Lithuanian Voice Over Agency

Working with translation and production companies

Adding audio visual services to your mix will create many new sales opportunities for your team.

Matinée has over 40 years of experience working alongside translation and production companies. So you can be sure our project managers are fully at home with the technical process of supervising and delivering localised material, in a professional and timely manner. We can add translation, voiceover and subtitling to your company’s offering, which will appear seamless to your clients and yet mesh easily with the processes in your own departments.

If you are a translation company, we will send you some helpful guidelines when providing us with copy or scripts, and we can either work from your translations or handle the whole project for you, including translation. If you are a production company, we will provide translations or subtitles in your preferred format; whether that’s subtitle-ready files (XML or PNG), or burnt in as fully-subtitled videos. Voiceover recordings can be supplied as edited files, or we can remix with the original music and effects and provide a finished video, ready to go.

Working seamlessly with your team, we can take on all or part of the process, according to your needs, and help widen your service offering.

A short history on the Lithuanian language

Lithuanian, along with Latvian, belongs to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. They are the only two remaining living Baltic languages with official status, and are closely related (although not mutually intelligible).

Lithuanian and Latvian are of particular interest to linguists, as they have retained many archaic features of the Proto-Indo-European language. For a long period Lithuanian and Latvian were different dialects of the same language. They began to separate in the 9th century, but the transition lasted for several centuries. Lithuanian emerged as a distinct language in the 16th century; the oldest written examples are religious translations made in 1525.

There were three literary Lithuanian dialects in use in the 19th century – Low Lithuanian (along the Baltic Sea coast), East High Lithuanian and West High Lithuanian (in the region bordering East Prussia). The modern standard literary language is based on West High Lithuanian.

Which countries have Lithuanian as a national language?

Lithuanian is the official language of Lithuania, and is one of the official languages of the European Union.

How many people speak Lithuanian as their first language?

It is estimated that between three and four million people speak Lithuanian as their first language, the majority of whom live in Lithuania. Other countries with significant Lithuanian-speaking communities include Poland, Belarus, the United States, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, the UK, Australia and Russia.

Did you know…

• An interesting feature of both Latvian and Lithuanian is that proper names from other countries are altered phonetically to fit in with their own phonological system – even if the original language also uses the Latin alphabet.
• Today there are two main Lithuanian dialect groups – Highland Lithuanian (Aukštaitian) and Lowland Lithuanian (Samogitian). These have three sub-dialects each; Aukštaitian is divided into West, Dainavian and North, and Samogitian is divided into West, North and South.
• In 1864, under Russian rule, the use of the Lithuanian language was banned in publishing and education. However, Lithuanian books continued to be printed in East Prussia and the United States and were smuggled into the country.

The Lithuanian economy

Lithuania has the biggest economy of the Baltic states (the others being Latvia and Estonia). It was the first to gain independence from the Soviet Union and move to a market economy.

Despite being a member of the European Union (it joined in 2004), Lithuania carries out a significant amount of trade with Central and Eastern European countries, particularly Russia.