Quote:
Originally Posted by 3rd&Brown
You must be Polish.
Lithuanian is a distinct language (Baltic) one of only 2 in the world (the other being Latvian) that is not related to any other Indo-European Language. It is derived from Sanskrit. It is the oldest European language. It is not Slavic. Polish is Slavic. Lithuania was the last place in Europe to convert to Catholicism and to this day, still has a strong traditions based in Paganism.
Polish people have big round faces with high cheek bones. Lithuanians do not. As someone who is 50% Lithuanian and has taken multiple DNA tests, I can tell you not an ounce of my DNA says "Polish". It very precisely tracks my origin to two municipalities in Lithuania and my family can track its history to the 1400s. No part of the family history is, oh yeah, "we're Polish".
Lithuanians speak Polish the way Danes speak Swedish and Finns Norwegian, etc. Because it's a very small place and its necessary to get by. And yes, there is a shared history but we are ethnically distinct.
Europeans have colonized this continent for 500 years at this point and it does not make Native Americans Anglo-European Americans.
Asking a Polish person if Lithuanians are the same as them is akin to asking a Greek if Macedonia is Greece or asking a Russian if Ukraine is Russia. It's incredibly ignorant.
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I'm a mutt. My paternal great-grandfather was born in, grew up in, and immigrated as a young man to the US from Vilnius. He had a Polish surname. Hmmm... wonder how that happened?
Maybe it has just a little something to do with the fact that Poland and Lithuania were united as one for over 400 years, starting with the marriage of a Lithuanian guy to a Polish girl (who was of Hungarian and Bosnian ancestry).... see how that works?
Lithuanian is an archaic language, but it is not derived from the Indian Sanskrit. That is incorrect.
Morphology and genetics are not what we're talking about here. It makes zero sense to to even come close to getting into that considering it is a discussion of national identity.
You seem to be imparting a much more modern view of Lithuanian cultural identity, likely owing to the much more recent history of conflict between the two nations after WWI, and that's fine. It's one that holds fast to the "old ways" and is derived from subjugation by both the Polish and the Russians. Identity reclamation over the past century. European identity is filled with, and based on this. People can identify however they wish, but it doesn't change the facts of history. And that history is a shared national and cultural tradition, which stemmed from the Polonization of the region for well over four centuries.