Prano Skardžiaus laiškai Williamui R. Schmalstiegui

LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI XXXVIII (1997) LETTERS FROM PRANAS SKARDŽIUS TO WILLIAM R. SCHMALSTIEG* [1] Washington, D. C. 1970.I.23. Dear Sir, J. Mikėla’s Baltisches u. Slavisches (1902/3) is not in the Library of Congress; nor is the booklet listed in the Union Catalog, so it is probably not in this country either; might it turn up somewhere in a public library? A few days ago I received the proofs of Baltic Linguistics. Thank you. I am now reading it little by little. I will only be able to say later whether I can write anything about it, once I have properly acquainted myself with the entire publication. Meanwhile, I have now completed the final review of, and am gradually adding to, my linguistic work Lithuanian Hydronyms with -nt-. The work is about 100 pages in all. Because of the lack of direct sources in Lithuanian, I could not, of course, properly resolve this highly complex and intricate problem in its entirety; I left a considerable number of issues open for future resolution, but I hope I have moved the whole question somewhat forward. It would be more suitable to publish the work in a foreign language, but I doubt that I will be able to do so. You see, I will be working at the library for only one more year; after that I will have to reorganize my affairs, and so I do not want to delay any longer; on the other hand, I am already thoroughly tired of it. Finally, Lithuanians want to publish the work themselves, although for the broader Lithuanian public it is “too dry,” that is, impractical. Alongside this, another work of mine is already in print—Earlier and Present-Day Usage of Standard Lithuanian. This is now purely a descriptive historical study, partly connected with practical concerns as well. Here I want to bring out the similarities and differences between the prewar and postwar standard (literary) Lithuanian language. With deepest respect * All the letters by Pr. Skardžius published here were written in Lithuanian. They were typed, except for the letter of 1970 05 11, which was handwritten. The spelling and punctuation of the letters have not been corrected. The letters may be of particular interest to researchers of the Lithuanian language because of the problems in the historical grammar of Lithuanian discussed in them. They also provide some material for the biography of our distinguished linguist. Copies of these letters were delivered to the Institute of the Lithuanian Language by Prof. W. R. Schmalstieg; A. Sabaliauskas prepared them for publication. 27 [2] Washington, D. C. 1970.5.11. Most esteemed Sir! You have already asked me about this matter once, and I answered you as best I could; now I can add nothing new. It is a rather complicated matter. Chr. Stang makes use only of A. Bezzenberger’s BGLS., but provides no information from anywhere else; he does not critically discuss the examples in the same BGLS; and examples from the modern language and dialects do not confirm them. Ultimately, the whole problem of the origin of the diphthong ie (ei):ai arises here. It seems to me that this has not yet been properly resolved. I myself have touched on it in part in ZfslPh XXVI, 375–382(1958). It is a pity that Kazlauskas will not be able to come here. If you are in Vilnius this summer, please give my greetings to Zigmas Zinkevičius, K. Ulvydas, J. Kruopa, and A. Vanagas. With great respect, Pr. Skardžius. [3] Washington, D. C. 1971. III.12 Most esteemed Sir, It is a pity that, without properly reading my entire booklet, you immediately concluded that “A. Lyberis, J. Kruopas, and others in Lithuania should not be criticized too much,” because “they are very kind people and do as much as possible to support Lithuanian identity.” I know this well: A. Lyberis, J. Kruopas, and K. Ulvydas are old acquaintances of mine; the latter two were even my students. I have no doubt whatsoever that Lithuanian identity is very important to them, and for that reason I neither blame nor attack them. In the booklet I tried to speak about them objectively, and where necessary I even support or defend, for example, V. Ambrazas, A. Sabaliauskas, or K. Ulvydas. But where they class us, pre-war linguists, without distinction among bourgeois linguists or simply call us that, accuse us of being anti-popular, of contempt for the language of the people, or of a primitive attitude against the supposed Slavic character of words, and reproach us several times for purism, there I spoke somewhat more openly, and only about linguistic matters, without touching on any ideology or politics at all. Otherwise, I tried to be restrained, and in places even [the Lithuanian linguists of] 28 I attribute great merit to them. I think that if you become better acquainted with the whole actual situation and its factual