Nijolė Tuomienė. Kalba ir tapatybė Pietryčių Lietuvos ir Baltarusijos paribiuose (XX a. II pusė – XXI a. pradžia). 1 dalis

Lithuanian Linguistic Act This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union. Contents linked to Turin reference ISSN 2669-218X (online or electronically) This Decision shall enter into force on the day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union. Published by the Institute of the Lithuanian Language. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which allows unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Published by the Lithuanian Language Institute. This article is open access, distributed under the terms of a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License that allows unlimited use, distribution, and reproduction of the content on any medium, including authors and source. Received by Gauta on 28 November 2024. Accepted: Accepted: 2025-01-21. This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal. 1 This Decision shall enter into force on the day following that of its publication. This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union. 1 DALIS Vilnius: Institute of Lithuanian Language, 2023, 259 p. This Regulation shall enter into force on the day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union. This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union. I'm not sure that's a good idea. The Commission shall be empowered to adopt delegated acts in accordance with Article 26 to supplement this Regulation by laying down detailed rules for the application of this Regulation. The ORCID ID is: – Research areas: dialectology, lexicography and lexicology of Lithuanian dialects, analysis of dialectal expressions in written sources, sociolinguistics. This Regulation shall enter into force on the twentieth day following that of its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union. The book on the identity of people who speak several languages, Vingius, a language and identity study by Nijolė Tuomienė, is about how the implanted anti-verbal attitude to language shapes a vulnerable personality. how that injured person, living quietly in his village, is virtually "lifted" from the state to the state, i.e. repeatedly occupied in his own country, how generations feel that he is experiencing those destructive actions; existential time, as having one's own repository […] language, the curia destroys the self-worth of the speaker; how a language eventually becomes traumatized and marginalized, how it inevitably takes the place of another language, or even a few other languages. The author's attention, as indicated in the title of the book, is focused on the second half of the 20th century […] the beginning of the 21st century. The main problems of the study of the work of Niolita Tuomienė are most closely related to the work of Halina Turskova (1995 [1939] and Valerija Čekmona 2 (2017) Concept, many of which can be seen in comparison with the work of Petro Gaucho, Václav Milyas, Aloysius Vidugoryi, Tamaros Sudnik, Kazimierz Garšov, Laima Grumadinė, Irena Adomavičiūtė and other Slavic and White Parisian researchers. In other words, Nijolė Tuomienė is undoubtedly assigned to the direction of the developers of the concept of Halinos Turskos. The monograph reveals the complex current linguistic situation in the south-eastern outskirts of Lithuania and north-western Belarus (Varanasi). It is the history of the latter territory more than any other that reveals the ability of Lithuanians, who have been occupied several times in their lives and surrounded by other populations, to adapt in order to survive. The imprint of that experience has been passed down from generation to generation until now. Therefore, I think that Tuomienė's scientific work would be suited to the monograph "Likimų monograph", which appeared in the summer after visiting mostly only the former Lithuanian islands of Belarus and the adjacent southern Lithuanian transit points, recording and carefully listening to more than 160 hours of audio recordings, after familiarizing with the sociolingvistic questionnaires of the respondents and reviewing various scientific literature. The 1 research material, compiled from 21 points of the Lithuanian language atlas (LKA), covers a period of 70 years (the second half of the 20th century to the second decade of the 21st century), but the main attention is focused on our days or almost our days. Historically in the 20th century, Lithuania was a state with outlined borders: part of its territory belonged to Belarus, it went through several occupations (1920-1939 years of the Poles, after World War II of the Soviets). With the long-established ideology of the "former fatherland of the Polish countryside", which has become openly Polish in the last thirty years, the inhabitants of the south-eastern countryside of Lithuania have been isolated from the Lithuanian society (p. The