Lithuanian Language - Orthography

Orthography

Lithuanian uses the Latin script supplemented with diacritics. It has 32 letters. In the collation order, y follows immediately after į (called i nosinė), because both y and į represent the same long vowel :

In addition, the following digraphs are used, but are treated as sequences of two letters for collation purposes. The digraph ch represents a single sound, the velar fricative, while dz and dž are pronounced like straightforward combinations of their component letters (sounds):

Dz dz (dzė), Dž dž (džė), Ch ch (cha).

The Lithuanian writing system is largely phonemic, i.e., one letter usually corresponds to a single phoneme (sound). There are a few exceptions: for example, the letter i represents either the vowel, as in the English sit, or is silent and merely indicates that the preceding consonant is palatalized. The latter is largely the case when i occurs after a consonant and is followed by a vowel, except in some borrowed words (e.g., the first consonant in lūpa, "lip", is slightly different from the palatalized first consonant in liūtas, "lion", but both consonants are then followed by the same vowel, the long, there is no in liūtas).

A macron (on u), an ogonek (on a, e, i, and u), and y (in place of i) can all be used to mark vowel length in Modern Standard Lithuanian. Acute, grave, and tilde diacritics are used to indicate pitch accents. However, these pitch accents are generally not written, except in dictionaries, grammars, and where needed for clarity, such as to differentiate homonyms and dialectal use.