Lithuania

=>I should say the oldest living indo-european language <=

Yes so? Sanskrit is indo European... :-)

Well, Balkan sisters are the former "sister-countries" of former Yugoslavia: serbia, Bosnia, Croatia, Kosovo, Maccedonia etc. It's just a term that Damian and me invented by accident :))

The humor was of course when Damian inadvertently compared the peaceful Baltic "sister countries" with the bloody Balkan countries. But of course there is no danger that these bloody things could happen over here. Unless of course Russia invests heavily in it...

That explains it VYTENIS...thanks. The name Lithuania.....every time I pronounthe it I feel ath if I'm lithping....oopth thorry!....I meant lisping.

Lithuania sounds better anyway....Lisuania looks weird.

Because of PC I apologise in advance to anyone who has a speech impediment.

Damian,

LOL. Just say "Lietuva" and you wont have to "lithp" any more :)))

I'm afraid I don't know enough about Lithuania, except that I have an illustrated book about the former Soviet Union with a detailed presentation of all regions, including the Baltic countries. As I was studying those pages, the Baltic countries appeared to me as a combination of Central Europe and Scandinavia - really something in between the Slavic and Scandinavian culture, the temper of the people perhaps resembling more the latter. The looks of the people are most like those of the Swedes or Finns, with some local colour. My favourite picture was one featuring a large ensemble of musicians (mostly young women) at a music festival, all in folk costumes, and mostly with natural blond hair and fair skin. And I especially liked the bird's-eye view photos of Tallinn: they seemed to breathe genuine history - if you know what I mean.

I know some historical facts about Lithuania, what comes to my mind is its being first a dukedom comprising much of present day Belarus and Ukraine, and then the long-time eastern half of the former Polish-Lithuanian Kingdom, and Trakai near Vilnius with its castle amid the lakes - now a tourist attraction. Again, not much...

By the way, I think this is the appropriate place to ask if it is possible to listen to Lithuanian online. I once caught a Lithuanian channel on short-wave radio, and the music of the language still stays with me (i.e. what came through amid all the characteristic short-wave background noise). In short, I'd be glad to hear it again - then I could perhaps check if it bears any resemblance to Sanskrit, as is often claimed. :)

Here is the music hall in Vilnius (?) I saw the picture of:
http://www.hot.ee/tours/vilnius3.html

Don't know why, but it always has something compelling about it. :)

The "?" referred to my doubt at wheher it is actually a music hall, not to the fact that it is in Vilnius, which is apparent. :)

For those interested: you can listen to Lithuanian online at the site of Lithuanian Radio and TV (among others):

http://www.lrt.lt (click on the link "RL transliacija" to the right and the media file will appear)

Lithuanian sounds very exotic to me, with a very slight Slavic flavour, but otherwise completely unique...

Other suggestions are also welcome.

Easterner - I know Lithuanian is a proto-slavic language. It broke off very early in the chain. Sometimes I can pick out a few words out of Lithuanian and understand it.

Frances,

I know the Baltic languages are the closest "cousins" of the Slavic group. Based on some written samples I have seen, I feel Latvian to be closer to the Slavic group than Lithuanian, it seems to have more Slavic-type words and case endings. The only thing I don't know is to what extent they are borrowings (I believe Latvian has probably been more strongly influenced by Russian and maybe German and Swedish than has Lithuanian).

It is interesting to compare the Lord's Prayer in the two languages (which is of course a very limited sample, but can give some insight into the similarities or differences of some basic features):

Lithuanian:

Tėve mūsų, kuris esi dangusu:
Švenskis vardas tavo.
Ateik karalystė tavo.
Būki tavo valia, kaip danguje, teip ir ant žemės.
Duonos mūsų visų dienų duok mumus nu.
Ir atleid mumus mūsų kaltybės, kaip mes atleid'em
mūsų kaltiemus. Neved mus ingi
pagundymą, bet gelbėk mus nuogi
viso pikto. Amen

Latvian:

Musu Tevs debesis,
Svetits, lai top Tavs vards
Lai nak Tava valstiba,
Tavs prats, lai notiek
Ka debesis, ta ari virs zemes
Musu dienisko maizi dod mums sodien
Un piedod mums musu paradus
Ka ari mes piedodam saviem paradniekiem
Un neieved mus kardinasana,
Bet atpesti mus no launa
Jo Tev pieder valstiba
Speks un gods
Muzigi muzos. Amen.

What I can see, knowing the actual text, is that both languages are even more synthetic than Slavic languages: as I understand it, "in heaven" is "dangusu" in Lithuanian and "debesis" in Latvian, while "on earth" is "žemės" and "zemes", respectively, with no prepositions being used in either case. Of course, any corrections are welcome, in case I'm wrong...

Just a remark: the Lithuanian version is shorter, because it does not contain the last line: "For Thine is the kingdom, etc.", it is absent from Catholic versions. On the other hand, Latvians are protestants, so their version contains this line.

Correction: Protestants

'On earth' is 'virs zemes' in Latvian and (supposedly) 'ant ^zemes' in Lithuanian. (I can speak Latvian but not Lithuanian). Latvian has grown further apart from the Proto-Baltic language. The almost extinct Livonian (also Estonian) has left rather prominent traces on Latvian as Latvians have assimilated Livonians, e.g. the stress is almost always on the first syllable in Latvian (as in the Finno-Ugric languages) but in Lithuanian it can be on any syllable and it moves when words are declined (this is typical even for most Slavic languages, like Russian). Latvian has indeed been also under heavy influence of German (because of 700 years of dominance by German upper class). In many cases Latvian words are shorter and there are also many sound changes that have not taken place in the very archaic Lithuanian.

Easterner,
I don't know where did you get this one :)))

Tėve mūsų, kuris esi dangusu:
Švenskis vardas tavo.
Ateik karalystė tavo.
Būki tavo valia, kaip danguje, teip ir ant žemės.
Duonos mūsų visų dienų duok mumus nu.
Ir atleid mumus mūsų kaltybės, kaip mes atleid'em
mūsų kaltiemus. Neved mus ingi
pagundymą, bet gelbėk mus nuogi
viso pikto. Amen

Actually, it sounds like this:

Tėve mūsų, kuris esi danguje
teesie šventas tavo vardas
teateinie tavo karalystė
teesie tavo valia kaip danguje taip ir žemėje
kasdienės mūsų duonos duok mums šiandien
ir atleisk mums mūsų kaltes
kaip ir mes atleidžiame savo kaltininkams
ir neleisk mūsų gundyti
bet gelbėk mus nuo pikto
Amen