| Samogitian Language |
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The Samogitian dialect (''Žemaitiu kalba'', (Žemaitija) region of Lithuania . It is sometimes considered to be a separate Language because of intelligibility between Standard Lithuanian and Samogitian which is in some cases difficult. Lithuanian is a member of the East Baltic subgroup of the Baltic Language group, which is part of the Indo-European Language family, and Samogitian is one of the two main Lithuanian dialects. HISTORY In old texts and documents Samogitians and Lithuanians are usually mentioned separately, alongside many other Baltic Peoples . With Russian annexation of Lithuania after partitioning of Polish-Lithuanian Commonwealth , both ethnicities usually led the struggle for freedom together (sometimes alongside the Poles ). LINGUISTIC DIFFERENCES WITH STANDARD LITHUANIAN Samogitian differs from Standard Lithuanian in phonetics, lexicon, morphology and orthography. Some words and verb tenses also differs in Samogtian (e.g., in Lithuanian the Past Frequent tense, meaning that action used to be done in past repeatedly, is made by removing the ending of verb and adding "davo" (miršta - mirdavo, pūva - pūdavo), while in Samogitian word "Liuob" is added instead before the word). Samogitian also has many words and figures of speech that are altogether different from the rest of Lithuanian dialects. E.g. kiuocis - basket (Lith. krepsys), tevs - thin (Lith. plonas), rebas - ribs (Lith. šonkauliai, grobai), a jebentas! - "can't be!" (Lith. equiv. non existent) and many more. SUBDIALECTS Samogitian dialect is also divided into three major subdialects: Northern Samogitian , Western Samogitian and Southern Samogitian . Historically, these are classified by their pronunciation of the Lithuanian word ''Duona,'' "bread." They are referred to as Dounininkai (from ''Douna''), Donininkai (from ''Dona'') and Dūnininkai (from ''Dūna.''). Western The Western subdialect was spoken in the region around Klaipėda and is now extinct. After the Soviet occupation of Lithuania, many people were expelled and new ones came to these regions. Northern Northern Samogitian has two subdialects named for cities within their respective geographic range, Telšiškiai (from Telšiai ) and Kretingiškiai (from Kretinga ). Southern Southern Samogitian has two subdialects, Varniškiai (from Varniai ) and Raseiniškiai (from Raseiniai ) . POLITICAL SITUATION The Samogitian dialect is rapidly declining: It is not used in the local school system and there is only one quarterly magazine and no television or radio broadcasts in Samogitian. Local newspapers and broadcast stations use standard Lithuanian instead. There is no new literature in Samogitian either, as authors prefer standard Lithuanian for its accessibility to a larger audience. Out of those people who speak Samogitian only a few can understand its written form well. Migration of Samogitian speakers to other parts of the country and migration into Samogitia have reduced contact between Samogitian speakers, and therefore the level of fluency of those speakers. There are attempts by the Samogitian Cultural Society to stem the loss of the language. The council of Telšiai city put marks with Samogitian name for the city at the roads leading to the city. A new system for writing Samogitian was created. WRITING SYSTEM The first use of a unique writing system for Samogitian was in the Interwar Period , however it was neglected during the period of Soviet occupation, so only elderly people knew how to write in Samogitian at the time Lithuania regained independence. The Samogitian Cultural Society renewed the system to make it more usable. The writing system uses the same letters as standard Lithuanian, but with the following differences:
As previously it was difficult to add these new characters to typesets, some older Samogitian texts use double letters instead of macrons to indicate long vowels, for example aa for '''ā''' and '''ee''' for '''ē'''; now the Samogitian Cultural Society discourages these conventions and recommends using the letters with macrons above instead. The use of double letters is accepted in cases where computer Font s do not have Samogitian letters; in such cases '''y''' is used instead of Samogitian '''ī''', the same as in standard Lithuanian, while other long letters are written as double letters. The Apostrophe might be used to denote Palatalization in some cases; in others '''i''' is used for this, as in standard Lithuanian. A Samogitian computer keyboard layout has been created. Samogitian alphabet: A a, Ā ā, B b, C c, Č č, D d, E e, Ē ē, Ė ė, Õ õ, F f, G g, H h, I i, Ī ī, J j, K k, L l, M m, N n, O o, Ō ō, P p, R r, S s, Š š, T t, U u, Ū ū, V v, Z z, Ž ž AUDIO SAMPLE EXTERNAL LINKS |
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