Talk:Name of Lithuania

No topic
Planning to do some edits here tomorrow, but it sure would be nice to find some more English-language references. Am searching. Very interesting topic; also interesting why everyone loves the rain origin. Later - Novickas 01:39, 20 January 2007 (UTC)


 * Rain, don't you think it does sound a bit romantic?--Lokyz 09:14, 23 January 2007 (UTC)


 * It does often appear in the movies, but usually at the sad stage of the romance... Definitely more romantic than "spilling". Novickas 17:47, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Why in English is it "Lithuania" and not "Lituania"?
 * Because of mixed origins of English language - Roman (latin), later Nordic (Vikings) later French taht got substantialy mixed with three mentioned earlier. --Lokyz 23:15, 13 March 2007 (UTC)

The biggest mistake in our days, which need to understand. Republic of Lietuva (1918) not same as Litwania (Litwa,Lithuania). Its a different, and here why: 1. The migration of palaban slavic to Grodno area, which named Wilci. 2. Same area was levied also Yatvazien 3. The Mindovg the grand duke of Litwa, talked on yatvazien or Prussian dialect (numons dajs tawo walle, Deiwe riks) but existing nowadays Lietuva is Samogotia talking another language. 4. Samogita attached to GDL only by the end of 14th century 5. Wilno / Wilno was gifted to Samogtia (Lietuva) only in 1939, according census on that time 45% polish / 45% Belarusian / 10% jewish. Actually both polish and Belarusian was true litwanians, but ofocuse almost 700 years pass split them by Catholic (polish / Orthodox (Belarusian). 6. The names Wilni, Wilkomir, Wilia, Wileika - given by Wilci, and theirs military detachments was named "Litwa", in the service of the Polotsk duke.

Recommend to read and translate originals from Kievan Ruthen, they mentioned many times that Polotsk Duke together with his Litwa battled with others ruthenian dukes.

Unfortunately, the naming migrate from region to region, also meanings. Samogtia change named to Lietuva, all start say Litwania. Its similar like Switzerland and Sweden, Austria and Australia.

Re: Additions on September 23, 2007
Could the author please provide references for these additions? In particular, statements referring to "common knowledge" are not useable - see Verifiability. Novickas 15:17, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

Suspicion of WP:OR
Large chunk of text was added, but it is unreferenced, written in weasel language and seems to be on the werge of WP:OR, threfore i did remove it.

While it is clear the name originated in a Baltic language, scholars are still debating about the original meaning of the word. The main question is if the early name pertained to some state, country or to a nationality, language and some other ethnic features of the people populating some area. Possible answers would be: it could denote a state, country, some area, without regard to nationality, it could denote some area populated mostly by one nationality: the Lithuanians, it could denote area where the Lithuanian language was mostly spoken. Most probably the early name of Lithuania in other languages could have various meanings. Furthermore, it could change its original meaning in foreign languages in the course of time. For example, the German word “Lettowen” and the English word “Lithuania” have a similar morphological structure, they were apparently formed by adding the corresponding suffix (-wen in German, –an in English), that were usually used to form a noun from adjectives or proper nouns having collective meaning, for example, Russia and Russians. That means that a hypothetical form Lithua with the suffix –an might have formed the adjective or the collective noun pertaining to a nationality. Next the suffix -ia was added, resulting in the word Lithuania. Besides, it is strange that in German a word form with –land at the end was not used, though it was quite productive in those days to denote states and countries.

The common knowledge is that the population of the Duchy of Lithuania was not homogeneous. It comprised Baltic and Slavic ethnic groups, especially in the 13th century when the Mongol invasion forced the Slavic population of Kievan Rus to resettle northwards, where invaders could not reach them. Since the Slavs interacted with the entire population of Lithuania, it is understandable that the Quedlinburg Chronicle used a Slavic form of its name. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Lokyz (talk • contribs) 16:59, 23 September 2007 (UTC)

re: additions on September 23,2007
As to my addition it is based on suggestions like many statements regarding early history of Lithuania. To admit them or not is the right of the reader as I understand. The policy of deleting passages is not the best in the debate, dear lovers of history like Lokyz. Some more words to Novickas. He did not like me mentioning “common knowledge” and writes, that “statements referring to "common knowledge" are not useable”. OK, let’s keep to the rules. Please, be fair and comment the phrase “According to a widespread popular belief” in the same article? As to the question “Could the author please provide references for these additions?”, I refer to the works of Adam Maldis’, including his article “The root and crown of history”  that appeared recently in Belarusian press. He openly expresses his disappointment about the lack of mutual understanding between Belarusian and Lithuanian colleagues regarding the fact of multi ethnical nature of the GDL. Adam Maldis speaks about the common cultural heritage of Belarus and Lithuania, that in Lithuania is not admitted. Alas!