Lithuanian-speaking islands of Belarus had to switch from Lithuanian dialects and Belarusian dialects (properly) to the state-speaking Russian language. As the local Lithuanian snacks, which were gradually and gradually eliminated from the southern and eastern elevations in the beginning of the 20th century, were attributed to the local Lithuanian snacks in eastern Lithuania (the current municipality of the Ša čininkų district) and northwestern Belarus (the current Varanėvo district), the author provides details and insights in the monograph. The method of linguistic geography applied to the linguistic plots studied until the 21st century to solve the problems raised by the author was only partial: the facts were recorded, but this method did not explain the reasons for the change in language. Therefore, by applying the old method, the earlier Lithuanian linguists were forced to treat the observed deviations as a coincidence, as deviations from the course of the logical process, so that there was not only a temptation, but simply a necessity to eliminate them from the study. The first to describe the changing language situation outside Lithuania's territory was Eduard 2 Edward Voltaire and Olaf Broch. Researchers of the nineteenth century found that next to each other in the neighborhoods of Paribio […] Varanãvo and Ša čininkų […] 1 Descriptions are given on pages 223-259 and the 256th literature position is given on pages 151-169. 2 The method of linguistic geography was applied by the first researchers of this region: Kazys Morkūnas, Zigmas Zinkevičius, Jadvyga Kardelytė, etc., and Aloyzas Vidugiris, Laima Grumadienė, Kazimieras Garšva, Vytautas Kardelis, etc. wrote about the observed changes in the grammar. 3 Lithuanian slang is no longer used in everyday life. In the absence of a natural continuity, the LKA 3 crossing points create the conditions for the acquisition of the common Lithuanian language (bk) in the absence of a natural continuity. The main obstacle to its use only in the south-eastern part of Lithuania and on the border with Belarus is that the Lithuanian language, having lost its main functions, is gradually being pushed out of active use and replaced by another language (or other languages) (12). Therefore, of the 17 LKA points in the territory of Lithuania, only 7 are lively, 2 […] lively, mixed and 8 […] dying. The remaining 4 LKA points on the territory of Belarus are sunny, except for the still existing Peles point. The author based his research on the sociolinguistic and linguistic material of the two mentioned linguistic areas: not only Lithuanian, but also local Baltic languages and local Polish languages, as well as the material of the variants of the Baltic and Russian literary languages used there, collected from From 1964 4 to 2017. The monograph is valuable for the clever application of the qualitative research method to two different and at the same time similar linguistic plots of the periphery and the periphery. Various sociolinguistic survey methods have been used to reveal both the behaviour of the respondent and the linguistic processes taking place, determined by economic, social, political and other factors. The target information for monitoring the ethnolinguistic situation is conveyed through a group conversation, an in-depth and semi-structured interview. It is necessary to study the linguistic, cultural and mental attitudes of the respondents, i.e. to apply the ethnolinguistic data analysis method. Examples of the respondents' multi-language statements 5 are transcribed. The object of study also inspired the formation of a vocabulary of commonly used terms, facilitating the understanding of the monograph text. The perception of the representatives of Lithuanian language dialects as to what is local and what is not local differs from the analogous paribio-zabrabio terms. In the south-east of Lithuania, the local non-local has a different meaning [there, further in Lithuania, this is our […]localism[…] misunderstood[…] (p. 109)]. Here, as a component of ethnic identity, the language has changed more than three times in a century: from 1920 it was forced to require Polish (in addition to Lithuanian and Bulgarian); since 1945 […] Russian (greta lenkų, baltarusių ir lietuvių), since 1988 the Lithuanian language has been restored (greta rusų, lenkų ir baltarusių). As a result, the linguistic situation is being investigated both carefully and judiciously. 20th century languages 3 From 1972 to the present day, the bilingualism and multilingualism of the Parisian population has been emphasized in the publications of researchers of Lithuanian and Slavic languages or dialects. 4 The duration of the audio recordings is […] 166 hours, sociolinguistic data […] completed population surveys (questionnaires). 