Samogitian language

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Samogitian is a dialect of the Lithuanian language spoken mostly in Samogitia (in the west part of Lithuania). The Samogitian dialect (sometimes referred to as a language) differs from other dialects of Lithuanian, that it shows some signs to have its own prestige sub-dialect with certain attempts to be standardized. The Samogitian dialect shouldn't be confused with the middle dialect of the Lithuanian language, that sometimes was referred as the Samogitian language in 16th - 18th centuries.

1 History
2 Linguistic differences with Standard Lithuanian
3 Subdialects
4 Political situation
5 Writing system
6 Audio sample
7 External links

[edit] History

Until the end of 19th century the modern Samogitians are mentioned only as the Western Samogitians; the last are considered by scientists to be the descendents of lithuanised (or samogitised) Semigallians (for Southern subdialect of Samogitian) and Curonians (for Northern and Western subdialects of Samogitian).

[edit] Linguistic differences with Standard Lithuanian

Samogitian differs from Standard Lithuanian in phonetics, lexicon, and morphology. Some words and verb tenses also differ in Samogitian (e.g., in Lithuanian the Past iterative 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 typically Lithuanian ones, e.g. kiuocis - basket (Lith. krepšys), tevs - thin (Lith. plonas), rebas - ribs (Lith. šonkauliai), a jebentas! - "can't be!" (Lith. negali būti!) and many more.

[edit] Subdialects

Samogitian is also divided into three major subdialects: Northern Samogitian (spoken in Telšiai and Kretinga regions), Western Samogitian (was spoken in the region around Klaipėda, now nearly extinct,- after the Soviet occupation in 1945, many people were expelled and new ones came to this region) and Southern Samogitian (spoken in Varniai, Kelmė, Tauragė and Raseiniai regions). 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.).

[edit] Political situation

The Samogitian 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 dialect. 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.

[edit] 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:

There are no nasal vowels. (letters with ogoneks: ą, ę, į, ų)
There are three additional long vowels, written with macrons above: ā, ō, ē (the same as in Latvian).
Long i in Samogitian is written with a macron above: ī (unlike standard Lithuanian where it is y).
The long vowel ė is written as o with tilde above (õ). In fact it is writing like ė with macron: Ė̅ and ė̅. [1]
There are two additional diphthongs in Samogitian that are written as digraphs: ou and ėi. (The component letters are part of the standard Lithuanian alphabet.)

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 fonts 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, Ė̅ ė̅, 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