Alvydas Butkus. „Lietuvių pravardės“

ACTA LINGUISTICA LITHUANICA LITHUANIAN KALBOTYROS QUESTIONS XLI (1999) Review. Reviews. Notes. Opinions. Reviews. Observations Überblicke. Reviews. Anmerkungen IMPORTANT WORK ON LITHUANIAN ANTROPONIMY Alvydas Butkus. Lithuanian nicknames, Kaunas, Aesti, 1995: 464 P. New works on Lithuanian anthroponymics are certainly not a frequent phenomenon. They should therefore be discussed and assessed in great detail. But that didn't happen su A. Butkus' work on nicknames. Be D. Annotations by Sviderskienė' ir J. Liutkutė's review?, more about a significant study, it seems, šį has not been spoken. Reading „Lietuvių pravardes“ (Lithuanian Nicknames) and relatively often using this study in working on various Lithuanian anthroponymy and toponymy works, the author of these lines had thoughts that she wants to set out in this review“. ir A. Butkauskas’ book is a completely new work in our anthroponymy, this is primarily determined by the chosen ir object of research — Lithuanian nicknames. There is a considerable scientific article by Ž. Urbanavičiūtė and V. Žičkutė* and one other popular article dedicated to nicknames. It is true that nicknames, or personal names of nickname origin, are mentioned in some works of historical anthroponymics)*, but this is certainly not related to a detailed evaluation or study of current nicknames. The thesis consists of two parts. In the first part the author presents an analysis of Lithuanian nicknames (pp. 19-134), and the second part is a large dictionary of all collected nicknames, which contains about 22500 anthroponyms (pp. 135-462). Such a structure of the book is its undoubted advantage, because the scientific study of nicknames and its conclusions and the set of researched personal names are indeed inextricably connected. Furthermore, it was precisely this that gave the author the opportunity not to overload the first part of'Baltistica 31(1), 1996, 128-129. *Liutkutė J. New about old. —Works and Days 2(11), 1996, 246-248. 3 One of the title pages of the book states that V. Maciejauskienė is one of the reviewers of the work. What has been said before the release of Lithuanian Nicknames is a brief recommendation of a small volume to print this work. A more detailed review of the book is available here. *Urbanavičiūtė Ž., Žičkutė V. Lithuanian nicknames. —Kalbotyra 26(1), 1974, 55-61. ‘ Plg. Zinkevičius Z. Lithuanian Anthroponymics, Vilnius: Mokslas, 1977; Maciejauskienė V. The Formation of Lithuanian Surnames, Vilnius: Mokslas, 1991 and others. 232 the data illustrating the statements of the mosis, the investigated, the part of the work, all nicknames being presented in the dictionary“. The first part of the thesis, called the monograph in the preamble (p. 7), consists of the “Introduction”, 12 chapters and the “Final Notes” section. Such a work structure lemė jo objectives. Like other real words, pronouns can be examined from different perspectives. The author of the reviewed work focused on the study of the motives of Lithuanian nicknames, slightly mentioning the aspects of making some nicknames (relative, conflicting, indicating the place of residence). Eleven groups of motifs were created, each of which is discussed in one of the eleven chapters of the work (including the section “Unmotivated nicknames- ”), and the twelfth presents a portrait of a Lithuanian based on the most characteristic, most common motifs of nicknames. Considering that this work is the first comprehensive study of Lithuanian nicknames, the author had to say a lot as if for the first time. Thus, the “Introduction” discusses the concept of the nickname, polemizes about it with linguists of other countries whose works express a different opinion on this issue, and finally presents such a definition of the nickname — “a true unofficial personal name informing about some characteristic of the nickname recipient” (p. 21). The concept of this nickname is consistently followed throughout the work. In the case of a person who is not able to speak, it would be better to use a person's voice instead." In the introduction, the author explains the reasons for the appearance of nicknames and their use, distinguishing onomastic (objective) and psychological (subjective) reasons. It could be added that in many cases both are inextricably linked and complement each other — onomastic reason determines the necessity of the nickname, which is realized by psychological reason for the use of nicknames. In the section entitled "Motive of the True" there is a reference to the complex problem of motivation of nicknames. It is maintained that