many more. The amount is not always the main thing. For example Finnish partitive is notoriously difficult case to learn, and as you can guess, its uses for example as object case alongside accusative give incredible expression powers. Partitive is a machine within machine of Finnish grammar. I am quite sure that Latvian and Lithuanian have similar grammatical machines at their disposal.

[@John_Weiss]

@@mikahamari6420 Indeed! Cases are an alternative to prepositions [and postpositions], and are used grammatically in the same way.

[@milanaero]

This is true also for most of the Slavic languages (I'm Czech). With this system in your language, you can really make minute details stand out. Also when you learn english, you sometimes feel like a retard, if I can name this feeling correctly, because you always put words into a pattern. Whereas in writing composition exercises in our native languages we are taught to not repeat the same patterns, drop all the pronouns where possible (no I, I, I, he, he, ...), play around with the word order to bring information out (last word in the sentence is the "most significant" in Czech) ...

[@b0i993]

Indeed it might be confusing at first, but it's not as complicated as with Estonian: if I'm not mistaken, they have 14 noun cases!

[@TheMrBuGyZ]

Yeah you right thats why it's sometimes hard to expres yourself in simple language like english. It is strange how languages evolved in europe more simle language becomes it's harder to pronounce or read it.😅

[@benitocamelo1488]

I've met several Lithuanians in my country and I've heard them speak their language which I think it's so beautiful. Their story of resistance and defiance makes it even moreso

[@truearmy1953]

As an Indian , I am a native speaker of my mother tongue (it's other than hindi) and our national language Hindi , i found amazingly High similarity between Latvian and my Local Language & Hindi, when I saw both the verbs which the LangFocus channel used as an example in this video :- 1. To cry 8:44 :- Latvian:"Raud" , Hindi& My Local Language: "Ro" 2. You went 9:30:- Latvian : Tu gayi, Hindi: Tu Gaya, My local Language: Tu geya. Before this I knew that Lithuanian and our Sanskrit language were similar , but now we all come to know that even Latvian and Indian languages(sanskrit/ local languages) are very similar.

[@max.lajauskas]

I'm from Klaipėda. Latvian reads like a lost dialect of Samogitian when I visit - words don't make sense in Lithuanian but magically start making sense in Samogitian.

[@romanr.301]

This is a lovely surprise! The Baltic languages are an often understudied family of the Indo-European languages, and one of the most mysterious to me because of just how little they’re spoken of.

[@Mattis06]

Love from Estonia❤

[@Some.Paleshuk]

I am a Belarusian. Wikipedia says we were balts living here on modern Belarus territory until slavic tribes came and we were all peacefully mixed and slavicized. Then so many centuries together with Lithuanian bros in common state:) These are 2 facts that formed our identity&language apart from all other slavic bros. So I wanna learn Lithuanian to understand roots of identity of my language deeper. And understand Lithuanian bros:D

[@superkamiguru6856]

I'm not sure if that Wikipedia page was false or a mere theory, but there's not much to suggest that the Baltic people were slavicized on a heavy level. The Baltic and Slavic families are in a super family known as Balto-Slav. It's possible that the Baltic languages are just a less evolved more conservative language family compared to Slavic. Let's imagine it as a flow. With each turn it changes and keeps going infinitely. Starting as the Indo-European language, it turns into the Balto-Slavic dialect. This splits as it turns into Baltic. Then Slavic. Then it turns into East Slavic, West Slavic, South Slavic, etc. So they are cousin languages, rather than separate. Let's look at an example. For the word "country". In Ukrainian, it is Krayina. In Lithuanian, the word land is Krastas for one of its variations. Very similar, right?

[@notfound9816]

​@@superkamiguru6856you didn't get it, There in Belarus and Russia, Was a Baltic tribe called Golyad', It's name etymologically means something like "people of the edge", because they used to live at the eastern edge of Baltic world

[@vytautaszemelis4403]

belarusian-rusins, not baltic..

[@vytautaszemelis4403]

@@notfound9816 🥔🤡🥔🐓💨💨

[@copy2886]

modern languages do not mean advanced!, in most cases, this is not evolution but the reduction of features, simplification, and loss of function. So with a written tradition in Europe languages degraded and became rigged, and started to use fewer words and strict grammatical from to understand each other. Proto European and Baltic languages were richer, more flexible and at the same time needed less words to code more information (e.g. masculinity, femininity)@@superkamiguru6856

[@bahramnoorzadeh8060]

I am a Persian speaker and oh OMG, I am so exited to see that the word for baby in Lithuanian language is almost identical to the same word in Persian language. We use the word "kudäk". i am using a Finnish keyboard and "ä" sounds as in "hat" in English. Also the word for "you" singular is the same. We also say "to", with a short o sound. Furthermore, in Persian we also use the word "käs" when we ask about a person. We say "U che käsi äst?" meaning "who is he?". Also the verb "to be" in persian is "bud" which is similar to the Lithuanian "but".

