Lithuania’s Ambassador to India Diana Mickeviciene on Monday said her country takes pride in having a close connection with Sanskrit language.

She said more research should be done on the language.

“Actually it’s a recognised, scientific fact that our language, which is my native tongue, Lithuanian is the closest living sister language of Sanskrit. We don’t know how it happened, so, our idea is to research it — make it more known. It’s a pretty known fact in Lithuania, we take pride in this — having this close connection," she told ANI.

"But, it’s not so known in India, so our intention was to inform the people. Several years ago, our Embassy published this dictionary — very symbolic, dictionary of 108 words which are identical in Sanskrit and in Lithuanian languages," she said.

"They are very basic words like – Madhu, Deva, Agni,” Mickeviciene told ANI.

Interestingly,  Lithuanian Embassy in association with Vilnius University and Lithuanian Language Institute has published a dictionary of 108 words in Lithuanian and Sanskrit which sound and mean the same.

“These are very primary, primordial — you know when humans start speaking names like fire, heaven or god, which shows that the connection is not superficial. It’s not just easy borrowing from one to another, but probably a very deep down relationship which I think needs to be researched and our idea is in fact to continue the research — like to find an Indian scholar of Sanskrit who will take interest in Lithuanian language– to pair them up with Lithuanian scholars of Sanskrit, so that they could sit together and do something much more. We can easily have 1008 words and even more identical words,” she added.

Mickeviciene has launched a new initiative that highlights the linguistic similarities between Sanskrit and Lithuanian.

Speaking in Hindi highlighting the relationship between India and Lithuania and her love for the Sanskrit language, she said that it’s difficult for her to delve into serious topics, but would like to say that she studied Sanskrit for two years.
“I myself studied Sanskrit for two years and I know that it’s far from just words, its grammar is quite related. So, very big similarities, conjugation of verbs and declinations of nouns, deep down its very structural connect,” said the Lithuanian envoy.

“In our universities, these are the language of scriptures and my study dealt with reading, understanding and translating Sanskrit but not speaking. I can talk in Hindi, I learnt Hindi 2-3 times and forgot it. I came to India this time with serious intention to learn Hindi and within six months I think that I can give a full interview in Hindi,” she added.