nicknames, unlike other names, “have an authentic onomastic motivation” (p. 26). It is further stated that nicknames are "a bridge from general lexicon to onomastics" and that they "indeed have a meaning" (ibid.). From what has been said, it is clear, ® It is true that reading the first part of the book sometimes (especially in cases where the author’s statements and arguments give rise to doubts or could be interpreted differently) more examples would be useful. This wish would, among other things, be determined by the current level of Lithuanian anthroponymy, which testifies that often the material, i.e. the collected and presented data, is the only argument confirming the statements of the research. 7 See the definitions of the term nickname in other works on anthroponymics and in dictionaries. See. Gaivenis K., Keinys S. Dictionary of Linguistic Terms, Kaunas: Šviesa, 1990, 154; Maciejauskienė V. Formation of Lithuanian Surnames, 17-18. 233 what rules are followed when considering nicknames as real words in the work. However, considering that nicknames are classified and studied in the book precisely according to the motives of their emergence, a broader discussion and jų commentary of the complex problem of nickname motivation ir would be desirable. The name is a reference to the individual's unique character. These characteristics are many and varied, and — in the work they are divided into ten groups: physical characteristics, kinship, activity, language content, manner, associations, place of residence, wealth, origin and nationality, other motives (pp. 26—27). This is the opinion of the author of the book (another researcher might give a different classification), and it can be agreed. Only the designation of the sixth group — associations — would be questionable because of its excessive abstractness. Especially since only “associations caused by the phonetics of a person’s name or surname, less often — semantics” are in mind (p. 27), and p. 25 states that associations are a certain prerequisite for “a common word to become a name”. So, apparently, the appearance of nicknames without associativetranslates in most cases. One of the author’s goals was to highlight the geographical peculiarities of Lithuanian nicknames. For this purpose, by combining linguistic, ethnographic, folkloristic and historical criteria, the following ethnographic regions of Lithuania are designated: Užnemunė, Dzūkija, Aukštaitija, Central Lithuania and Žemaitija, and their boundaries are defined in great detail (pp. 29-30). The most important differences in the motives and use of nicknames in various places of Lithuania are presented (pp. 30-31). It turns out that in Dzūkija and Aukštaitija the most common motif of nicknames is kinship, and in jų Žemaitija, Užnemunė and Central Lithuania — physical characteristics. In addition, the nicknames, which are motivated by personal activities, are more common among the people of Zanemunė and the Lithuanians of Central Lithuania, and much less common among the Dzūkai. In Žemaitija and Central Lithuania, nicknames are more common than elsewhere, and their appearance is determined by the content of the person’s speech, etc. The author presents a statistical (calculated in percentages) picture of the frequency of nickname motifs in various places of Lithuania. This is very interesting data. The introduction also discusses the problem of nickname formation and its relationship with motivation (pp. 31-34), and at the end there is an overview of nickname research (it would have been more appropriate at the beginning of the introduction, for example, after discussing the concept of nickname or before discussing it). First names, classified by motives, are examined in the order of the hierarchy of motives. Thus, in the first chapter of the work, those nicknames are discussed, whose motif of appearance is the most common. These are the various physical characteristics of the person named (the section entitled "Verdicts on Physical Characteristics"). All the nicknames presented here are classified in a very detailed and precise way: 1. Appearance (hereinafter referred to as head and facial features, height, complexion, arms and legs, clothing, posture, other features of appearance). 2. Speech (consonance, voice quality, non-verbal sounds produced by speech devices). 3. motor skills (crushed — walking and other movements). 4. 234 Potency (agility, ir slowness, strength, weakness, deafness, muteness, poor vision, other characteristics). 