Samogitian

Introduction

Samogitian is a dialect of the Lithuanian language spoken mostly in Samogitia, the western part of Lithuania. The Samogitian dialect is rapidly declining: it is not used in the local school system and there is only one quarterly magazine and no television broadcasts in Samogitian.

The verb

The main difference between Samogitian and standard Lithuanian is verb conjugation:

• The past iterative tense is formed differently from Lithuanian (e.g., in Lithuanian the past iterative tense, meaning that action which was done in the past repeatedly, is made by removing the ending -ti and adding -davo (mirti – mirdavo, pūti – pūdavo), while in Samogitian, the word liuob is added instead before the word).
• The second verb conjugation is extinct in Samogitian, it merged with the first one.
• The plural reflexive ending is -muos instead of expected -mies which is in standard Lithuanian (-mės) and other dialects.
• Samogitian preserved a lot of relics of athematic conjugation which did not survive in standard Lithuanian.
• The intonation in the future tense third person is the same as in the infinitive, in standard Lithuanian it shifts.
• The subjunctive conjugation is different from standard Lithuanian.
• Dual is preserved perfectly while in standard Lithuanian it has been completely lost.