Easy language in Lithuania

LTReikšminiai žodžiai: Valstybinė kalba; Gimtoji kalba; Kalbos mokymasis; Užsienio studentai; Neįgalieji; Foreign students; Disabled people; Official language; Native language; Language learning.

ENDue to the ancient features of Lithuanian grammar, most foreign students find it a very difficult language to learn. Some learners are frustrated by the mobile stress in the different forms of the same word, which sometimes outwits even native speakers. All this is the heritage of Proto-Indo-European, traps set for the learner of Lithuanian by the history of sounds. The very concept of an ending is difficult to grasp if a person speaks only English. It can be frustrating to have to learn five declensions, each with seven cases, both in the singular and the plural (Subačius 2002: 6). People with disabilities comprise 8.43% of the total Lithuanian population. In 2019, 15 359 children had some type of officially recognized disability. The total number of people with disabilities in Lithuania is 236 000 (data from the Lithuanian Department of Statistics 2019). Twenty-nine per cent of people with disabilities are employed. The users of Easy and/or Plain Language in Lithuania include people with an immigrant background (73 751 individuals), people with dementia (31 944), and people with poor reading skills or low education. In accordance with to the International Standard Classification of Education (ISCED), 77 800 people in Lithuania are graded ISCED 0 (less than primary education), ISCED 1 (primary education), or ISCED 2 (lower secondary education). [Extract, p. 328]

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