89 multilingual respondents from the older, middle and younger generations were interviewed and (or) recorded. The recordings were collected from all 17 LKA points in the Pietryčių Lietuvos paribas (total of 70 hours). The recordings were made in two distinct periods: 1964-1990 and 1994-1994 with the use of the soundscape of the southern and eastern highlands of Vilnius. 2011[…]2013 […] 36 hours of sound recordings from Šalčininkų r. points (31 hours in local Slavic languages, only 5 hours in Lithuanian translation and non-language version of Lithuanian language). In the continuation of the South Highlands Address in Belarus, the data of the living language were collected in several stages (out of a total of 96 hours of recordings): from 1995 to 2007, 58 hours of Lithuanian language texts were recorded, and in 2017, 34 hours of texts (9 hours in Lithuanian and 25 hours in local Bulgarian and Polish, only in Bulgarian and 4 hours in standard Bulgarian). 5 Examples of eastern and southern highland dialects are given in the Copenhagen phonetic transcription. The simplified transcription used in the scientific publications of the Slavs and other speakers of the Baltic languages and local Polish examples. The examples cited are also transcribed as bk, with the meaning of the different words indicated in brackets. 4 The ideas of Valerijus Čekmon, the founder of the direction of contact linguistics, that southeastern Lithuania needs "an analysis of the history of Lithuanian Poles, its knowledge and proper treatment" and that the results of the process of language contacts depend on "the similarity of languages and their social prestige" (p. Until the 21st century, there has been no substantial change in self-awareness. Kristina Rutkovska, who studied Lithuanian dialects, found that there are no monolingual regions in the region, and a mixed-language environment prevails. In the southern part of Lithuania, there are 9 (of 17) LKA points in the manifestations of Lithuanian language dialects in the Amžių sandy. They have both better and less preserved characteristics of southern highlands (dzūkuojama; narrowed ą, ę; healthy preserved double an, am). The other eight LKA points in the area have become Slavic, the inhabitants understand Lithuanian, but can no longer speak it. Until the end of the 20th century, the situation was different: in the south-eastern part of Lithuania and Belarus, the information of the older and partly middle generations was spoken in translation, only the youth had taken over the Slavic languages. Studies of Lithuanian multilingualism in the south-east of Lithuania in recent years show that the use of Lithuanian, Russian, Polish or Belarusian is situational. This multilingualism of the region is valued anew by speakers of different generations this is an advantage. And this view, applied to the geographical context of the Lithuanian-speaking people of present-day southeastern Lithuania, appears to have remained unchanged for a century: […]although the Lithuanian language is the state language and it is compulsory in state institutions, prevailing in daily communication, the regional language is still Polish[…] (p. 42). In the south-east of Lithuania, there is a tendency for the common language of the Lithuanians to be replaced by the common language of not only Lithuanians, but also of the Baltic peoples (p. 43). Soviet-era Russification, which educated the middle and younger generations of the Russian language, as well as changing their attitude to the Russian language, no longer maintains prestige. This would pave the way for the 6 state Lithuanian language, but it is still a historical mix: […][T]en was Lithuania, and here is Poland. The Poles live here. My grandfather told me that from ancient times everyone here spoke Polish, no one spoke Lithuanian (p. 80). Historically, southeastern Lithuania and the Lithuanian islands in Belarus belong to both the LDK, the People's Republic of Poland, the Russian Empire, and the Soviet Union. In the local sense, all the lands are the Lithuanian indigenous people who lived in them, and in the political sense, the inhabitants of the region traveled from state to state (p. 66). Respondents are told: […][T]he father says, we need to run, we won't live, well, we need to go somewhere. And so we stayed and we lived, we grew and now we live, we pray, we pray, we pray. (in Bulgarian) we speak […] (p. 66). Since there were no borders between countries that formed the national basis after World War I, then the joy did not want to recognize its belonging to one or the other nation, forming the term tuteišis (tuteišiškumas) […] a man who speaks various languages, but emphasizes only the place of residence, i.e. the connection with geography: […]Prie lenkų likom be savo kalbos, be lietuviškų mišių. I remember my father didn't go to a Polish mass. The Polish school did, well, then the Russian school. We didn't read or write in Lithuanian. How I grew up. Very few people spoke. Then the language was changed, and everyone had learned (in Belarusian). The people are the same. Father 6 It will come from Turgeli, Šalčininkų district municipality. 