Indo-European · ISO 639-3 lit · lt
Lithuanian Language lietuvių
Lithuanian is an Indo-European language spoken by about 4.0 million people in 3 countries. It is an official language of Lithuania. It is written in the Latin script.
Where Lithuanian is spoken
- Official language
- Regional official
- Spoken by 10%+
- 1–10%
- Smaller communities
Countries that speak Lithuanian
Language family
- Indo-European
- Classical Indo-European
- Balto-Slavic
- Eastern Baltic
- Lithuanian
Writing system
Latin script
Related languages
About the Lithuanian language
Lithuanian (lietuvių) is spoken by about 4.0 million people, which makes it the 210th most spoken language in the world — just behind S'gaw Karen (4.0 million) and ahead of Merwari (4.0 million). It belongs to the Indo-European language family and, more precisely, to the Eastern Baltic group within the Balto-Slavic branch.
Where is Lithuanian spoken?
Lithuanian is used in 3 countries. The largest communities live in Lithuania (2.3 million), United Kingdom (136,918) and Poland (8,136). More than half of the population speaks it in Lithuania — the places where travellers will hear it everywhere.
Share of the population that speaks Lithuanian: Lithuania 86% (2.3 million), United Kingdom 0.2% (136,918) and Poland <0.1% (8,136).
Lithuanian is an official language in 1 country: Lithuania. It also has regional official status in Poland.
Writing system and status
Lithuanian is written in the Latin script. It is a safe, widely transmitted language: children still learn it at home as their first language.
Its closest relatives in the same branch of the family are Russian, Polish, Ukrainian, Serbo-Croatian, Czech, Belarusian and 2 more.
ISO codes: ISO 639-1 lt, ISO 639-3 lit.
Frequently asked questions about Lithuanian
How many people speak Lithuanian?
Where is Lithuanian spoken?
In which countries is Lithuanian an official language?
What language family does Lithuanian belong to?
What is Lithuanian called in Lithuanian?
Is Lithuanian an endangered language?
Data: Languages of the World dataset (MIT) — ISO 639-3, Glottolog (CC BY 4.0), Unicode CLDR, Google LinguaMeta (CC BY 4.0) and Wikidata; country lists: samayo/country-json (MIT). Speaker numbers include first- and second-language speakers where sources report them.