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Lithuanian Out Loud is a podcast series designed for fans of the Lithuanian language. Come along with native Lithuanian author/lawyer Raminta and her North-American husband, Jack. They'll teach you Lithuanian along with tidbits about the history and culture of Raminta's homeland - Lietuva!

Music: Vieux Farka Toure - Ana {Pocket Remix} by pocketproductions (c) copyright 2007 Licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution Noncommercial license. http://dig.ccmixter.org/files/pocketproductions/8916 Ft: Pocket (Richard Jankovich)

 

Apr 6, 2008

Hi there, I’m Jack and I’m Raminta and welcome back to Lithuanian Out Loud where we offer the world the Lithuanian language.

Hey!  We’re in a new month!  In English the month of April is derived from the latin verb which means, “to open.”  In the northern hemisphere flowers and trees start to open.

In Lithuanian this month is known as balandis.

Balandis is the Lithuanian word for pigeon.  In the month of balandis, the pigeon is starting to build nests and mate.

Since the episode when I asked for some reviews on iTunes we got five new reviews and I’d like to thank everyone who went to the trouble to give us one.  If you use iTunes and if you haven’t had time yet to give us a review, would you consider doing that for us today?  We’d really appreciate it.  Thanks!

Mentioning our statistics for Lithuanian Out Loud isn’t something we plan to do regularly but we felt like doing it today.  March was an amazing month for us.  We had over 10,000 downloads and the downloads so far in April have been much stronger.  Looks like we’re heading for another record month.  Thanks to all of you for listening.  If you’re listening to this podcast as it’s released, by the time you hear it we’ll have over 33,000 downloads of our 67 episode series.  We can’t believe it.  Thank you very much. 

Now, please don’t forget those iTunes reviews.  On with the show, enjoy!

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According to the web page Global Lithuanian Net; „Cosmology of the Ancient Balts,“ an ancient Lithuanian tradition survives to this day.  When one sees a new crescent moon, one addresses it as Kunigaikštis (a duke) or Dievaitis (young god) and begs for good health.

From my own point of view, I‘ve spoken to some Lithuanians and they‘ve never heard of this tradition so it must survive in some areas and not in others.  Raminta, you‘ve never heard of this, right?  Oh, not really.  No, must be in the country or something, huh?  Might be.

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This is our third episode focused on love talk.  You can‘t really talk about terms of endearment in Lithuanian without discussing the diminutive.  For example, Raminta‘s name, said in an endearing way, could be...

Ramintėlė
Ramintutė
Ramintytė
Ramintinė – not really, not Ramintinė.

Not - ah, really, but the others are good, Ramintėlė, Ramintutė, Ramintytė?  Good, they are good, Ramintytė, nobody called me ever but it is logical – it could be.  Ramintėlė, Ramintutė people called me, my parents call me Ramintėlė, Eglė calls me Ramintutė.  My grandparents would call me Ramintulė.  Ah, what else, how else could you say it?  Ramintukas.  Ah, Ramintukas, but this is for a man.  Yeah, but they could, some people would say that, Ramintuk-, Kristina would call me Ramintukas.  That’s funny, hmm.

The diminutive is a way of changing a word to express smallness or affection and most languages use diminutives when speaking to children or pets.  Of course, you can also use the diminutive in order to be derogatory towards someone.  It just depends on what you’re trying to express.  Naturally, on Lithuanian Out Loud we don’t want to hurt anybody’s feelings so we’ll just use the diminutive to express intimacy.  From what I can tell, Lithuanians are very fond of the diminutive.  They use it a lot, ar ne?  (no?)  Taip, taip, taip.

According to Antanas Klimas of Lituanas.org, there is no other Indo-European language with more diminutives than Lithuanian.  He lists for example;

(brolis - brother) → brolelis, broliukas, brolytis, brolužis, brolužėlis, brolutytis, broliukėlis, brolutaitis, etcetera.

Ah, what do you think about all of that?  Oh, I think brolutytis, it’s – it sounds kind of funny – brolutytis.  It’s kind of cute but to tell the truth, not so common.  It some areas of Lithuania broliukėlis as well, brolutytis as well.  You know, it’s common, what kind brolelis, broliukas, brolytis, brolužis, brolužėlis, those are common.

Aha, today we‘ll go over feminine words in the diminutive.  Note that all suffixes end in the letter -ė

-ytė
-utė
-ėlė
-elė
-ukė
-ulė
-užė

Aušra  Aušra is a girl‘s name and it means dawn

Aušra plus –elė → Aušrelė
Aušra plus –utė → Aušrutė
Aušra plus –ytė → Aušrytė
Aušrukė
Aušrulė
Aušružė

Saulė  Saulė is a girl‘s name.  Saulė is the Lithuanian Sun Goddess.