5 Lithuanian language, and his son is already Polish […] (p. 70). Tuteism is seen as a tactic of cultural resistance and for the local population it is associated with self-sufficiency, adapting to increasingly new social and political circumstances: […][S]vetimi came and wrote down all the Polish (pase)[…], […][V]isoki languages were learned, but the Polish and the Russian did not […] (p. 71[…]72). The monograph emphasizes that the traditional basis for the formation of nationalism (political territory, native language, recognized religion) was suppressed: […][T]he identity, customs, as well as the right to choose all this, throughout the region often belonged to other […]foreign arrivals[…] (p. 73). The local inhabitants of the settlements were constantly humiliated and punished, e.g. Lithuanians who worked in the kolkhoz did not earn money, they were all persecuted [[…]Sako, we are your peers (perauklėsim) […] (p. 77)]; "I went to work every day, and he didn't write. […]...[…] He answered me angrily: shout loudly, Lithuanian, it wasn't given to you. […] (p. 78)". Lithuanians living on both sides of the border needed to obtain "local residence status", although, as the respondent born in Belarus and living in Šačininka said, "I would be Polish if I did not speak Polish". It's a mixed language. And my children are already speaking Russian, my grandchildren […] Lithuanian[…] (p. 77). In the confessional sense, the inhabitants of the islands of southeastern Lithuania and Belarus are endogamous, but they pray in Polish even when the mass is offered in Lithuanian, i.e. the confessional criterion defines the rules of language use. The author mentions that the local Lithuanians in Ramashkonys (Baltarusija) after each occupation sought to regain the rights of the Lithuanian language primarily in the church and school, but it is claimed that Polish and Catholic are synonymous, and […]lenkiškumas […]ownership[…] arises from being a 7 Catholic[…] (p. 88). The only religious community during all the years of the occupation that did not respond to polonocentrism (interruption of Polish historiographical interpretation remains). Confessional affiliation, as a criterion of community identification, is still relevant today (in Lithuania, masses are held in Polish and Lithuanian, and in Belarus in Polish and Bulgarian). The younger generation does not yet have a religious-ethnic model. Until now, the provision inherited from the post-war period due to the weak national identity of the population has created the conditions "to identify individually with any nationality and to be motivated to act on the side of any country" (p. Does the author call this period a limited formation or non-formation of national identity? the process. Different factors that determine the communication and code damage of the inhabitants of the periphery (the ability to participate in a conversation or to consciously seek separation by using a superior language) were one of the conditions for bilingualism and multilingualism to occur. Different generations of families in eastern Lithuania speak differently: husband and wife […] in Russian, father and children […] in Russian and plain, mother […] in Polish and plain, children interacting […] in Lithuanian. Similarly, on the islands of Belarus, only children and friends speak plain and Russian. The older generation remembers that […][N]early conversations were interrupted by tensions arising from intolerance of the Lithuanian language or the Lithuanian people[…] (p. 95). 7 This stereotype reflects the provisions of the ideology of the noble (LKD aristocracy) based on anti-Christian paganism. 6 Localism is also characteristic of the ethnic part of Belarus with which people are still connected? and language, and close kinship. The linguistic situation of the remaining Lithuanian islands, which are classified as peripheral languages, is not enviable: "being isolated, Slavic languages, which are particularly easily influenced, have lost not only the vocabulary of the languages, but also the prestige of the Lithuanian language" (p. 44). Researchers of the Joint Slavic and Lithuanian Complex Expeditions (which took place in 1974, 1976, and 1986 years) have come to the conclusion that the Lithuanian language, which was once the most important language of the inhabitants of this region, has gradually become the language of the household and the family, and in some places has not been used at all. Baltar's language simply gradually expelled the Lithuanian language from the family. (p. 45) The older residents of Paribas, who call themselves locals, Chionykstis, Tuteis, can't tell who they are. Only geographically identified respondents who 8 speak a mixture of Polish, Russian, Bulgarian and Lithuanian do not have a clearly defined national identity. The Pelesos point in Belarus, where