[@aiste8099]

‘u che käsi äst?’ looks very similar to ‘tu čia kas esi?’. Although the lithuanian version sounds a bit mean, similar to “and who do you think you are?” but still its interesting to see some similarities between seemingly very distant languages

[@aleksejsz]

Latvian here. After working almost 10 years in baltic company, can say that definitely am able to pick up what is talked about when Lithuanian collegues discuss among themselves. But all in all - would still be rather long time to learn Lithuanian properly.

[@321tms2]

at first wee need to agree to retranslate each others tv chanels in our countries and have a chance to learn latvian or lithuanian as a third language in school. atleast for a year to have some basics. out of respect for each other and for preservation of our languages for future generations. the area of baltic languages shrinked too much in last 1000 years.

[@victoriav.7815]

I've been waiting for the video on Baltic languages for so long🎉

[@Takosaga]

Moved to Latvia 2 years ago from Texas, will eventually will need to know Latvian. Latvian is beautiful sounding and still trying to learn how to recognize and make the inflections for letters.

[@shrekas2966]

Take my advice when learning baltic, slavic languages. Try to just learn basic forms of words. Learning all 7 cases is just too time-consuming.

[@gytisgytis6628]

A small comment. The Lithuanian word "kišenė" -pocket is an original Lithuanian word. It comes from the word "kišti" put in (Insert something). In Polish language the word put in is ,,wloz“ (,, włóż rękę do kieszeni“ means ,,put hand to the pocket“, In Lithuanian language the same fraze looks like ,,kišti ranką į kišenę“ ) This is one of those rare words that Poles borrowed from Lithuanians. Thanks for video:)

[@ievakilcauskaite8280]

I wanted to comment on the same thing. Kišenė comes from verb kišti (kišo, kiša, kiš). This word has lithuanian origins. And as lithuanian women were and still are very skilled in sewing, I believe this word is ours, not polish :)

[@bristonknight9315]

@@ievakilcauskaite8280 Your explanation is very convincing. In Ukrainian language, there's also a word that has a similar pronunciation and meaning: кишèня, pronounced [kyshènia]. I only used the English 'sh' to express the sound 'š'. I guess it was borrowed from Lithuanian when the principaulity of Kyiv (Kiev) was a part of big Lithuania, because it has no similar same-root words, like it has in lithuanian. Except one, but it is a derivative: kysheñkòvyj (adj.), meaning 'pocket size' something. If you don't mind, would you tell me how will be the following words in Lithuanian: To wash Washed Washing Washing desk I'm asking about it because these words belong to a big word family, which is related to Sanskrit... I want to see if it's the same in Lithuanian as it is in Ukrainian.

[@jurateholm5109]

@@bristonknight9315 To wash - plauti (dishes, hair), skalbti (blous), trinkti (hair) Washed - išsplautas, išskalbtas Washing - plaunu, skalbiu, trenku Washing desk - nuplauti stalą

[@bristonknight9315]

@@jurateholm5109 - Thanks a lot! I just wanted to add that the reason for my enquiry is that I wanted to see if the Sanscrit root of that word in Ukrainian has something to do with Lithuanian language, being one of the oldest remnants of the ancient European... The Sanscrit word "PRANA," which is the attribute of Vishnu deity and means "clean", is present in the family of Ukrainian words, starting with the name of their pre-christian deity PERUN, and then: To Wash with water for cleaning - PRÀTY (unfinished process), and VÝPRATY (to wash something to the point of complete cleanness). PRANNIÀ - the process of washing; PRÀCHKA, or PRÀČKA - the lady whose occupation is washing cloth with water; VÝPRANY - cleaned by washing, corresponds to the verbal form of Past Participe in English; PRÀNYK - the desk for washing that has riffles on it. Even the word "PRIÀNYK", meaning a cookie in Ukrainian, comes from the habit of preparing the paste for cookies using the desk for washing, because it was usually made of wood, and was imprinting its design to the paste... And the final word is PRÀSKA, also related to managing cloths, making them clean... I wish you a good day.

[@aurimasbanionis]

@@bristonknight9315 Lithuanian language also has - prausti; einu prausti veidą - going to wash my face

[@jygeb]

Deer: LT elnias, LV briedis Moose: LT briedis, LV alnis

[@johnmccoy9058]

Glad to see you do the Baltics, Paul. I've been working on Lithuanian for the past 6 years (I'm ethnically half-Lithuanian and have been re-connecting with the country, language and some cousins). Yes, the grammar is quite a challenge. And the vocabulary set is mostly distinct from English so it's a slog to learn. You talked about the 7 grammatical cases. The grammar textbooks don't dwell on this, but there are vestiges of a couple more still present in the language today. There's a vestigial ablative, I believe -- e.g. darban (to work), anapilen (to the other kingdom, which is a polite way of saying someone died), pirmyn (forward), žemyn (downward). There's also a case that mean toward the end of something -- vasarop (toward the end of summer), rudienop (autumn), galop (toward the end of the end, I guess). I found these a challenge because a) they weren't in the grammar textbooks, and b) they weren't in the dictionary as such. But they still occur commonly.