—Preceding unsigned comment added by Yogi555 (talk • contribs) 03:48, 7 October 2007 (UTC)


 * The text was not deleted, but moved to talk page, according to the policy. Wh is Adam Maldis, is he scholar, and did he state exactly the things you put into text? remember this article is not about cultural heritage, it is about a name. And pleaase read WP:Civil and WP:AGF--Lokyz 10:28, 7 October 2007 (UTC)


 * I have added references for the widely held belief that it derives from rain. I don't mean to disrespect Belarus' role in the history of the GDL and PLC. The name discussion centers around an earlier era, the Duchy of Lithuania. Novickas 12:57, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

Answers to the questions above. Adam Maldis is a prominent scholar in Belarus, a respected professor, Yanka Kupala prize winner who has been studying for years the history of the old Belarusian language and many texts dating back to the early history of Belarus, Poland and Lithuania. Since 1990 he has been participating in debates with colleagues from neighboring countries, including Lithuania. He is sure that the attitude to the common cultural legacy of the GDL is a corner stone in all researches of early history, including the origin of the name “Lithuania” in question, as it is inseparable from the history of both languages. Regarding WP:Civil and WP:AGF, many thanks, Lokyz, I have read them. I am reading once again the article and find a lot of statements that have no references. Why should I place the references and you should not? For example, I am reading in the article: “In early German chronicles Lithuania's name was spelled as Lettowen. In this form the German letter -e- is used to denote the Lithuanian diphthong -ie-, while -owen denotes the Lithuanian hydronymic suffix -uva (-ava).” This important statement has no references, furthermore it states the structure with the hydronymic suffix as a fact, but not a  suggestion. Or you meant the early German chronicles as reference? Not of course.. I share another hypothesis that the old name of Lithuania first denoted a people, not a land. The foreign forms such as German and English one, unlike the first mentioned Latin “Litua”, most probably were related to the Slavic nouns “litvin, litvan” with soft “t” or even “ts” in the middle. This word, denoting one person, was used in plural to denote the entire people. Even in the old Russian collective name for the Lithuanians “Litva” was spelled in a Cyrillic version with the softness sigh after “t”, and this word is in the said article as well. To show the softness of the “t”, the letter “h” was added according to the rules of Latin transliteration. Maybe, that was not the best solution to reproduce the original “t”, pronounced by the Lithuanians, but the foreigners chose this one in Latin spelling as the most similar to it. And the last but not the least. In the map of 1507 we read LITHUANIE with plural ending -ie like ibid GERMANIE, RUSSIE, etc. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Yogi555 (talk • contribs) 20:41, 7 October 2007 (UTC)

The unanswered question
Its not so obvious from the version "Lithuania", but if you look at the other spellings like "Lietuva",   the question needs to be answered,   is this really the same word as "Latvia" ? If it isn't, what's the difference ?Eregli bob (talk) 16:54, 5 July 2010 (UTC)

Lietava?
This is rather ridiculous, encyclopedia is supposed to be rather serious and reliable source of information, now this article is less informative than TV progams and some books available at the bookstores. I'm neithr historian, nor linguist, nor encyclopedia editor. Why those who make efforts in improving this article don't care about accuracy and diversity of the information they provide :( . Btw, lithuanian version of this article is not any better. So i'd want to suggest you to study 3 "sub-themes" and after that to edid the article accordingly: 1 - "widely held belief that it derives from rain", 2 - "Lietava <...> as time passed, the suffix -ava could have changed into -uva", 3 - "A. Dubonis' hypothesis, that Lietuva relates to a word Leičiai". I use the word "sub-themes" because i divide my comment into 3 rather separate parts, nothing more.

