According to the data of the population census in 2021, 85.33 % of the total population of the Republic of Lithuania indicated Lithuanian language as their native language, 5.12% – Polish, 6.79 – Russian.
The Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania, approved in 1992, establishes Lithuanian as a state language (Article 14). Article 37 of the Constitution provides that citizens who belong to ethnic communities shall have the right to foster their language, culture, and customs.
The Law on State Language (1995) regulates the use of the state language in public life of Lithuania, protection and control of the state language, and the responsibility for violations of the Law on State Language. According to the Law, Laws of the Republic of Lithuania and other legal acts shall be adopted and promulgated in the state language; all institutions, establishments, enterprises and organisations which function in the Republic of Lithuania shall manage filing work, accounting, reporting, financial and technical documents in the state language; legal proceedings in the Republic of Lithuania shall be conducted in the state language; the State shall guarantee the residents of the Republic of Lithuania the right to acquire general, vocational, higher post-school and university education in the state language. The Law does not regulate unofficial communication of the population and the language of events of religious communities, as well as persons belonging to ethnic communities.
The policy of the state language is shaped by the State Language Commission. The tasks of the Commissions are to decide issues concerning the implementation of the Law on the State Language; submit to Seimas, President of the Republic and the Government proposals on language policy and implementation of the Law on State Language, submit to Seimas conclusions regarding the language of legal acts; establish the directions of regulating the Lithuanian language; decide the issues of standardisation and codification of Lithuanian language; appraise and approve the most important standardising language works (dictionaries, reference books, guidebooks and textbooks); etc.
The State Language Inspectorate is a policy implementation body whose objectives, functions, organisation and procedure of work are regulated by the Law on the State Language Inspectorate (2001). The main function of the Inspectorate is to control whether the activities of state, municipal and other institutions, companies, and organisations operating in the Republic of Lithuania comply with the Law on State Language, resolutions of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language and other legal acts establishing requirements for the use and correctness of the State language.
In 2021, the State Language Commission approved the State Language Use, Standardisation and Dissemination Programme for 2022 – 2028. The aim of the Programme is to ensure the status and functionality of the Lithuanian language as the state language in all areas of public life, to promote the development of standard Lithuanian in line with society’s needs, and to foster the public’s linguistic awareness. To achieve this aim, the Programme sets the following objectives: 1. to carry out expert activities necessary for addressing issues of the functioning of the state language and the standardisation and codification of standard Lithuanian; 2. to conduct applied research in Lithuanian linguistics, expand Lithuanian terminology, and develop the terminology management system; 3. to ensure the development and dissemination of the language of science and teaching; 4. to ensure effective public language education and awareness-raising. The Programme is financed from the appropriations of the State budget of the Republic of Lithuania allocated to the Commission. According to preliminary calculations, EUR 4.05 million will be required to implement the Programme in 2022–2028.
In 2024, the State Language Commission approved Lithuanian Language Prestige Strengthening Programme for 2025 – 2030. Programme aim – to strengthen the prestige of the Lithuanian language in Lithuania and within the Lithuanian diaspora, and to foster the public’s linguistic awareness, engagement, and confidence in the power of their language. To achieve this aim, the Programme sets the following objectives: 1. to promote interest in the Lithuanian language, shape positive public attitudes (across various target groups, including Lithuanian communities abroad) toward the Lithuanian language and its use, and to foster dialogue among the media, the academic community, and society on topical language issues; 2. to promote the creation and dissemination of resources for Lithuanian-language means of expression; 3. to strengthen the prestige of the Lithuanian language by developing public linguistic education. According to preliminary estimates, EUR 1.3 million will be required to implement the Programme in 2025–2030.