5. Physiology. This is the framework for the classification of nicknames in this section. The nicknames of each subsection are further grouped into even smaller ones, e.g., pronunciation is shredded tenderness, fast speech, — unclear speech, stuttering, snoring, different pronunciation (p. 51-52); head ir facial features — hair, beard, ir moustache, face, facial parts, head, neck (and, for example, facial parts are further divided — into nose, eyes, teeth, mouth, lips, ears, chin) etc. ir So detailed ir be the end are precisely classified only the first, but ne other sections nicknames. Here are the ir nicknames discussed in the third chapter of the work, whose motivation is the activity of the person named — (the section entitled “Activity statements”). Firstly, they are grouped by five motifs (craft, service, hobby, business, ir situation, presence), the sixth group combining į nicknames arising from other motifs related to the person's su activity. The first group of motifs (craft and service) is further divided into: a) trade, profession (p. 68), b) service, duties (p. 72), and a) the subgroup is again detailed — blacksmiths, seamstresses, shoemakers, carpenters, carpenters, carpenters, etc. (more about craft and profession names!) 20 (p. 68—72). In all sections, the frequency of nicknames arising from one or another reason is indicated, statistical data are provided. The author’s meticulousness and ingenuity, which were undoubtedly required for such a detailed classification of nicknames and statistical processing of the data presented in the book, are surprising. For this he can be told a lot of good words in their expression and approval of what has been done. If the nicknames had been classified according to their origin by another researcher, perhaps we would now have a slightly different version of their classification. Because when presenting such a detailed, detailed classification, it is very difficult to avoid excessively subjective evaluation of one or another nickname. For example, the author of p. 36 disagrees with the provision to assign nicknames, the motive of which is theft, to nicknames that indicate traits of manner, characteristics of manner. In the book, this type of nicknames are presented in the third chapter, which discusses the motives describing the activity that led to the emergence of this type of nicknames. The third subsection of motifs, named business, is divided into trading, theft, hunting, fishing, collecting, other types of business, and the motif theft is presented with nicknames Sheep, Chicken, Smurf, Chicken Thief (according to the names of the theft objects), Fox, Raven (chicken nicknames of thieves) and so on. Would it not be more appropriate to call such nicknames situational, which are discussed in another subsection, named “Situation- ”. Given that the book deals only with villager nicknames, one could guess that a person only once took something strange and “sticked” a nickname associated with this event to him for the rest of his life. 235 Such doubts could be expressed more, but ir they do not in any way deny the position of the author of the work, but are just another case of subjective evaluation of one or another nickname, saying a different opinion. The second book Part of "Lithuanian nicknames" is The Dictionary of Truths (p. 135— 462). Names contained in it (about is 22500) really a huge wealth of Lithuanian anthroponymy, testifying to how much has been done in systematic methodicalir ly collecting our nicknames. Especially since writing them iš down is really not easy (it is difficult to find out the real motives of the nicknames, it is necessary to help the person overcome a certain psychologiir cal barrier, etc.). The dictionary lists the nicknames in alphabetical order, jų indicates the motives, localization (with an accuracy of approximately 100%) and other data. As stated in the section “The structure of the dictionary- ”, “... nicknames are transposed into common language” (p. 137). The standardization of nicknames is meant by very briefly indicating how it was done — morphological dialects are respected, from the phonetic dialects, those that motivate the nickname are left (e.g., Alyvos Vumzdis, Kuotinas), the pronunciation of nicknames has been harmonized (exceptions are made only for nicknames that have arisen from the undated nickname perversion, e.g., Supranti Ūfa, and those that have dialectically pronounced suffixes, e.g., Kaunas -aité, -ybé, etc.). (p. 138). Names — with last name Delettre. Alongside our place names and surnames, ir they are an integral part of the Lithuanian vocabulary. As is known, place names are standardized in accordance with a certain tradition formed by Lithuanian linguists in the