the Lithuanian language is spoken in the public environment and in the church, and young people are taught Lithuanian in the school (closed in 2023), is located in the position of the nykstan point. Local residents are forced to adapt to the language. Living in small rural communities (Nočià, Pelesà, Ramaškónys, Ródūnia) in Belarus, Lithuanians did not withstand the pressure of a large and long-lasting Slavic-speaking majority. The pronunciation of the language is related to the status of the language: in the ethnic territories of Lithuania, the Lithuanian language has never been an official or public language and it has not been handled by any official writing. The monograph describes the relationship between the fate of the language and the cultural assimilation of the community. As a result, the characteristics are gradually lost and replaced by the more "prestige", "higher level", "cultural" traditions. Consciously or unconsciously, people adapt to new customs and new languages by becoming bilingual. Later, when the second language, the learned language, enters everyday life, people move from bilingualism to monolingualism. The author of the book analyzes how cultural assimilation was carried out "from above", i.e. through the pressure of the local administration, education and the church, in the areas under investigation, especially in the Lithuanian islands in Belarus. For example, during the Soviet era, the Lithuanians of the southeastern part of Lithuania and its ethnic territories could not allow their children to go to Lithuanian schools because there were no such schools (or they were too far from settlements). My parents, who went to Polish and Russian schools, did not try to teach Lithuanian to their children. Thus, this language has become an unheard-of "living language" of the past, which does not meet the daily needs of young people (p. 60). In the districts of Šačinkai and Varanas, Lithuanians became an ethnic minority and this status has not changed until now [he is a Catholic he is also Polish (p. 61) generally denied the presence of Lithuanians in the districts under investigation]. As the ethnic identity was "formed" by the units of the Army of Krajina, persecuting Lithuanians, the respondent from Ramashka tells: "He had signed a contract. […] Polish, but speaks Lithuanian. They thought he was a fake Pole. Next time we'll come, he says, we'll help. 8 The claim that the Polish ethnic and national identity is expressed more strongly and actively in Vilnius and its surroundings than in the city and district of Šalčinki is questionable, as other statistical data show. According to the 2021 and 2022 Lithuanian census, only 79.5 percent of the population in Šalčininkų district was written or written by Polish. 7 I want you on this bench. And, you know, the metal bar says, "If we cut you, you'll know what you're made of". Conscious and consistent population celebration was carried out on a state scale: if the parents' nationality was not recorded in the birth certificate, those citizens were written as Polish nationalities. Tuomienė considers the code to be not only a linguistic, but also a social, psychological, even practical phenomenon, observed at the level of both phonetics, lexicon, and phrase or sentence, discourse. Switching codes is either related to the desire to solidarize with a social group, or to break away from it (emphasizing social status, elitism), or […] another deviation from the topic of conversation. Theoretical statements of code changes are convincingly illustrated by bilingual and multilingual examples. In the study of code change and language use in general in various fields, the most suitable for study are the six code change functions identified by the researchers Renee Appel and Peter Muisken (Appel and Muisken, 2005: 118). In the studied multilingual communities of south-eastern Lithuania and north-western Belarus, the author records the harm of four languages […] four codes […]. It has been studied that the code change in the language of the three generations of the inhabitants the elder, the middle and the younger servants performs five functions: reference, control, identity, metaphor and metallinguistic. The 9 author established a connection between the use of separate codes and the national and civic identity of the local population. In the case of all-speaker code changes, it was most often inserted by switching to a single language […] the common language of the Baltars. According to the researchers, the frequency of transitions to this language may have been influenced by the environment (neighborhood with Belarus), the age of the inhabitants, and less often by education. The author describes in detail each of the functions of the change of the codes being analyzed: the reference is used in order to verify the expression of the thoughts or the correspondence of the word being conveyed. The function of changing government