East Baltic language spoken by more than four million people in the Republic of Lithuania and in diaspora communities, with perhaps 70,000 speakers in North America.
Lithuanian is sparsely attested until 1547, when the first book in the language was printed. Efforts to develop a standard language in the late 19th century were dominated by speakers of the West High dialect spoken in German-ruled East Prussia. Among them was Jonas Jablonskis (18601930), whose orthography (based on the Latin alphabet with numerous diacritics) and grammar (1901) won official acceptance when Lithuania became independent. Lithuanian is renowned for its archaism among living Indo-European languages .