History of Lithuania: A Brief Sketch Lithuanians, the Balts
proper, live on the southeastern shores of the Baltic Sea. The
name Balts, derived from the Baltic Sea, has been a neologism
from the middle of the nineteenth century. It has applied not
only to Lithuanians and Latvians, but also to several
nationalities now extinct, namely Prussains, Yotvingians,
Semigallians, Curonians and Selonians. Along with the ancient
Prussian language, which has not been spoken since the
seventeenth century, Lithuanian and Latvian languages form a
distinct Baltic branch of the Indo-European linguistic family.
Yet, as J. Kudirka points out, "of all the living Indo-European
languages the Lithuanian language has retained the ancient
phonetic and morphological characteristics best of all. It has a
complicated system of flexions and word derivation. Therefore,
as part of general linguistics, it is taught at a number of
foreign universities (in the USA, Italy, France, Finland,
Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Japan and other countries). F