pre-war period, the most important principles of which were enshrined in several post-war normative works by linguists. The official use of the common language is provided, i.e., considered as normative, not dialectal, but the pronunciation of common language place names. Only the proper phonetic features of the dialects are transposed into the common language. All other unlawful — phonetic changes, word formations, etc. —in pronouns ir are iProtected®. According to the same principles, Lithuanian names are also regulated for the official general use of the language. It is different with our surnames. They are not regulated, and this is due to the fact that our surnames are not only language, but also a certain legal fact. Thus, officially functioning and correct from the point of view of common language, and dialectal, and otherwise variously distorted, Slavicized or similar genders of Lithuanian surnames." The standardization of nicknames seems to have not been discussed anywhere so far (only Lithuanian nicknames are meant). From what the author has said, see more about the principles of norming of place names. Š Vanagas A. Principles of Pronouns Standardization. — Mother tongue 4, 1991, 11-14. ? For more details see. : Dictionary of Surnames 1, Vilnius: Science, 1985, 16-18; Maciejauskienė V. The use of Lithuanian surnames. — Mother tongue 7, 1994, 1-3. 236 it is understandable that the authors tried to follow the established principles of local name standardization. It is true that an exception is made for those phonetic dialectisms which, as it is said, “motivate the nickname” (p. 138). Apparently, this is also the case with regular, non-regular phonetic features of dialects ir su (from two The examples given here do not make it clear). In this way, it is as if acknowledged that nicknames, as very specific words (personal names), can be regulated in a slightly different way than, for example, Lithuanian place names. First names are unofficial personal names that function in a very defined environment, usually in the territory of the village where the nicknamed person lives. Their genders, which have been formed in the area of one or another dialect, undoubtedly reflect all the peculiarities of the particular dialect, its specificity. What is the use of nickname standardization? Especially since they (neither individually nor as a whole) will certainly never be submitted to the official general use of the language. If the dictionary provided the authentic, dialectal gender of nicknames, it would have become an invaluable source of data on endangered Lithuanian dialects. The localisation data of the nicknames would have facilitated the transposition of the personal names into common language, if necessary, and in many cases it would not have been difficult for the specialists to do so. Another way of presenting nicknames in the dictionary is mentioned: after the normalized personal names, it was possible to indicate their dialectal genders. In this way, the work would have acquired greater scientific value and would have been easily used by all readers interested in Lithuanian nicknames. The ideas presented here about the standardization of nicknames in no way intended to deny the author’s chosen position (this is the right of the researcher). I just wanted to draw attention to the fact that some things related to the standardization of nicknames are definitely worth a more detailed discussion, which can be missed in the section "Dictionary structure". The pronunciation of these actual words is also related to the standardization of nicknames (as well as local names). Our place names are pronounced in common language as they are pronounced by the people of the place where the place name originated and functions. Thus, the authentic pronunciation of place names is respected, and it is considered a normal phenomenon that the name of the same place of origin and origin, functioning in different places in Lithuania, is pronounced differently (e.g., Jonalaukis k. in Jonavos r. and Jonalaukis k. in Ignalina r.; Lengvėniškės k. in Prienų r. and Lengveniškės k. in Zarasų r.). It is only in these cases that the law applies, and that is the case of the immigration law." In Lithuania, very common pronunciation variants of the same surname (e.g., Balnanosis, Balnanosis, Balnanėsis; Dargužis and Dargūžis) are also evaluated. In them 10 See also Vanagas A. Pronouns standardization principles (2). —Native Language 5, 1991, 4-7. 