codes is recognized by the speaker's adaptation to the language spoken by the speaker in order to include him in communication (this is more common in conversations between representatives of the middle and younger generations than the older ones, because the latter are not always inclined to change the code). The conversations that take place in two alternating languages - Lithuanian and Bulgarian - are simply a sign of the authorship of the book as a manifestation of the identity function, i.e. of the identity. The use of one or more words from another language in the main language of a dialogue is intended to emphasize, highlight the essence of a statement or to give it an additional semantic connotation (metaphorical function). The author notes examples of functional changes in metallinguistic codes in the conversations of inhabitants when they discuss the specifics of the languages of their region, the functions of the languages spoken in their native areas, names the meanings of individual words, and is interested in the similarities and differences of those meanings. The monograph describes the study of code change functions as a forward-looking and contemporary way of revealing the role of language or languages in today's multicultural and multilingual society, which could be applied more broadly to linguistic works. Thus, it can be argued that the results of this type of study seek to replace the previously dominant negative assessment of language change in linguistics. It is clear that communicating in a multilingual environment requires communication participants to use languages practically and skillfully and to use various language resources creatively and freely. I think that further research in Tuomienė science is related to 9 The function of changing poetic codes is not examined in the work due to the lack of examples. 8 The change in the codes of the younger generation in the regions of Lithuania and the linguistic behaviour in a multilingual environment would be very promising. The authors of the books emphasize the different linguistic situations that took place in the conflict of the centuries, since the 20th century (6-8 decades) in non-public communication the dominant Lithuanian and Bulgarian languages, the 21st century (1-2 decades) are changed only to Slavic languages. Why did this happen, the respondents explain: […]...> it was the Russian government, later the Lithuanian government, then the Polish government. The war started and the Soviets came. Then the Lithuanians again. So what kind of country are we living in? If a hundred years ago it was Lithuania, Poland, the Soviet Union and Belarus, now it is Lithuania again. In my father's lifetime, for example, power changed six times. And every time a new government asks people, "Who are you?" Who the hell are you? People realized that the best thing to do was to say that I was a local. And thats it. I'm a local, by the way. According to the author, the language situation on the islands of Belarus is different: […][L]ietuviškai here there is little talk. No, we have no one to talk to. Young people do not learn, they study (in Belarusian language), only Belarusian, Russian. They don't need Lithuanian. (p. 118) Since the eighth decade of the twentieth century, the younger generation no longer speaks Lithuanian. The description of the death of the language is given through the sequential analysis of the code change of the Ramaškoni micro-area (Baltarusija). The author's distinctive assimilation stages (the pressure on the community to speak the dominant language, the bilingualism of the population and the identification of the younger generation with the other language) slowly pushed the Lithuanian language out of its infancy. At the beginning of the 20th century, Lithuanian was still spoken by the older generation, but it was not passed on to the middle and younger generations. The Lithuanian language has been pushed out of the private home environment in two ways: the parents spoke Lithuanian to each other, and the children spoke Lithuanian to each other. They say all sorts of things, and we kids don't understand what they're saying anymore. We kids don't understand anything, we've already been spoken to plainly. The status of the languages changed: the Polish language grew stronger until the second decade of the 20th century, and from 1920 to 1939, when Poland occupied the Vilnius region and part of northwestern Belarus, the Polish language took over. And the functions of the Lithuanian language were taken over by the Polish language, which was activated by the church, the opening of Polish primary schools, the introduction of compulsory primary education and a government regulation (the language was a means of communicating with the government), e.g. […][D]ieves does not teach otherwise, only Polish[…]; [P]er twenty years, the Polish people thought that the Lithuanian language was not