[@oskarsmuksimovs3061]

I am a latvian speaker and lithuanian for me sounds like an older version of latvian. Some words just sound ancient. Written lithuanina - can understand whats said in general. Some words give clues about the topic, that will ease deciphering of other words. It is important to note that my mother is latgalian so I have been exposed greatly to latgalian, which is more similar to lithuanian. So it could be easier for me to understand lithuanina that other latvians with no latglian relatives

[@Rasytojas1980]

Yes because Latgale was under Polish rule like Lithuania. Lithuanian is based on Eastern lithuanian Aukstaitian dialect (not western Samogitian dialect) which is similar to Latgalian. Latvian is based on western dialect which is not similar to Aukstaitian. That’s why Latgalian is similar to Lithuanian, while Latvian not

[@pmanija]

Completely opposite for me (as a Lithuanian speaker) to me Latvian sounds like a more archaic version of Lithuanian, with “simpler” words, example “push” (like a sign on a door), Latvian - “grusti”, Lithuanian - “Stumti”. It gets the point across for me but it sounds like an “old timey” way of saying in Lithuanian. Obviously these days almost no one tries to speak foreign while visiting, just default to English (or Russian)

[@oskarsmuksimovs3061]

@@pmanija in latvian there is “grūst” and “stumt”. Both mean “to push”.

[@rolandsv8]

@@oskarsmuksimovs3061 subtle difference being "grūst" is "push sharply", "stumt" is"push gradually"

[@Bdrbs]

Lithuanian in a way is an older version of Latvian because Lithuanian is just a bit more archaic than Latvian

[@globetrekker86]

Latvian and Lithuanian have some of the coolest phono-aesthetics among Indo-European tongues. Could David Peterson have drawn inspiration from Lithuanian for High Valyrian? I wouldn’t be surprised

[@martukas398]

It's funny, I was thinking the same thing when watching that show a few years ago. To a Lithuanian ear, High Valyrians sounds like... if you got me really drunk, you could convince me it's Latvian? Zaldrizot for dragon even sounds like some corruption of "green lizard" :D

[@keberiokst7]

@@martukas398 Exactly!! It's drunk Lithuanian hahaa

[@chrissiek8706]

Totally! The uncanny feeling like I should understand it, but don't? Like Latvian for me 😅

[@sortysciaofiscia]

@@martukas398 haha, no wonder you often see Valyrians with a goblet of wine in their hand

[@egonsrebainis6939]

A Latvian here! Because I come from Latgale (the eastern bit) I'd say we have better understanding of Lithuanian than the rest of the country. As a fun side note - in middle school in a Latvian lesson we had a task to translate sentences from Lithuanian to Latvian:)

[@DonnieKreyden]

Es arī esmu no Latgales un tā bij mana balss 😁 vai tu pamanīji nelielu akcentu?

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

@@DonnieKreyden Neviens šajā videō nemācēja runāt latviski. Nepareizi uzsvari, atsevišķi vārdi nevis vienoti teikumi, ... Otrkārt, runāt bez akcenta ir kā rakstīt bez fonta. Akcents ir skaņu kopa ko lieto runājot.

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

"I'd say we have better understanding of Lithuanian than the rest of the country." Neesmu drošs par to, tu gan jau labāk saproti augštaitiešus bet kurzemnieki labāk saprot žemaišus. Un tad esmu es kurš gan jau labāk saprot visus, jo man padodas valodas, es mīlu valodas un esmu daudz mācījies.

[@DonnieKreyden]

@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 hmm tev ir taisnība 🙌🏻

[@alexyanshevics3798]

Ir nianses, ja uzrakstīt "es piekrītu" , tad lietuvieši nesapratīs, bet ja "tas tiesa" , tad viņi sapratīs .

[@LingoLizard]

Ah yes, my favorite Baltic language…Beyond.

[@zigsynx5364]

Best comment😂

[@shwabb1]

That's the country Buzz Lightyear visited

[@ucepulyte]

What an interesting presentation! I am Lithuanian and my significant other is Latvian. We spend around 50/50 between the two countries, and we're self-learning each other's languages. It surprised me that we have significant differences in our learning process. It didn't take long for me to adapt to Latvian and be able to understand and communicate in a basic way. I can find similarities, catch familiar sounding words and interpret them (though often not exactly correct). Having met a handful of Latvians who speak Lithuanian, I got to know that their leaning process is quite different. Curiously, instead of "adapting" their native language knowledge, they seem to take Lithuanian as a new, different and less intinuitive language. I am really glad to be learning Latvian and enjoy communicating in this language. It seems odd to me that we are close brotherly nations, yet we most usually communicate through much less related languages, such as English or Russian. That feels like a loss, and I hope more Lithuanians and Latvians decide to learn each other's languages.

[@davislinkaits6935]

OMG, I have never thought about Latvian having some tones, until I realised that your example is completely correct. We usually add some body language for better comprehension.