237 are considered equal, regular, and are all provided for general language use." Apparently, the same principles of pronunciation should also apply to nicknames. In general, these names should be pronounced as they are pronounced by the people of the places where the nickname originated and functions. Therefore, it is not entirely clear what the author of the book means when he claims that the pronunciation of the nicknames in the dictionary is sounded, and when he mentions the already mentioned exceptions (p. 138). This ambiguity would not exist if the researcher had discussed his view on the pronunciation of nicknames and their standardization (or non-standardization) specifics in more detail. Acknowledging the relevance, necessity and value of “Lietuvių slapyvardžiai”, it can be said that the book really deserves many good words. On the other hand, the publication of a new work on onomastics provides an opportunity to discuss some of the issues related to research in this field. Therefore, in addition to what has already been said in the review, I would like to draw attention to one more thing. Lithuanian onomastics is a relatively young branch of our linguistics, so the authors of works on this topic often face problems of terminology. The object of onomastics is the study of real words, or onomastics. The term onima, presented and defined in the Russian onomastics term Zodyne'?, is used in the works of various countries, of course, and Lithuanian scholars. Thus, all actual words in Lithuanian (pronouns, personal nouns, etc.) must be called onims. The whole of the real words, or onyms, is called the term onemia." Therefore, there should be no doubt that the nicknames are onions. Therefore, the author of the reviewed book cannot be supported when he calls the words from which the nicknames originated (or can be derived) as onims (p. 25). Especially since the explanation of such anonymous use of the term, arguing that nicknames can come from both generic and actual words, is certainly not convincing (see footnote p. 25). According to the authors, onims are not only real, but also generic words. See, for example, statements —"Onims here —animal names: Beaver, Fox, Squirrel..." (p. 37); „Onims are taken from the names of the common-billed birds (the most common nickname is Vanagas)...“ (p. 41); "Onims here—the names of small animals: Cyrulis, Poukis..." (p. 45); “Rarely onims are personal names and zooappellatives (Rickus,..., arklys, gaidys)” (p. 76) and others. This is in contrast to the conventional use of the term "algebraic". It is true that sometimes the words from which the nickname derives are not called onims, but are described in some other way, for example, the motivating word (p. 31), the nickname appellatives (p. 75, 96, 99), but most often the already mentioned term onim is used for this purpose. "| For details see. Maciejauskienė V. The use of Lithuanian surnames, 5-6. | Mononscrkas H. Crosaps pycckoii onomacmuueckoii mepuunonozuu, Mocksa: Hayka, 3 Zr. Jakaitiené E. Lithuanian language lexicology, Vilnius: Mokslas, 1980, 86. 1978, 95. 238 It is also possible to draw attention to the fact that when listing the roots of nicknames derived from various words, the latter are written in capital letters in the book, e.g. : Balt-, Juod-, Rud-, Žil-(p. 37), Murz-, Žebr-(p. 39), Maž-, Trump-(p. 45), Klib-, Šlubir et al. (p. 54) etc. In our work on anthroponymics, in such cases, the root of personal names (trunks) are usually written in lowercase". When discussing one of the types of relative nicknames, i.e. patronymic nicknames, the terms tėvasvardis and patronymic are mentioned (p. 21, 57 and others). They are used synonymously, with the understanding that both refer to the same concept — a personal name composed of the father's name, surname, nickname, etc. This would indicate that the book does not support the provision to distinguish these terms, considering them as designating concepts of unequal scope (patrony — any derivative of the father's any personal name, i.e. first name, surname, nickname, nickname, and thevavardis — the derivative of the patronymic suffix of the father's name)". When reading about patronymic nicknames, one can notice another controversial statement. iš Here, for example, p. 21 it says that „in Lithuanian the surname is usually a two-word (e.g., son of Adam) or a mononymous nobleman (of Adam)”. In accordance with the already mentioned concept of the patronymic (a personal name with patronymic suffixes formed from the father's name), it is not good to talk about a two-word patronymic (as well as a single-word adjective). What the author here calls a surname could be called a reference to a father's name or something like that. Or: p. 60 mentions compound surnames: Sūnėlio