Kaip pasakyti lietuviškai?  How do you say it in Lithuanian?

Saulė plus –elė → Saulelė
Saulė plus –utė → Saulutė
Saulė plus –ytė → Saulytė
Add:
Saulužė
Saulužėlė
Saulukė
Saululė
Saulukytė
Saulukėlė
Saulužutė

Ah, labai gerai, and what do you think about this?  It looks okay or what?  It looks really cute.  I think it‘s nice in the Lithuanian language and we really use a lot of words like this.  Hmm, Saulužutė, Saulukėlė, yeah, it‘s not so common – some of them – like from Saulė.  Saulužė would be very common.  Saulužėlė – very common.  Saulukė not so much in some areas of Lithuania.  Saulutė very, very common.  Saulutė very common.  Oh others, Saulukytė, Saulukėlė, Saulužutė not so common, it‘s from some areas of Lithuania.

Ah, okay, great.  Now here are feminine nouns with more than two syllables.  For example...

Svajonė  Svajonė is a girl‘s name.  Svajonė means dream.

Svajonė plus –ėlė → Svajonėlė
Svajonė plus –utė → Svajonutė
Svajonė plus –ytė → Svajonytė
Svajonukė
Svajonulė
Svajonužė

And what do you think?  Some of them like I said – Svajonėlė you could say, but not Svajonutė, not Svajonytė, not Svajonukė – we would not use those.  Maybe Svajonėlė you could say that but not others so common.  Maybe even people would look if you would say like Svajonukė would look strange at you, you know.  Okay, okay.

Austėja  Austėja is a girl’s name.  Austėja is the Lithuanian Goddess of Bees.

Austėja plus –ėlė → Austėjėlė
Austėja plus –utė → Austėjutė
Austėja plus –ytė → Austėjytė

And what do you think about those?  Oh, you know my brother‘s daughter is Austėja.  I would call her Austukas.  Really?  Or Austytė.  But those are cute.  Very rare I would say to her like – Austėja.  Almost never.  Almost never, hmm.  Maybe when she gets married.  Maybe when she will get older.

So, you would never say Austelė.  Austelė – we would say – my mother called Austelė but it‘s not maybe correct – Austelė – she called.  Ah, so going back to Svajonė, so you would never say Svajonelė – no never.  But you see, with names it‘s a little bit different in Lithuania, sometimes it might not make sense but people can put it together.  Just for fun.  Yeah, yeah.

Of course, not just names use the diminutive.  There are thousands of examples.

mašina is the word for machine or car
mašinėlė is the word for typewriter
banda is a small loaf of bread
bandelė is a roll or a bun
dovana is a gift
dovanėlė is a small gift
grandinė is a chain
grandinėlė is a small chain

Šaunu!  Great!  You made it to the end of another lesson!  Šaunu!
Oh, thank you dear, such a nice job.  Oh, thank you, such a cute lesson.  It’s kind of cute, I like this, it’s very cute.  Cutie, cutie, cutie.

Alright!  That’s it for today!  Thanks for the download!
To leave us comments call our voicemail number that’s in the title of every show or call our Skype voicemail at Lithuanianoutloud – that’s one word, and leave us a message there.
If you’d like to see the Lithuanian spelling of any word in this series just go to WWW dot Lithuanian dot L I B S Y N dot com.
If you’d like to get these episodes every time a new one is available just go to iTunes and do a search for Lithuanian Out Loud and click subscribe.  It’s completely free.  But, if you don’t want to subscribe on iTunes, just send us an email asking us to alert you every time a new episode hits the internet.  And feel free to make copies of our episodes, put them on cds and pass them out to your friends.
Thanks to CCMixter.org, Ditto Ditto and Vieux Farka Toure for the podcast music.
Thanks for tuning in, tell your friends about us, we’ll see you on the next episode of Lithuanian Out Loud.
I’m Jack and I’ve never met a Lithuanian I didn’t like.  Viso gero!  Sudie!

LITHUANIAN IN THE 21st CENTURY by Antanas Klimas
http://www.lituanus.org/2002/02_4_04.htm

http://www.Lithuanian.Libsyn.com
Skype voicemail:  Lithuanianoutloud
email Raminta and Jack at: lithuanianoutloud@earthlink.net 
http://www.vieuxfarkatoure.com/
http://www.ccmixter.org/