Lithuanian orthography employs a
Latin-script alphabet
A Latin-script alphabet (Latin alphabet or Roman alphabet) is an alphabet that uses Letter (alphabet), letters of the Latin script. The 21-letter archaic Latin alphabet and the 23-letter classical Latin alphabet belong to the oldest of this gr ...
of 32 letters, two of which denote sounds not native to the
Lithuanian language
Lithuanian (, ) is an East Baltic languages, East Baltic language belonging to the Baltic languages, Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family. It is the language of Lithuanians and the official language of Lithuania as well as one of t ...
. Additionally, it uses five digraphs.
Alphabet
Today, the Lithuanian alphabet consists of 32
letters. It features an unusual
collation
Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office fi ...
order in that "Y" occurs between I
nosinė (Į) and J. While absent from the alphabet, letters Q, W and X have their place in collation order: Q is located between P and R, and W with X are preceded by letter V. Those letters may be used in
spelling of foreign names.
The distinctive Lithuanian letter ''
Ė'' was used for the first time in
Daniel Klein's ''
Grammatica Litvanica
''Grammatica Litvanica'' () is the first prescriptive printed grammar of the Lithuanian language which was written by Daniel Klein in Latin and published in 1653 in Königsberg, Duchy of Prussia.
Overview
The ''Grammatica Litvanica'' was print ...
'', and has been firmly established in the Lithuanian language since then.
However, linguist
August Schleicher
August Schleicher (; 19 February 1821 – 6 December 1868) was a German linguist. Schleicher studied the Proto-Indo-European language and devised theories concerning historical linguistics. His great work was ''A Compendium of the Comparative Gr ...
used ''Ë'' (with two points above it) instead of ''Ė'' for expressing the same.
In the ''Grammatica Litvanica'' Klein also established the letter ''
W'' for marking the sound ''V'', the use of which was later abolished in the Lithuanian language (it was replaced with letter ''V'', notably by authors of the ''
Varpas
''Varpas'' (literally: ''The Bell'') was a monthly Lithuanian-language newspaper published during the Lithuanian press ban from January 1889 to December 1905. Because its publication was illegal in Lithuania, then part of the Russian Empire, it w ...
'' newspaper).
The usage of letter ''V'' instead of ''W'' especially increased since the early 20th century, likely considerably influenced by Lithuanian press and schools.
Due to the
Polish influence, the Lithuanian alphabet included ''
sz'', ''
cz'' and the Polish ''
Ł'' for the sound [] and regular L (without a following i) for the sound []: ''łupa'', ''lutas''.
During the Lithuanian National Revival in the 19th century the Polish ''Ł'' was abolished, while
digraphs ''sz'', ''cz'' (that are also common in the
Polish orthography
Polish orthography is the system of writing the Polish language. The language is written using the Polish alphabet, which derives from the Latin alphabet, but includes some additional letters with diacritics. The orthography is mostly phonetic, o ...
) were replaced with letters ''
š'' and ''
č'' from the
Czech orthography
Czech orthography is a system of rules for proper formal writing (orthography) in Czech. The earliest form of separate Latin script specifically designed to suit Czech was devised by Czech theologian and church reformist Jan Hus, the namesake of ...
, formally because they were shorter.
Nevertheless, another argument to abolish digraphs ''sz'', ''cz'' was to distinguish the Lithuanian language from the
Polish language
Polish (, , or simply , ) is a West Slavic languages, West Slavic language of the Lechitic languages, Lechitic subgroup, within the Indo-European languages, Indo-European language family, and is written in the Latin script. It is primarily spo ...
.
The new letters ''š'' and ''č'' were cautiously used in publications intended for more educated readers (e.g. ''Varpas'', ''
Tėvynės sargas
''Tėvynės sargas'' (Guardian of the Fatherland) was a Lithuanian-language periodical first established in 1896 in Tilsit, East Prussia during the Lithuanian press ban and the Lithuanian National Revival. It was published by the clergy and later b ...
'', ''
Ūkininkas
''Ūkininkas'' or ''Ukinįkas'' (literally: ''The Farmer'') was a monthly Lithuanian-language newspaper published during the Lithuanian press ban by the editorial staff of ''Varpas'' from 1890 to 1905. ''Ūkininkas'' was printed in Tilsit (current ...
''), however digraphs ''sz'', ''cz'' continued to be in use in publications intended for less educated readers as ''š'' and ''č'' caused tension in society; ''š'' and ''č'' have prevailed only since 1906.
The Lithuanians also adopted letter ''
ž'' from the Czechs.
The letters ''
ą'' and ''
ę'' were taken from the Polish spelling for what at the time were
nasal vowel
A nasal vowel is a vowel that is produced with a lowering of the soft palate (or velum) so that the air flow escapes through the nose and the mouth simultaneously, as in the French vowel /ɑ̃/ () or Amoy []. By contrast, oral vowels are p ...
s. They were first used by Renaissance Lithuanian literature, Lithuanian writers. Later the letters ''į'' and ''ų'' were introduced for the remaining nasal vowels, which have since denasalized.
