Before the Christianization of Lithuania, the Lithuanian language was only spoken, it was not written down. It was only after the Christening in 1387 when first texts in Lithuanian started to appear. They were mostly prayers translated from German by Franciscan monks who arrived in Vilnius at the beginning of 14th c. (Jovaišas, 1999: 43Jovaišas 1999 / komentarz/comment/r /
Jovaišas, Albinas 1999. Senoji Lietuvos literatūra. Kaunas: Šviesa.
).


The first book written in Lithuanian was published in 1547 and its author is a Samogitian, Martynas Mažvydas. Its title is Catechismusa prasty szadei (Lith. Katekizmo prasti žodžiai – Simple words of catechism). It contains a primer, a short catechism with a prayer, eleven psalms, Latin dedications and prefaces in Latin and Lithuanian (Jackiewicz 2003: 34Jackiewicz 2003 / komentarz/comment/r /
Jackiewicz, Mieczysław 2003. Dzieje literatury litewskiej do 1917 roku. Tom 1. Warszawa: Ex Libris.
).


In the years 1795-1914, the only official obligatory language in Lithuania was Russian.  1864 up to 1904. There was a ban on printing in Lithuanian if using the Latin alphabet from 1864 to 1904. Up to the end of the 19th c. there was no homogeneous Lithuanian literary language. Various authors wrote in Lithuanian making use of various dialects, e.g. Dionizas Poškas wrote in the Southern Zhemaitish dialect, and Antanas Baranauskas in the Eastern Aukshtaitish dialect. In order to establish one unitary literary language, one of the Lithuanian dialects was chosen – Kaunas Western Aukshtaitish dialect. In the end, rules of the Lithuanian literary language were set by Jonas Jablonskis  in 1901, together with him publishing his work “Lietuviškos kalbos gramatika” (Grammar of Lithuanian speech). In 1918, for the first time Lithuanian became the official language of the Republic of Lithuania.