Why does everyone think that Lithuanian sounds like Russian?

[Austrvegr]

Lithuanian does sound like Russian. Probably because it does not have weird sounds absent in Russian.

In some respects Lithuanian is the ancestral language to Russian. Some Lithuanian words are the ancient forms from which actual Russian words have developed, for example, Lit. gyvas > Rus. жив.

[Mans not hot]

The problem is foreigners thinking ''Lithuania= Tiny Russia''

The problem is you're butthurt. Seriously, who cares? No one cares about uneducated fools.

[bella1407]

Lithuanian does NOT sound like Russian. As I said before It sounds like someone non-polish try to speak Polish.

[Minde]

Polish? How much experience do you have with either languages? nearly next to none id say

[inactive_member]

Lithuanian does NOT sound like Russian. As I said before It sounds like someone non-polish try to speak Polish.

I disagree. Polish language has more hushing (шипящих) and nasal sounds.

[Meow]

You judge how it sounds

[Mans not hot]

I disagree. Polish language has more hushing (шипящих) and nasal sounds.

I agree that Lithuanian doesn't sound Russian nor Polish. I think the closest sounding one would be Belarusian.. who are apparently Slavicised Lithuanians...

[Smaug]

I'm not an expert, but since I'm part Lithuanian I have read somethig about the subject out of pure curiosity. In my opinion Lithuanian souds a little more "flat" than Russian and other Slavic languages.

[Twistedmind]

That happens for several reasons:

• Lithuanian belongs to Balto-Slavic IE branch
• Baltic and Slavic are both Satem while Cetlic, Italic, Germanic are not

So, no suprise that foreigners hear similarities. Though how much similar they may sound depends on listener's level of experience/contact with these languages. If someone thinks Lithuanian sounds completely alike/identical to Russian/Polish, then you may suspect that that somebody has had little contact with these languages. Also, people expect neighbouring languages to sound similar. If they heard about such language Lithuanian for the first time in theirlife and didn't knew where it's spoken, maybe their opinion would be a bit different.

Also, most importnant, both languages have verry soft pronounciation, hence sound similar (keyword is sounding). Slovak is another example of verry soft pronouned language.
About Polish, it sounds more like Serbian/Croatian with its rather hard prononciation.

[inactive_member]

I agree that Lithuanian doesn't sound Russian nor Polish. I think the closest sounding one would be Belarusian.. who are apparently Slavicised Lithuanians...

Troll!