Lietuvininks

Encyclopedia : L : LI : LIE : Lietuvininks

A Lietuvininkas (Lithuanian: Lietuvininkas, plural - Lietuvininkai) is the description of Prussian of Lithuanian descend from Lithuania Minor. Unlike other Lithuanians, who were mostly Roman Catholic in the late medieval period, Lietuvninkai were mostly Lutherans.

It is argued sometimes that the term Lietuvininkas basically just meant Lithuanian in Lithuania Minor; and that at that time there were two versions to name Lithuanians, "Lietuvis" and "Lietuvininkas", the first of which, "Lietuvis" (now translated as Lithuanian) became popular in other regions of Lithuania, while "Lietuvininkas" became popular in Lithuania Minor. Nevertheless, now the term Lietuvininkas, solely means a person from Lithuania Minor, rather than a Lithuanian in general.

The agent's suffix "-inink-" is common in Lithuanian. For example: "darbas" (a work)-"darbininkas" (a worker); "lankas" (a bow) - "lankininkas" (an archer); "bitė" (a bee) -"bitininkas" (an apiarist).

There were broadly 200 000 Lithuanian speakers remained in Lithuania Minor up to the First World War.

From Wikipedia, the Free Encyclopedia. Original article here. Support Wikipedia by contributing or donating.
All text is available under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License See Wikipedia Copyrights for details.