[@cestmoiclara]

where are u from bestie ?

[@irinaspalve8356]

Finally a video about Baltic languages! 😍 Latvian is my second language that I use everyday and speak fluently. Nevertheless, about pitch tones in Latvian I first heard about a year ago. It wasn't taught to us in school. I asked my husband, who is a native Latvian, but he also didn't know that Latvian is a tonal langauge. We just speak the way we do and that's all. Even if you pronounce tā with a wrong pitch, I guess noone would notice or at least will understand what you want to say. Speaking about Lithuanian, knowing both Russian and Latvian gives me more clues to descript the writing, but when it comes to understanding spoken language - we just don't understand anything. Even knowledge of Latgalian language doesn't help. It is such a tragedy that we really just can't understand each other though our languages are of the same family. I hope someday I'll learn at least a bit of spoken language to travel more freely to our sisterland. And one more funny fact about the word "melns", though it means black in Latvian, we call blueberry - mellene.

[@onelungg]

And in Lithuanian blueberries is mėlynės 🙂

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

Pārsvarā kurzemnieki un zemgalieši lieto parasto un neparasto toni, un vidzemnieki, sēlieši un latgalieši lieto parasto un lauzto toni. Maz ir izlokšņu kurās lieto gan parasto, krītošo un lauzto. Pasaki vārdus zāle (grass) un zāle (hall), dzirdi atšķirību? Zāle (hall) vajadzētu būt ar parasto vai krītošo, un zāle (grass) vajadzētu būt ar otru ko to zini.

[@justasmorkunas7638]

So it’s all fun and confusing with Latvian and Lithuanian words: black (Lith. juodas) is Lat. melns, so blue (Lith. mėlynas) is Lat. zils, and Lith. žilas (gray [hair]) is Lat. sirms? Which is like Lith. širmas (light gray), which is pelēks in Lat. Okay… this sounds a lot like Lith. pilkas- “gray”; back to black (lit. juodas) in Latvian sounds like jods (devil), which is velnias in Lithuanian, which finallly is ‘velns’ in Latvian! Huh 😅😅😅

[@irinaspalve8356]

@@justasmorkunas7638 about the last one Jods - we have it too in Latvian mythology. 😁 Very cool line of words that are similar but the meaning somehow is a bit or completely different. Grey hair - sirmi mati, you're right.

[@vikingninja8487]

@@justasmorkunas7638 there's also latvian "mēļš" that means dark blue.....to add to confusion 🤣

[@heisen-bones]

OMGGGG YOU HAVE NO IDEA HOW LONG I'VE WAITED FOR THIS

[@Soulwatcher56]

Polish, my native language, also has a noun declension with 7 cases, exactly the same ones as in Lithuanian and Latvian.

[@bristonknight9315]

@ Soulwatcher56 - Same in Ukrainian. I'm Canadian of German descent, by the way, and I am interested in comparative linguistics.

[@curtpiazza1688]

Great informative video! Love the beautiful background images!! I grew up in the small town of Luzerne Pa. Many Lithuanian immigrants in the early 1900's worked in the coal mines. They built a church that for many years was called St. Ann's..The masses were in Lithuanian and the hymns were sung in Lithuanian! A rich history in small-town USA!

[@BenDover12366]

Lithuanian "kudikis" for "baby" must be a cognate of Persian "kudak", meaning "child".

[@DonnieKreyden]

Oh my God!

[@gytisgal]

Persian is an Indo-European language

[@ivarkich1543]

Actually, 2000+ years ago Baltic and Iranian (Scythian) peoples were neighbours.

[@povilzem]

But in Lithuanian "kudak" is the sound that the chicken makes...

[@John_Weiss]

@@ivarkich1543 It would be more like 3000-4000 years ago, which is when the Indo-Aryan branch headed south into India and Persia.

[@DOSBoxMom]

I remember that, in S.M Stirling's "Island in the Sea of Time," the astronomer on Nantucket had the easiest time talking to the natives of 13th-century BC Britain, because she had learned Lithuanian from her grandmother.

[@adayoung5074]

Lithuanian here. I'm from rural south so Latvian is mostly gibberish to me, I can pick up a stray word or two, but people who live in the north have a different dialect, and honestly the way they speak kinda sounds like Latvian to me.

[@mikahamari6420]

This similarity and dissimilarity sounds logical and familiar concept, very interesting to know. In areas where borders of the countries divide one language or closely related languages, there are dialect continuums, which reflect the earlier stages of the language. I read from old book, that there is dialect continuum between Dutch and German, in which mutual intelligibility is very high, even if the Standard languages are farther from each other. Would you say that Southern Latvians and Northern Lithuanians near border could understand each others dialect, or is there too big gap for them? If I can guess, my guess is that the gap is still quite big, but not as big as between Standard languages.