cultured, it was an atheistic language. God will not listen to Lithuanian prayers (p. 137-138). When schools open, we gather, we stop, we make our rally and speak Lithuanian. This is indicated by other fingers, these are Lithuanians, their dog blood. The common Bulgarian and Polish languages were consciously considered as two variants of the same language. Since the middle of the 20th century, the perception of Lithuanian national identity has been strengthened: it was desirable to learn the common Lithuanian language, but the ethnic self-determination of the inhabitants of the Ramaškoni micro-area has always been dependent on the authorities, forming the opinion that Lithuanian language is a "normal rural language"; "We don't speak Lithuanian very well". injured in Lithuanian language; "Our language is ugly, as if it were made of straw". […]hideous language[…]; The 9 Commission considers that the aid is compatible with the internal market within the meaning of Article 107 (3) (c) TFEU. It's not appreciated, and it's just: […]lie. People don't want to be spoken to in a simple language in church, to be addressed to a priest as if he were a cow. The loss of prestige of the Lithuanian language was caused by relations not only with the common Baltic language, but also with the Polish language: both these languages - both Lithuanian and Bulgarian - were directed against the "higher culture", the more prestigious (in the recent past) Polish language (p. The inhabitants of the northwestern parish of Southeastern Lithuania and Belarus remained the same, but they became bilingual or multilingual (due to the cultural assimilation of the local population through administration, education, church). The identity of the Parisian population varies from an undefined ethnic basis to identification with several ethnic groups at once. Tuteiškumas (locality) was a way to resist political, social pressure and other linguistic identity systems. Although the youth of 21st-century eastern Lithuania understands the importance of education, is interested in issues of nationality, ethnicity, would like to link their future with Lithuania, abandon the model of locality, but theirs is not yet established [[…]My nationality is international[…] (p. 81)]. In Belarus, the Lithuanian language is dead, the state language is the Russian language. The Polish language has a confessional function. Summing up the first part of the monograph Language and Identity of Pietryts in Lithuanian and Belarusian Paribas (second half of the 20th century - beginning of the 21st century), it can be said that the work carried out by Nijolė Tuomienė is important and relevant because of two main things. Firstly, the book summarizes and critically reviews the author's research works and research areas, evaluates their methodology. Secondly, a new sociolinguistic model for the study of the range and intensity of language contacts has been proposed. The value of this scientific monograph is also increased by the fact that it is not just a linguistic or sociolinguistic […] it is an interdisciplinary work. The author's research is based not only on the work of linguists or sociolinguists, but also on the work of sociologists, cultural scientists, historians, because it examines not only linguistic or sociolinguistic facts, but also historical, cultural, sociocultural and political contexts. It is important that the two areas under investigation are viewed "from both sides", i.e. the area of the Lithuanian language that was once one, artificially not dividing it into Lithuania and Belarus. The novelty, relevance and originality of the monograph is further enhanced by the fact that the author relies on multilingual authentic audio recordings, composed into the study from sociolinguistic surveys of the local population. It is worth mentioning that the author of the book herself comes from the Lithuanian-speaking island of Belarus, so she understands and can evaluate the investigative situation not only from the collected material, but also based on authentic experience. After closing the book, it can be boldly said that the aim of the monograph is to reveal, on the basis of empirical data, the trajectory of the migration of the Lithuanian language from the south-eastern part of Lithuania to the ethnic Lithuanian islands in Belarus, to identify the causes of the sociolinguistic and ethnolinguistic language changes and to investigate the new types and functions of the codes used by people living in the areas of migration. Today's situation of the Lithuanian language in the south-eastern part of Lithuania, unfortunately, does not inspire much optimism: in the restored State of Lithuania, which has survived for more than thirty years, "customism" exists. Until now, we observe the "greatest wars" still raging in the hearts of the people. It's gonna be a long time before it's realized that everyone's been through what a man's been through.