1. "Rain land" is a joke. There is no any widely held belief, there is a widely held joke based on a pop song "Lietus Lietuvoj" and a pun in this song. Or, say, song is based on a pun. Prior to this song there could be other jokes. There is another "widely held belief": lithuanian linguists link the words "lietuvis", "Lietuva" to the words "lieti", "lyti", "lietus". So what? One don't need to be a linguist to link those words. One can be illiterate and to see some obvious similarities. So what? Nothing so far.

2. Lietava, yes. We all learned that at school. Can't tell about modern schools because i went to soviet school, just all those who write the modern school-books know that, and as a result the pupils who study those school-books learn about Lietava river and the name of Lietuva. And so everybody know the truth. However the truth is that in soviet Lithuania couldn't officially exist any theory praising something other than working class. And when it used to come down to nations or countries or their names, everything had to be explained in such manner that the reader could be able to understand that only after the great october revolution the part of humanity (the best part) finally entered into a proper stage of its evolution. And everything that was before it is not so significant. I think you got an idea: the reason why this theory prevail is complicated and generally is not in this topic. Now closer to present times: there is a such source of information, called TV. I'm not a linguist, i'm a consumer, so i can't edit encyclopedias - but you can, and you can verify the sources. There is one lithuanian scholar, linguist, who proved why Lietava can't be origin of the country's name. I don't remember his name, expected to find it in this encyclopedia. Alas. There was a TV program about that. There was mentioned when the article was published and where. Expected to find it in this encyclopedia. Unfortunately. Explanation in that program was provided and it is simple, verifiable and digestable for anyone: there was unsettled area untill some Russian Old-believers came from the Zarasai area and settled there. There were several such settlements, some still are. Jonava town is nearby, everybody know that it is a second main area (after Zarasai-Degučiai) where Old-Believers live. Evidentiary material can be them selves, just go and ask. So those new commers settled in the land of nowhere and there was a creek, and they named it simply - Litovka, i.e. "Lithuanian [creek]". It was naturally lituanised as Lietauka, although it is rather a nickname or a slang than a normal name. What was its old name, remains unknown. So i don't know the name of that linguist, but the head of program was historian prof. Alfredas Bumblauskas. If Tomas Baranauskas is credible historian, why Bumblauskas should be not? Contact him and get the information, what do you think? It's about Lithuania's name, deserves the effort.

3. "Among other etymologies of a name of Lithuania there is S. Karaliūnas', A. Dubonis' hypothesis, that Lietuva relates to a word Leičiai". To me it sounds like some humble excuse, though that may be my imagination. OK, Karaliūnas and Dubonis – and how about the other sources, does not encyclopedia deserves them? Say, there is 1 source where those other sources are listed, so I cite now this 1 source: Simonas Daukantas explained the concept “man of lieta” as a “Staatsman” and associated it with the name of Lithuania”(Raštai, II, 1976, p. 11), <…> J. Miliauskas-Miglovara (1845-1937) had the same opinion (“Aušra”, 1884, p. 81), <…> … the word Lietuva is not a name of some tribe, but is just the state itself, union of lietas (Patackas, 1989), <…> and some more information provided by Karaliūnas (his explanation with sources he used can be found here http://www.spauda.lt/voruta/tekstai/lietuva.htm ). My source of those quotes is a book “Lietuvos gamtinė aplinka. Mokomoji knyga” by Henrikas Volodka and Linas Balčiauskas, Šiauliai university, 2001, ISBN 9986-705-75-4. So generally, as a consumer, i feel rather disappointed with this article, how can it be? TV provides more information than encyclopedia, it should be complete nonsense, but it's true :( . — Preceding unsigned comment added by Native speaker Lit (talk • contribs) 22:57, 2 December 2011 (UTC)

litua litva lietuva whatever
Why do all these countless variations mostly sound like "Latvia" ? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lathamibird (talk • contribs) 00:50, 9 March 2015 (UTC)

Date misconception
In Lithuania the year 1009 is celebrated as the date of the first mention of the name of Lithuania. However the chronicler could not possibly record the event of March 1009 that happened in the wilds of Lithuania the same year, because he was not a witness of the event, and there was no internets at this time (Ha ha, only serious). Lacking the chronometry of writineg of the chronicle, I rephrased the corresponding text in the article in a more cautious way. - Altenmann >talk 20:24, 25 February 2024 (UTC)