[@adayoung5074]

@@mikahamari6420 true, but I live right next to polish boarder and almost none of the people speak polish here, but there's a lot of Lithuanian speaking people across the boarder

[@mikahamari6420]

@@adayoung5074 Yes, there can't be dialect continuum between Lithuanian and Polish, even if they are related, because other is Baltic and other is Slavic. Are those Lithuanian speakers in Poland natives or have they learned it as foreign language? (For example here in Finland every Finnish speaker learns Swedish in school, but especially on West and South coast lives native speakers of Swedish. Their variant of Swedish is called Finlandssvenska, Finland's Swedish.)

[@VilniusA]

I am from Lithuania part called Samogotia which borders Latvia and our dialect sounds a lot like latvian language. Also I used to spend a lot of time in latvian seaside during the summer. So i would say I can understand quite a bit more then people from other regions of Lithuania. It is also not that difficult to learn for us lithuanians. I am pretty sure same for our brothers and sisters in Latvia. You can pick it up really quickly.

[@antanaslomsargis8952]

Thats because, while you name your rokonda as samogitia, in practice it is, “marked as dead”, curonian language. It was and still is used at both Lithuania & Latvia, but has impact of standartization into official at both sides. “Pasirokoukev”😊

[@ringailetervydiene5942]

My mom was samogitian and I grew up in Lithuania so honestly I cannot say which one is easier to understand. It seems like I would have easier time in Bauska than in Plungė.

[@antanaslomsargis8952]

@@ringailetervydiene5942 Not even Bauska, but also Liepaja, Kuldiga, Ventspils, Skouda, Telšia and so on, all teritory in old maps marked as curonian land

[@ringailetervydiene5942]

@@antanaslomsargis8952 Ziemgala are curonians? Did not know that.

[@fidenemini111]

@@antanaslomsargis8952 And "rokoutėis", "drobīnas" etc. are actually loanwords from Polish, which are also present in other dialects of Lithuania yet with different rendition due to dialectal peculiarities.

[@kestutisa3826]

Finally - the most conservative Indo-European alive languages - the Baltic languages

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

PIE - Pērkwonos Lietuviski - Pērkūnas Latviski - Pērkuons

[@edvinasmilasius1684]

@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 Lietuviškai - Perkūnas

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

@@edvinasmilasius1684 Such simplificiation.

[@francoisvillon1300]

@@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714 Русский - Перун

[@vytautaszemelis4403]

@@francoisvillon1300 Взято из балтских языков

[@RookEditz]

Thank you for making this video. As a Latvian-Canadian, it was really interesting to watch this video. Un jā, es varu runāt Latviski:)

[@user-fd4sp6bn5r]

I'm from Ukraine, now i stay in Lithuania and i would like to stay here for more time but there is a problem that in the internet are no good courses of Lithuanian language, unfortunately. In my opinion baltic languages sound very interesting.

[@eh1702]

I found a list of internet resources for Lithuanian, but I don’t know how good they are. Mondly. Master Ling. Memrise. Pimsleur. Italki and Talk Like Itanas both seem to have live tutoring. So does Preply, from native speakers. These might be quite expensive… There is also a podcast, 300 episodes, called Lithuanian Out Loud.

[@sortysciaofiscia]

@@eh1702 these courses are... Eh........ I would better recommend going over to marketplace websites and looking for a Ukrainian to Lithuanian teachers. I know there are many, and they're looking for work.

[@AlexBesogonov]

Lithuanian - a language that has everything. Complex conjugations and declensions, its own vocabulary with few cognates, and even freaking tones!

[@mysteriousDSF]

Thank you for the amazing video, I enjoyed watching the premiere. Two things I noticed is that the first syllable stress in Latvian is definitely Uralic influence. I'm Hungarian and I also speak some Finnish. Although interestingly I read that Livonian is / was the only Uralic language that doesn't always have the first syllable rule due to influences from Latvian. These two languages truly corrupted each other haha. The other thing I noticed is that Lithuanian seems to be a very important foundation for the creation of Esperanto.

[@UeArtemis2]

But the cases look very Slavic.

[@manometras]

@Prof. Spudd , and he lived in Lithuania for some time.

[@erykbaradziej3639]

Although I didn't learn Lithuanian language I was learning Hungarian for some time (I'm still on A1 level though) and I think the stress on the first syllable is an advantage of Hungarian as well as the lack of genders. I wonder if there are genders in Lithuanian which was not mentioned in this film (as I remember well). Although genders don't exist in Hungarian the rest of Hungarian grammar makes the language very difficult to learn as a second language. The lack of genders however is symptomatic to Finno-Ugric languages but not to Indo-European ones (including English which has remnant neutral gender in most nouns). So are there genders in Lithuanian and Latvian? Greetings from Poland!

[@manometras]

@@erykbaradziej3639 , yes, there are. There are two grammatical genders of nouns, three genders of pronouns, and there are three genders of adjectives in Lithuanian. Nouns are either masculine or feminine in Lithuanian, but pronouns and adjectives may be masculine, feminine or ‘common’ (all inclusive, like environment). For example, tas, ta, tai; žalias (he is green), žaliA (she is green), žAlia (it is green all around). Things can be he or she, or them grammatically, and there are some common word forms for persons (both he and she could be called vėpla (a git) or nevėkšla (a scallywag). The latter two words look and change like feminine, but they are common-use (about men, about women, about animals even, just not about things).

