Similarities between Lithuanian, Sanskrit and Ancient Greek: the sigmatic future

by Fabrizio Ulivieri

Lithuanian is the most archaic among all the Indo-European languages spoken today, and as a result it is very useful, indeed, indispensable in the study of Indo-European linguistics.
The most important fact is that Lithuanian is not only very archaic, but still very much alive, i. e., it is spoken by about three and a half million people. It has a rich tradition in folklore, in literature, and it is used very successfully in all walks of modern life, including the most advanced scientific research.
Forced by our interest for this piece of living archaism, we go deeper in our linguistic survey.

One of the most noticeable similarities is the future (- sigmatic future -).
Lithuanian has preserved a future tense from prehistoric times: it has one single form, e.g.

kalbė-siu 'I will speak', etc.
kalbė-si
kalbė-s
kalbė-sime
kalbė-site
kalbė-s

This form kalbėsiu is made from the stem kalbė-(ti) 'to speak', plus the ancient stem-ending (or formant, suffix) •sjō [> Old Lituanian sjūo > sjū, Mod. Lith. -siu; Sanskr. (i)ṣyá; Anc. Greek -σ-  = s). This is called the sigmatic future. It has been recorded only in ancient Old Indic (Sanskrit) and Ancient Greek, but it is still used by every speaker of Lithuanian today.

To better understand let's put in comparison the future of būti "to be" in Lithuanian and Sanskrit.

Lithuanian

būsiu    "I will be"
būsi      "you will be"
bus       "he/she/it will be"
būsime "we will be"
būsite   "you will be"
bus       "they will be"

Sanskrit

bhaviṣyāmi      "I will be"
bhaviṣyasi       "you will be"
bhaviṣyati       "he/she/it will be"
[...]*
bhaviṣyāmaḥ   "we will be"
bhaviṣyatha     "you will be"
bhaviṣyanti      "they will be"

There is no need to be a specialist in comparative linguistics to also note the perfect formal resemblance between the Lithuanian and the Sanskrit future.

Also those who have the least knowledge of Ancient Greek can easily realize how close these forms are.

λύσω            "I will solve"
λύσεις          "you will solve"
λύσει            "he/she/it will solve"
[...]
λύσομεν       "we will solve"
λύσετε          "you will solve"
λύσουσι        "they will solve"

-------------------------------------------------

*We left out the dual form:

bhaviṣyāvaḥ   "we two will be"
bhaviṣyathaḥ  "you two will be"
bhaviṣyataḥ    "they two will be"

Dual has however preserved traces especially in the verbal conjugational systems. In Lithuanian, primarily in living dialects, dual forms are still used. We shall cite here a present tense of the verb eiti "to go":

mudu (mudvi) einava  "we two go"
judu (judvi) einata       "you two go"
jiedu (jiedvi) eina        "they two go"