In recent years in Lithuania, including among Lithuanians in the diaspora, new ways have been sought to spark public interest in the Lithuanian language and to encourage its use, creation, and renewal: a national dictation is held; online language competitions are organised for pupils; and the State Reading Promotion Programme is being implemented. Since 2016, Lithuanian Language Days have been held in Lithuania and abroad. The State Language Inspectorate organises an annual competition for the Most Beautiful Company Name; the Commission grants awards for significant contributions to the creation of Lithuanian terminology, the cultivation of the language of science, and public language education; and the Institute of the Lithuanian Language runs the national contest “My Dictionary.” In 2017, the public joined the newly launched Word of the Year and Phrase of the Year initiative. The Commission organises online discussion forums with language users from various target groups. However, the measures implemented for public linguistic education and the initiatives to support and strengthen the Lithuanian language are fragmented. Building the prestige of the Lithuanian language requires a more systematic approach based on research into changes in linguistic behaviour and attitudes in society. There is a lack of professionally prepared educational language programmes, articles, and websites that would help foster a sense of responsibility for language as a value foundation of a modern state that nurtures European traditions. Ways should also be sought to raise the professional prestige of language specialists.
Since the events in Belarus in 2020—and especially since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022—the number of immigrants and war refugees in Lithuania has significantly increased. Consequently, Lithuania has recently been facing another challenge: a surge in demand for Lithuanian-as-a-foreign-language instruction among immigrants and refugees. Surveys show that the availability of language courses is the most frequently mentioned problem identified by the surveys and interview participants, who were asked to indicate the three most important challenges of adaptation in Lithuania. The Lithuanian Employment Service can finance Lithuanian language courses only once per person. There is a great lack of a complex approach to the teaching of the Lithuanian language; there are not enough methodological materials and learning tools, there is a lack of properly trained teachers and opportunities to pass the state exam in the language. These problems revealed gaps in the teaching Lithuanian language for foreigners. There is no institution that would coordinate the whole process from both methodological and organisational points of view. In most countries, Cultural Institutes are involved in teaching the national language to foreigners and organising exams, but the Lithuanian Institute of Culture does not have such a function. There is no clear system for language learning levels, exams are organised rarely, and there are not enough places in them.
Another debate in the field of language policy in recent years has dealt with the “names spelling issue”. Article 7 of the Lithuanian Law on State Language provides that personal names of the citizens of the Republic of Lithuania in official documents (e.g. ID documents, passports) shall have the forms prescribed by laws, i.e. have to be written in the Lithuanian alphabet. The Lithuanian alphabet is based on Latin and consists of 32 letters: the Latin characters with extra nasal letters (ą, ę, į, ų) and letters with diacritics (č, š, ž, ė, ū). The alphabet does not contain the Latin letters “w”, “q” and “x”, and this causes problems for the national minority group representatives willing to name their children in accordance with their culture, tradition or language. It also poses a difficulty for Lithuanian women marrying foreigners and wishing for their surnames to be written in the same way as the surnames of their husbands on documents issued in Lithuania. According to the data, this problem concerns a substantial number of people annually, as many as 16% of marriages are of a mixed character. Further, within ten years, the number of children born beyond the borders of the country has increased from 1% to 16% (2011). Such marriages and the resulting offspring want their family name to be written in its unchanged form in all documents issued within Lithuanian borders.
Discussions on the original spelling of non-Lithuanian names in documents have been taking place for decades. Politicians of the Polish community in Lithuania and their supporters in Poland have long been asking to allow Polish letters in the last names of Polish speakers, an issue that has been emerging in the bilateral Lithuanian-Polish relations. Critics say that non-Lithuanian characters would undermine the status of the Lithuanian language as the official language and, furthermore, can cause trouble in reading non-Lithuanian last names.
In January of 2022, the Parliament adopted the Law on the writing of personal names and surnames in documents. The Law has allowed Lithuanian citizens to use the letters “q”, “x” and “w”, which do not exist in the Lithuanian alphabet, if they assume the surnames of their non-Lithuanian spouses. This will also apply if the surname of the parent is spelt in non-Lithuanian characters, as well as if the parents, grandparents or ancestors had or have the citizenship of another country and their first and last names were spelt in non-Lithuanian characters. The original spelling of names in Latin-based characters without diacritical marks will also be allowed if a Lithuanian citizen acquired their first and last names in a foreign country, and the names are spelt in these characters in the source document.
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