[@erykbaradziej3639]

@@manometras Thank you for an informative answer.

[@spage80]

Thank you so much. I have been learning Lithuanian for almost two years and this background is very interesting. As always you make amazing videos.

[@jangelbrich7056]

THANKS for the historic background with maps!

[@fidenemini111]

Paul, thank you very much for this long awaited episode! And thank you for a great and important job you are doing!

[@A201053]

I've been waiting for this video for so long😊

[@jozef_chocholacek]

I am Slovak + Czech native speaker, ~B2 in Polish, and still remember some Russian from school. I have friends in Klaipeda region of Lithuania, and when they talk to each other, my ears tell me "you should understand this", because the phonology is very Slavic, and the melody of the language is very similar to Russian - but no, I don't understand a word, not speaking about at least guessing a topic of the talk. Btw. pity there is no good online course of Lithuanian, I'd very much like to learn at least some basics of the language (besides the basic tourist's "Labas!", "Ačiu!", and "Du alaus, prašau". 😆

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

Try reading the written language. We latvieši for one copied and modified the čeh writing system when making our own. Yes there is no good content about our langauges online. Im currently learning it in Latvijas university.

[@Gubbe51]

Lithuanians get offended when foreigners say that their language sounds similar to Russian. So, take care, don't say it to them. (But I feel the same, the phonology of the two languages have much in common).

[@DavidCowie2022]

Does "du alaus, prašau" mean "two beers please" ?

[@francoisvillon1300]

Да, литовский больше по фонетике похож на русский. Он более элегантен и утончен, чем латышский.

[@povilzem]

As Lithuanian, I must agree that Russian phonetics is quite similar. The biggest trouble is minutiae like getting ы just right and the occasional soft L sound where it should be hard. With a bit of practice, a Lithuanian can easily speak Russian without accent. Doesn't quite work the other way around - or the Russians aren't trying hard enough. I do envy the mutual intelligibility of Czech, Slovak and Polish though.

[@tomaskla9030]

Thank you for creating a video on Baltic languages. 🇱🇻❤️🇱🇹

[@reinerkravis2186]

Excellent job covering the tumultuous history and background of these nations, it is very important context and you’ve covered it accurately!

[@weaseled4118]

Been waiting for this for so long

[@DaveDVideoMaker]

I’ve been waiting for a video about the Baltic languages for a long time, but finally it’s here.

[@Barrbarrs]

Thank you very much! I was waiting this video for a long time. :) Great quality as always. As a Latvian, when I hear Lithuanian I have a feeling that it's some weird and funny dialect of Latvian - I can almost understand it, but no, I can't. But I can understand many separate words and often that's enough to decipher general meaning, especially in written form. Lithuanian phonology is quite different from Latvian, which makes it hard to learn proper Lithuanian pronunciation. The words often look similar to Latvian cognates and I intuitively want to pronounce them in Latvian way, which is not at all as they should sound in Lithuanian. And a minor correction - the stress in Latvian is not *always* on the first syllable. Usually it is, but there are some exceptions like compound adverbs (nekur/nowhere, jebkur/anywhere, patlaban/now), paldies/thank you, labdien/hello etc.

[@pawepieniazek2240]

It still amazes me how well researched these videos are. Good job!

[@pantarhei158]

Love Latvia 🇱🇻 and Lithuania 🇱🇹 from Greece 🇬🇷

[@esesininkas]

I am lithuanian and I've been interested in Latvian language for a while. Unfortunately, both languages are too different to just understand from listening or reading. I think, both languages split around 8th century, so they diverged quite a bit from each other in that time. However, there's a ton of words that are the same or almost the same and I can indeed catch some words when listening/reading. But to really understand the meaning, I have to familiarize with some most popular Latvian words first, check for similarities, false friends. I think for a lithuanian person, it would not take too long to learn Latvian language. Idk about the other way around though

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

Define split. Because the languages as they are spoken today came in to being after the black death in the 14. century. If by split you mean that middle baltic split in to the various tribal languages then yes 8. century is about right, but then the difference between augštaitian and žemaitian where as different as between augštaitian and latgaliski. As for learning it depends on what quality you want. For basic understanding lietuvieši would catch on faster but for mastery either way takes just as long.

[@fidenemini111]

No wonder - languages separated more than 1000 years ago and plus got different influences.

[@Nerub33]

Interested in the fate of the Curonian language. Did it just die out, or did it leave its influence in the Latvian and Lithuanian languages? After all, as far as I can tell, the Curonians took part in the ethnogenesis of not only the Latvian, but also the Lithuanian people.

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

@@Nerub33 Latviešu language is a merging of kuršu, zemgaļu, sēļu and latgaļu languages with noticable līvu influence.

