Dear nicknamenick,

Lithuanian is a very old language. It is related to
Sanskrit, Latin, and Ancient Greek. It is the
oldest surviving Indo-European language, which has
preserved the most phonetical and morphological aspects
of the proto-language which many other European languages
come from. It is very important to the field of Indo-
European language studies which carries out research on the
origin, development, similarities and differences of Indo-
European languages. Scientists of different nationalities
in the field use Lithuanian as their language of
communication at their conferences.

Lithuanian is melodic and pleasant to the ear. Of course it
may appear a real mind-bender because of its conservative
character. The link given below explains further:

http://www.lsk.flf.vu.lt/en/department/courses-for-foreigners/lithuanian-language/

Dear Joe,

Labas. And a great big Lithuanian Aciu (Thank You),
for your posts on languages.
Much appreciated.

Foxy,

I've bookmarked that site. It's just a bit out of date for 2017 course enrolments. If you can get hold of a book called "The Horse, The Wheel and Language" by David Anthony, he goes into the origins of Indo-European languages in fine detail. Brilliant.

Due to its climate, Lithuania and the other Baltic states didn't adopt agriculture until relatively recently, perhaps after 1 AD, and were hunter-gatherers in (I get the idea) a hostile environment. So they've battled to keep their identity. Long may they continue to do so.

Language issues point up a problem with multiculturalism: that we need to maintain the unity and integrity of Australia for all Australians, yet of course many people speak a language other than English as their first language, and can't switch on the orders of some migration bureaucrat.

So of course more English-language courses should be available from the outset for new arrivals (including those from New Zealand and Scotland) AND Australians should be encouraged to learn other languages, or at least pick up a bit of the basic conversational language of people around them. We are one, and we are many, that's for sure.

Love,

Joe

Dear Joe,

I totally agree with you.

You're a gentle-man with a big heart.

Aah! Iftikhar. You are a favourite of mine, really. You still never answered any of the questions I gave you. Why is that? Very rude, don't you think?

Which way should the Integration go. Britain towards Islam, of course. You intimate that the British should do the integrating. How silly of me. Learn to read, wrote & speak Arabic so the conversion process will go more smoothly.

Is it contagious, Billy? I don't think so.

Ifty, we've just had a great discussion on Days of our lives. You should join it. Just for fun. There's a moslim lady that wants to be a moderate & be accepted by the West. What do you think about that?

There are reports going around that Muslim children should get special treatment at school during Ramadan when they are fasting and, 'tis said, that in at least one public school Muslim boys are excused from shaking hands with females.

Could this possibly be true?

Foxy
If Lithuanian is like Sanskrit it must be a mind-bender to learn.
Here are discussions about what is "old ".
Lithuanian a living fossil | WordReference Forums
forum.wordreference.com/threads/lithuanian-a-living-fossil.1978138/
Nov 14, 2010 - 19 posts - ‎12 authors
.. Lithuanian retains many archaic features of Proto Indo-european ..

"Only 34-40% of the words (out of 2044 PIE words) are related
even between any two families. From this concordance, it appears that Germanic is the family most related to known PIE (words) and other IE languages. "