development, perhaps you will begin to view some things in a different light—not only with regard to the present, but also to the prewar period. I cannot say anything definite about the cause of Kazlauskas’s death. I hear all sorts of rumors, but cannot believe them; the opinion in † Laisvę is not convincing either. In the latest issue of Pergalės, B. Savukynas writes very favorably about J. Kazlauskas as a linguist. Anything could have happened on the other side: circumstances may have been arranged so that J. K. himself drowned in the Neris, but he could also have been murdered in such a cunning manner and then submerged in the Neris that no one could even think anything suspicious had occurred. Meanwhile, it seems that not everything has been said, or was meant to be said, in that country’s reports, and so some things remain unclear and suspicious. I am not drawing any final conclusion from this whole story yet: we must wait for more authentic and reliable information. With the greatest respect, Pr. Skardžius P.S. Today I finished writing and sent to Aidai a review of Lithuanian Dialects (Chrestomathy). Perhaps it will appear in April. [4] Washington, D. C. 1971.X.17. Dear Sir, First of all, I sincerely thank you for the excellent translation into English of the summary of my article. Thank you also for the photocopies of the letters: sometimes those letters are interesting, particularly for the linguistic attitudes that occasionally emerge from them. After searching further, I found several more offprints of J. Otrębski’s review of the grammar; I am sending you one of them. On that occasion, having reread my review, I too became more interested in the nom. pl. forms of the eastern Aukštaitian dialect, such as avies, etc. This is a major problem that has still not been properly resolved. In his grammar (p. 198), J. Kazlauskas thinks that this ending -ies developed from -eis < ide. -eyes (cf. OInd. avayas, Gk. poleis, etc.). V. Mažiulis holds this view; see his Baltų ir kitų indoeuropiečių kalbų santykiai, pp. 297 ff. But it is not entirely clear why e before s, as Chr. Stang observes, should have disappeared very early, while the same e in the nom. pl. of consonant stems has partly survived to this day, e.g. širdes, móteres, etc.—that is one point; secondly, how could the shortened, unstressed ending -eis later have become -ies? From 29 On the one hand, the ending -aus of the eastern High Lithuanian adjective singular nominative might serve as an analogy here (e.g. gražaus “beautiful”), usually derived from -awes; but alongside -aus there is also the ending -uos (e.g. gražuos “beautiful” [plural]), while beside the plural nominative ending -ies, -eis is now no longer used anywhere. On the other hand, forms such as akies “eyes,” etc., are found only in the Tverečius dialect, alongside ākys and ākes; such forms have not been found in old Lithuanian texts or in other modern dialects, at least so far. Therefore, even now it still seems to me that the aforementioned ending -ies is a later innovation, probably arising through contamination. As J. Endzelīns and Chr. Stang think, its origin may have been the pronouns ānys and anìe, pātys and patìes, etc. The plural nominative forms ānes, ākes in that same Tverečius dialect, alongside ānys, ākys, etc., may perhaps also have contributed. The forms sniẽnga, which I used as an argument, from sniẽgti (sniẽga) + sniñga, are obviously unsuitable for this purpose and therefore fall away of their own accord. As if by coincidence, in an article I am writing I discuss the plural nominative forms ā vies and the like, so I would be very interested to learn what conclusions you have reached on this matter. I would be very grateful if you could send me at least a photocopy of your paper, or part of one, so that I might read it. Recently I wrote a review of Donum Balticum, in which I reached quite different conclusions from E. Hamp: it still seems to me that eastern High Lithuanian priemnė, prienė is a shortening of priemenė, just as, for example, Dūstos is from Dūsetos, kėln[i]os from kėlin[i]os, šulnys from šulinys, and so on. Moreover, priemenė is known not only among easterners but also among the distant western High Lithuanians; the Samogitian preimenė belongs here as well (cf. priekālas and Samogitian preikālas). Priemenė actually means “front room, anteroom, Vorzimmer, vestibule,” and therefore, as K. Būga thought, it can easily be derived from *preima- “front, foremost.” E. Hamp makes the whole matter very artificially complicated. That is all for now. I shall await news from you. With sincere regards, Pr. Skardžius [5] Washington, D. C 1971.IX. 9. Dear Sir, First of all, thank you for the excerpts from your article. It is true that an effort is made in them to say something new and, as you write in your letter, to say it boldly. But