Welcome to
the Little Prince's planet!

Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's "The Little Prince" in local Lithuanian dialects – a joint project by Jean-Marc Probst Foundation for the Little Prince and
M. Ciuzelis Charity Foundation.
With these translations of the world's one of the most popular literary work of all time, we aim to reveal the beauty of the regional languages and local dialects of Lithuania, and to contribute to their preservation for future generations.

At the same time, we also foster the ideas of philanthropy: part of the first print run of the Samogitian translation we distributed free of charge to local schools, libraries, and cultural centers. We also invite all fans and collectors of the book to focus on good deeds and donate the amount of their choice to our social project "The Silver Line" – a free of charge befriending and support helpline for the elderly – we have been running since 2016.

About the project

A unique gift to Lithuania and all collectors of the book around the World

The idea to publish the book not only in standard Lithuanian but also in other regional languages and dialects was born in the summer of 2023 when Marius Čiuželis, the co-founder of the M. Ciuzelis Charity Foundation, being the passionate collector of the book himself, met in Switzerland with the curator of the world's largest private collection of "The Little Prince" books Jean-Marc Probst.

"The Little Prince" in Samogitian

The Samogitian language is a regional Lithuanian language and has three distinct dialects (Northern Samogitian called Dounininkai, Southern Samogitian called Dūnininkai, Western Samogitian called Doninkai), and numerous smaller dialects and colloquialisms. The book was translated by Prof. Juozas Pabrėža on the basis of the dialect characteristic of the Samogitians (Dounininkai) of the northwestern region.

"The Little Prince" in Eastern Highlanders dialect

The ethnographic region of Aukštaitija (Highland) speaks in many different dialects. Linguists divide Highland into three main groups: Western (popularly – Suvalkiečių, Sūduvių), Southern (popularly – Dzukian) and Eastern. The latter, the most diverse, is further divided into sub-dialects of Vilnius (southeastern and northeastern), Utena, Anykščiai, Kupiškis, Širvintos and Panevėžys (southern and northern). In this book, the story of the Little Prince is written in Utenese dialect, one of the Eastern Highlanders dialects, by Prof. Vytautas Kardelis and Dr. Daiva Kardelytė-Grinevičienė.

"The Little Prince" in Dzukian

The book was translated into the dialect typical of the Southern Highlanders (Dzuki) by the poet Juozas Žitkauskas.

We hope that "The Little Prince" in local Lithuanian dialects, revealing the beauty of our regional languages and dialects, will be another memorable gift about Lithuania to book lovers and collectors, to all who still can notice elephant-eating stranglers and still remember what it was like to be children.