[@AndrisGames]

no, not so different. I am Latvian, but I understood Lithuanian when i was even 5 years old.

[@NovomirLanguages]

Wait I am actually so excited for this! I have been interested in Latvian for a long time!

[@EeeEee-bm5gx]

For anyone interested in Latvian, I sincerely suggest googling A Short Grammar of Latvian by late Terje Mathiassen. The few other grammar books available tend to contain some amount of glaring bullcrap. And I say this as a native speaker. If I wasn't Latvian myself, I would suspect some kind of conspiracy by all Latvians. Who knows. Maybe Latvians do not particularly want anyone to speak their secret language and expose their plans for world domination ;)

[@amjan]

Greetings to our Lithuanian and Latvian cousins from Poland! I love that your languages still also have that beautiful complexity that Polish and other Slavic languages have.

[@sortysciaofiscia]

haha... sadly we don't feel the same way about your language. Other slavic languages seem like childsplay to us.

[@sarunaszav8752]

Polski to bardzo piękny język. Dziękuję za piękne słowa!

[@sirdylan2401]

Been waiting for this! Thank you Paul!

[@christopherfilip6949]

As a Czech I've always found it interesting how similar the Baltic languages are to Slavic in some ways (i. e. the same amount of cases as in Czech, būt/būti being almost the same as být/býti etc.)

[@m.m.6670]

That's cause būt/būti and být/býti are from PIE. The same as English to BE or German 'bin, bist', so it's not a Baltic-Slavic thing only.

[@christopherfilip6949]

@M. M. Yes, indeed I know, other good example can be the word for two

[@m.m.6670]

@@christopherfilip6949 Yep, basic vocabulary, such as numbers, colours, etc are all very similar all over Europe.

[@christopherfilip6949]

@@m.m.6670 Yeah, practically all things they knew about in the Yamnaya culture sound similar in Indo-European languages

[@RichieLarpa]

Také jsem si všiml takových věcí, na základě toho se některá slova v litevštině lépe pamatují a dají se lépe naučit. Doporučil bych Vám zrovna tohle video, které jsem nedávno viděl a kde jsou slovanské věty přepsané do neslovanských jazyků, mohlo by Vás zajímat, když Vás fascinují některé podobnosti: kzbin.info/www/bejne/pmHbpJKmj7Clrbs Takových slov je jinak mnoho více: galva vs. hlava malūnas vs. mlýn sėdėti vs. sedět smirdėti vs. smrdět morka vs. mrkev vanduo vs. voda česnakas vs. česnek miestas vs. město mėsa vs. maso ranka vs. ruka vyšnia vs. višeň

[@JimM-zs8ul]

Wow, I'm an English speaker trying to learn the Lithuanian language particularly. I'm not sure if I am happy or depressed about my chances of success after listing to this! But it is what it is as we say, it's just complicated and will require a lot of work. I'm not a linguist by any means, so a lot of this is beyond me, but much appreciate the video! It is the language of my ancestors, and I am well aware of their struggle to preserve the language and will do my best to learn. Every little bit is helpful, and again, thank you for the video!

[@edgarbm6407]

Paul, I can never watch just one of your videos. Every time I come across one of your videos, I have get sucked in to many more through the recommendations. You do awesome work! Thank you very much!

[@romasandmo]

That was impressively well put together! Good job!

[@Dimmiano]

Currently I’m working with bunch of Latvians and notice things you are talking about. Especially words that sounds exactly or almost the same, but get totally different meaning. But when I listen carefully + learned some Latvian words - I can understand most of what they are talking about. And on top of that - we call each other “braliukas”. Which mean brother! And to be honest Latvians for us really are ❤

[@jordanbeal7098]

I spent four months in Klaipeda on a study abroad trip and was so psyched to study Lithuanian, seeing as I was a linguistics student. Unfortunately, I ended up spending much more time using Russian and German, since I knew them better already. Never the less, I still remember bits and pieces of that marvelous little language and all still enjoy reading about it, especially in regards to etymology, and I have an out-of-print Lithuanian textbook for the day I decide to take another crack at it.

[@princessleia0077]

So did I. I enjoyed learning the language the 4 months I was there, and I'm waiting for the day a Lithuanian course shows up on Duolingo so I can study it again.

[@jordanbeal7098]

@@princessleia0077 You didn't happen to study in Klaipeda, did you?

[@emilipela4423]

Not me, a Lithuanian watching a video about my language. Thank you for a well made video, and that you talked about russian influences, because there is nothing more frustrating than people saying that Lithuanian is the same as russian after all these years of people preserving the language under occupation. And to answer your question, if I am traveling in Latvia I can get basic directions and understand simple sentences that you need when travelling. If I'm reading I can understand the basic context what it is about, but definitely can't understand the whole meaning of the text or have a conversation. Though my mom said that she has had conversations with Latvians, when she spoke lithuanian, they spoke latvian and sometimes they used russian words to fill in the gaps, so i guess it is possble.

