Auszug aus Zigmas Zinkevicius, the History of the Lithuanian Language (S. 288
ff):
"As the movement of national revival became more intense, the need arose for a
written language common to all Lithuanians.
This became vitally important when they began organizing the publication of
their own periodical literature. Quite naturally the activists looked to
Lithuania Minor, where a relatively general written language had existed much
earlier (since the times of Cleinas) and could be used as an example. Those
activists of the national revival movement who came from the Suvalkai province
spoke the southern subdialects of the West Aukstaitish dialect, which were very
similar to the written Standard language of Lithuania Minor which was also based
on the same subdialects. Hence, the language of Lithuania Minor was very close
to theirs and one might say that it was almost their own. It would have been
incomprehensible had the editors and contributors of the first national
newspaper "Ausra" (The Dawn) looked to other dialects instead of writing in
their "own language". After all, 75% of the contributors to "Ausra", the most
active amongst them, came from the West Aukstaitish dialect area and from those
subdialects near it, all of which were close to the language of Lithuania Minor.
This group included all five editors, two of whom were born in Lithuania Minor
(Martynas Jankus and Jurgis Miksas), and the other three, though born in Czarist
Lithuania, were well acquainted with the publications from Lithuania Minor and
had even contributed to them. "Ausra" (as well as other newspapers later) was
published in Lithuania Minor, therefore, it could not help but be influenced by
the tradition of the written language in Lithuania Minor. ..
The activists used as a model that language of Lithuania Minor which was
described in the grammars of the great Lithuanian specialists Schleicher and
Kursaitis and was universally adopted by comparative linguistics. This was the
language taught at Moscow University by Prof. Filip Fortunatov, whose lectures
were attended by many of the activists of the national revival movement. That
famous Lithuanian model, in the words of Kazimieras Buga, "the skeleton of the
written language", was, for all intents and purposes, used in the periodical and
other press in Lithuania Major, but it was somewhat modified and adapted to new
requirements. This language is the origin of current Standard Lithuanian. Hence,
it developed from the former written Standard language used in Lithuania Minor.
That Standard language model imported into Czarist Lithuania did not entirely
correspond to the written language used in Lithuania Minor at the end of the
19th c, which was changing and vanishing at the time because of intensified
Germanization. The written Standard language of Lithuania Minor, in its
contemporary stage, was unsuitable for Lithuania. The Gothic orthography also
seemed foreign to the activists. In general, both parts of the Lithuanian nation
- Lithuania Major and Minor - lived separate lives. There were no very close
spiritual ties between them and they often could not understand each other. All
this prevented the rote copying of the contemporary Standard language of
Lithuania Minor. People would have interpreted rote copying as an introduction
of "Prussianisms", which they consciously avoided. Hence, the written Standard
language of Lithuania Minor had to be adapted to the needs of Czarist Lithuania:
first, all unnecessary Germanisms and other words not used in Lithuania had to
be eliminated and replaced with words which the people of Lithuania Major could
understand. The model itself of the Standard language had to be somewhat adapted
to the Suvalkish (the name used for southern West Aukstaitish Speakers at that
time) dialect. This was the area from which the majority of the national revival
movement activists came. This was also the dialect which Marcinskas and Tatare
used �s the basis for their writings. This work was performed and given
direction by linguists, mostly by Jonas Jablonskis, who is often called the
father of the written language. Their goal was to blend the Standard language of
Lithuania Minor with the Suvalkieciai dialect in a unique way, to synthesize
them. Essentially this was not a new written language, but a further stage in
the development of the written Standard language of Lithuania Minor, which was
meant to satisfy the needs of Czarist Lithuania. This is evident from the many
correspondences between current Standard Lithuanian and the written language of
Lithuania Minor. The latter differed significantly from the Suvalkish dialect of
that period, which dialectologists now call the West Aukstaitish Kaunas
dialect."
Lutz Szemkus