Aldona (father's nickname Sūnelis), Žėnto Július (father's nickname Žentas). As you can see, we are talking about compound nicknames, one of the components of which is the reference to the father's nickname. It is also not entirely acceptable that the work of anthroponymics does not distinguish patronymic and matronym (derived from the mother's name). According to the author, this is done for “simplicity” (footnote 57). It is true that this provision is not consistently observed, and in some places matronimes, or mother names, are mentioned (e.g., p. 59: metronimus, metronymous suffixes; here in the place of mat probably there are proofreading errors). Probably it is not possible to agree with such cases, when the author replaces the usual term patronymic suffix with a shorter one — patropriesaga (p. 59, 64 and others) (father’s suffix?) or uses the term patroformantas (p. 124), and instead of parasitinis writes parazitžodis (p. 84, 87) and so on. As already mentioned, due to the chosen aspect of the study of nicknames, the subjects of their making are not extensively discussed in the work, although some chapters are addressed about them. One of them is the chapter “Making of righteousness and its relationship with motivation” (p. 31). '* Plg. Kuzavinis K., Savukynas B. Dictionary of the Origin of Lithuanian Names, Vilnius: Mokslas, 1987; Dictionary of Lithuanian Surnames; Maciejauskienė V. The formation of Lithuanian surnames and others. D See Maciejauskienė V. Op. cit., 17. 239 It is said that the nicknames "can be jų divided into primary derivatives 1 ir (p. 31, 33 ir kt ). Iš further reasoning it can be understood that such ir nicknames as White-tailed, Cross-tailed, Straight-taiir led, etc. belong to the derivatives group, although they are called bivalent nicknames, sometimes o punches. In — the event that the above-mentioned nicknames are derived from an existing or iš potential appellative, they could be qualified as primary in terms of their construction. But they are definitely not derivatives (derivate, or derivative, is a word that "relies on a single reference word has a verb form"*). ir They are composites, or composite nicknames." In this case, the book is considered to be a complete collection of the work. Ši the concept is repeated in ir the second chapter of the book („Family nicknames“): “The other half of the nicknames are derivatives, a iš jų third punched, — formed from the iš father-in-law- ’s personal name (usually the surname) ir appellative zentas...” (Brūžentis, Lapėnžentis, Simkazentis) (p. 65). However, it is not consistently adhered to. In the seventh chapter of the book („Pravardės dėl gyvenamosios vietos“), in addition to the vedic, the composites are also mentioned (p. 111, 113). The latter include compound (Kalno Juodėlis, Jonis Šilinis) and double nicknames (Miškapetris, Plikbalis, Vienasédis) (p. 113). Composite nicknames (Antano Pašilys, Sūnėlio Aldona) are also mentioned at p. 60, while composite names, nicknames, and compound nicknames are mentioned at p. 116, 117, etc. Thus, consistency in the evaluation of the creation of nicknames as if could be missed. In the case of stumped nicknames, they are called stumped (p. 32, 38, 65, etc.) or double-steir mmed nicknames (p. 32, 38, 113, etc.). The use of the term "double" or "double-faced" is doubtful. In Lithuanian anthroponymics, it is customary to call the old Baltic personal names (e.g., Algirdas, Mindaugas, Vytautas, etc.) binomials. There is also another inaccuracy related to the discussion of nicknames. For example, when talking about the creation of female nicknames, the suffix -ienė (Kūgelienė, Zirafiené) is mentioned and the general words sukčiuvienė, snaudžiuvienė are given for comparison (p. 67). But the latter have the suffix -(i)uvienė. There is no precise nickname for Mote to qualify as an ending derivative of Matthew. Finally, I would like to raise the question whether nicknames can be unmotivated (see the eleventh chapter of the book “Unmotivated nicknames”- ). In the section “True motives” the author states: “the opinion that a nickname without a motive cannot exist is too categorical, because there are nicknames with a forgotten motive” (p. 26). More important, perhaps, is the fact that a nickname without a motive cannot arise, but a nickname that has already arisen (even if the motive is unknown, forgotten, etc.) can certainly exist. 1 Gaivenis K.,Keinys S. Kalbotyros terminų žodynas, 47, 225. 1-Pig. Urbutis V. The Theory of Word Formation, Vilnius: Mokslas, 1978, 283; Vanagas A. The Formation of Hydronyms in the Lithuanian SSR, Vilnius: Mintis, 1970, 25. 240