[@benismann]

ppl who say that lithuanian is basically russian are the same type of ppl who say russian or bulgarian are mongol languages at the core and whatever other stupid shit they can come up with

[@wederMaxim]

Well, that's understandable. After all, people are told about how Stalin evicted all Lithuanians, sending them to Siberia, and replaced them with ethnic Russians.)) If I wasn't Russian, I'd probably think the same thing.

[@johnmccoy9058]

You covered grammatical cases and some of their complexity. One of the tough things about Lithuanian syllable stress is that it migrates around with grammatical case changes. So the same word is stressed in different places depending on how you're using it in a sentence. I often get corrected by my teacher on these. But I heard a program on LRT radio interviewing native speakers who couldn't agree among themselves on where to put the stress on some words, so I decided to cut myself some slack. Beyond that, Lithuanian pronunciation and spelling are maybe the only straightforward things about the language. I would encourage you to dive deeper into verbs. Just when you think nouns and adjectives and all the cases (and definite endings) are the tough part, it dawns on the language learner that verbs are the really tricky bit. Lithuanian makes more distinctions with verbs than any other language I know. These include a regular form emphasizing process vs. a perfected form emphasizing the result; often two different forms for transitive and intransitive construction; a variety of idioms with verbs taking different grammatical cases (for example, in addition to the usual SVO constuction that takes accusative, verbs like tapti, to become, take instrumental (kuo) and vadovauti, to govern, takes dative (kam), and ieškoti, to search for, takes genetive. There's often lots of combining of prefixes and/or reflexives that can change the meaning seemingly not at all, or in a predictable way, or completely unpredictably (to me at least). For example, dėti means to put, and įdėti means to put in, but padėti (kam) means to help. Nothing to do there but memorize it. Finally, the verb participle forms are a whole wild wooly world. Not only are there a bunch of participle forms (past, present and future X passive and active), but many of them function like adjectives (e.g. bėgsantis vyras, the will be running man), which means you have to decline each of them 28 ways (oh, wait 29 with the neuter form), (oh, wait ^2, make that 58 with all the definite forms, too). It's enough to make your head hurt.

[@papazataklaattiranimam]

Despite geographical proximity, Latvian and Lithuanian are very different from each other. Probably even Russian and Bulgarian are more closer to each other in terms of linguistic and mutual intelligibility.

[@sandrios]

I agree to that, as I speak both Latvian and Russian and I can more easily understand Bulgarian than Lithuanian

[@baltulielkungsgunarsmiezis9714]

Latviešu and lietuviešu languages are as different as the most differnet slavic languages.

[@Gubbe51]

Bulgarian has retained some vocabulary and features from Old Church Slavonic (which was actually Old Bulgarian). Russian has adopted many OCS words in the middle ages. In the XIX century Bulgariamn loaned many Russian words connected to science, administration and other modern topics. That's why Bulgarians can understand much of Russian, and vice versa.

[@RickyRuedaM]

Tha same happens with Spain and Portugal... The portuguese can understand spoken Spanish but the spaniards cannot understand spoken Portuguese but they can understand written portuguese... Greetings from Guatemala 🇬🇹

[@diamondbackterrapin3401]

@@Gubbe51e Russian language never borrowed words from Bulgarian in topics like science. Such words would come from Latin, Greek, Arabic, German, French, sometimes English. I am sure the same could apply to the Bulgarian language.

[@xenowolfraptor]

ive requested this for ages thank you! love from Lietuva

[@KeysOnFire17]

This has become one of my favorite channels. Thanks for this amazing information 🙏

[@CommonCommiestudios]

Fun fact: There is approximately 200ish Old Prussian non-native speakers in Kaliningrad/Prussia, Poland and Lithuania

[@seid3366]

Are other extinct/dead Baltic langs being taught, like Old Prussian, in other countries near the Baltic speaking countries?

[@CommonCommiestudios]

@@seid3366 I wouldn't say that they are really *taught* as an official language would be, most people teach themselves to speak in an endangered/extinct language to preserve heritage

[@polskiisapegasus6062]

I'm just learning cause it's interesting.

[@EeeEee-bm5gx]

What are you on about? There have been no Old Prussian speakers for 300 years. All the known texts in Old Prussian combined would make a half of a very thin and inaccurate book.

[@suranumitu7734]

@@EeeEee-bm5gx I believe people have tried to create a kind of neo-prussian from the surviving sources as well as from related languages. it's basically a conlang and no one (as OP said) speaks it natively (though Wikipedia claims that "a few children" are being raised with Prussian as a second language).

[@JaKamille]

Love it! Thanks a lot for this video! Labadiena! ❤

[@johan_johansson_]

Paul, thanks again to your endeavors in opening cultures and languages around the globe 🗺

[@megapangolin1093]

Cracking video, Paul, I am always amazed at how you can boil down any language into relatively simple, easily appreciated rules and forms to compare to ones own language. I am really impressed by your command of language. I know no one else with the ability you have. Kudos to you.