Letter ''
ū'' is the latest addition by linguist
Jonas Jablonskis
Jonas Jablonskis (; 30 December 1860, in Kubilėliai, Šakiai district – 23 February 1930, in Kaunas) was a distinguished Lithuanian linguist and one of the founders of the standard Lithuanian language. He used the pseudonym ''Rygiškių Jonas'' ...
.
Acute,
grave
A grave is a location where a cadaver, dead body (typically that of a human, although sometimes that of an animal) is burial, buried or interred after a funeral. Graves are usually located in special areas set aside for the purpose of buria ...
, and
macron/
tilde
The tilde (, also ) is a grapheme or with a number of uses. The name of the character came into English from Spanish , which in turn came from the Latin , meaning 'title' or 'superscription'. Its primary use is as a diacritic (accent) in ...
accents can mark
stress and
vowel length
In linguistics, vowel length is the perceived or actual length (phonetics), duration of a vowel sound when pronounced. Vowels perceived as shorter are often called short vowels and those perceived as longer called long vowels.
On one hand, many ...
. However, these are generally not used, except in dictionaries and where needed for clarity. In addition, Lithuanian orthography uses five
digraph
Digraph, often misspelled as diagraph, may refer to:
* Digraph (orthography), a pair of characters used together to represent a single sound, such as "nq" in Hmong RPA
* Ligature (writing), the joining of two letters as a single glyph, such as " ...
s (Ch Dz Dž Ie Uo); these function as sequences of two letters for collation purposes. The "Ch" digraph represents a
voiceless velar fricative
The voiceless velar fricative is a type of consonantal sound used in some spoken languages. It was part of the consonant inventory of Old English and can still be found in some dialects of English, most notably in Scottish English, e.g. in ''lo ...
, while the others are straightforward compositions of their component letters. The letters F and H, as well as the digraph CH, denote sounds only appearing in
loanword
A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...
s.
Spelling of foreign names
Two spelling variants are used for foreign personal names: original spelling (e.g. ''George Walker Bush'' as a title of an encyclopedic article or as a name of an author of a book, or ''George'as Walkeris Bushas'' in a sentence, conforming to the Lithuanian morphology) and phonetic spelling adapted to the Lithuanian phonology (e.g. ''Džordžas Volkeris Bušas''). In Soviet times, phonetic spelling was the only standard way to write foreign names in Lithuanian (original spelling could be shown in parentheses if needed), but in post-Soviet times the original spelling came to be widely used. The Lithuanian Wikipedia uses original spelling in article titles, but phonetic spelling in article texts.
Q, W, and X
The Lithuanian alphabet lacks
Q (''kū''),
W (''vė dviguboji'') and
X (''iks'') of the
ISO basic Latin alphabet
The ISO basic Latin alphabet is an international standard (beginning with ISO/IEC 646) for a Latin-script alphabet that consists of two sets (uppercase and lowercase) of 26 letters, codified in various national and international standards and u ...
. They are only used in foreign words, personal names of foreign origin, as well as expressions and in international symbols.
Sound–spelling correspondences
is short only in loanwords. are always short without accent and under accent in endings ''-a'', ''-e'', ''-es'', in comparative, in pronouns, and in loanwords; otherwise, they are usually long.
Consonants are always palatalized before ; before , palatalization is denoted by inserting an between the consonant and the vowel.
Unicode
The majority of the Lithuanian alphabet is in the Unicode block
C0 controls and basic Latin
The Basic Latin Unicode block, sometimes informally called C0 Controls and Basic Latin, is the first block of the Unicode standard, and the only block which is encoded in one byte in UTF-8. The block contains all the letters and control codes of ...
(non-accented symbols), and the rest of the Lithuanian alphabet (Ą ą Č č Ę ę Ė ė Į į Š š Ų ų Ū ū Ž ž) is in the
Latin Extended-A
Latin Extended-A is a Unicode block and is the third block of the Unicode standard. It encodes Latin letters from the Latin ISO character sets other than Latin-1 (which is already encoded in the Latin-1 Supplement block) and also legacy characte ...
.
See also
*
Lithuanian phonology
*
Lithuanian grammar
Lithuanian grammar retains many archaic features from Proto-Balto-Slavic that have been lost in other Balto-Slavic languages.
Properties and morphological categories
Grammatical terminology
:
Gender
Lithuanian nouns are classified into one of ...
References
General sources
*
External links
Lithuanian spelling rules (2022, in Lithuanian)Lithuanian punctuation rules (2020, in Lithuanian)
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lithuanian Orthography
Lithuanian language
Indo-European Latin-script orthographies