there are not many truly new ideas in scholarship. E. Benveniste, for example, has certainly said a great deal that is new in his book Origines de la formation des noms en indo européen; V. Mažiulis repeats many of his ideas in his latest book as well. The further one goes into 30 the more boldly one can address various linguistic problems the further back in prehistory one goes; conversely, the closer one gets to the present, the harder it is to do so. For example, H. Krahe had formed a very clear picture of the use of the suffix -int- in the ancient languages of Western Europe, and had even devised a whole logically coherent system of word formation and meaning for words of this kind; but, as later became clear, this phenomenon manifested itself quite differently and at different times in different languages. The same may very well be true of the universal monophthongization of ancient times that You propose: it occurred in some places, while in others it may not have occurred at all. Or consider J. Kazlauskas, who believes (and, as far as I know, You agree with him) that dialectal verb forms such as dė “put,” stō “stood up” are relics of antiquity, whereas dėjo, stojo are later innovations. Yet in present-day dialects we also find didė “the great one”—what is this: an ancient relic or a later contraction of didėja (didėji)? The latter supposition seems more reliable to me. First and foremost, this needs to be properly and thoroughly investigated in present-day Lithuanian dialects and the language of old writings, and J. Kazlauskas did not do that—he made this judgment simply because it seemed better to him. The same applies to ā́vies “sheep” and the like: You, too, do not try first to explain the emergence of the ending -ies from within Lithuanian itself. The forms plātāus “wide”: plā-tuos “ditto” seem to fit well alongside *akeis “eyes”: ākies “ditto.” But the data from Tverečius and other eastern dialects still give no indication that the ending -eis could have readily and automatically turned into -ies. After all, those same eastern Aukštaitian dialects also have the ending -ys: avys and the like. I cannot go into a critique here, in a letter; I can only say that Your explanation of this matter is more conjectural and hypothetical than actually convincing. Therefore, I think my letter should not be cited in Your article either. I trust that You will kindly send me Your paper, once it has been definitively written or printed, as You do for others. I will eagerly await it. Unfortunately, I will not be able to attend the conference in Toronto: for a pensioner, that is impossible. With great respect [6] 1972.II.21 Dear Colleague, Many thanks for New thoughts on Indo-European phonology, for the glossary of linguistic terms, and for the offprint from ZfslPh. Your paper on primitive monophthongization was of great interest to me: I read it attentively. Reading this whole matter continuously gave me a fuller picture than reading only part of it. First of all, everything you say in this article is a major hypothesis formulated in advance, whose outlines you then try to seek in individual Indo-European languages, proceeding mostly by deduction— 31 When considering individual facts, one can no longer help finding the reflection of one’s hypothesis everywhere. Thus, for example, just as Sanskrit sakh-ā <-ē<-ey, so Lithuanian deivē< *dei-woy, whereas Sanskrit devī < *dei-wey, and so on. How all these variants should be explained phonetically or phonologically remains unexplained for now. Perhaps different laws of this kind were at work in the distant past? Can this perhaps be explained only structurally? After all, we can no longer support these very remote hypothetical matters with later evidence. On the other hand, proof, according to you, is like a beauty (or beauty itself?) in the eye of the beholder... Thus, it seems to me that the problem of Lithuanian ē-stem nouns has still not been properly explained: to the several hypotheses proposed so far, you now add another one. It will be interesting to learn what response this will find in the thinking of other researchers. On this occasion, I also wish to make the following observation. Roots of the same kind as the Slavic roots kry-ti, ply-ti, ry-ti, etc., are—or may have been—matched by corresponding roots in Lithuanian: krū-, plū-, rū-. For example, Lithuanian krū-snis ‘pile of stones’ or krū-tis ‘the same’, Latvian krūts ‘rise, hill, mound’, and so on, indicate that alongside kráuti there was also *krūti, just as alongside láužti there is lūžti, or alongside kró-snis there was *króti ‘to gather’ (=Latvian krát), and so on. Alongside Lithuanian vē-jas, Slavic vėjati, and so on, there is also the verbal form vēti in the language of Chylinski’s Bible; the root vė- is also found in vē-tra, vē-tyti, Sanskrit vá-tah ‘wind’, vá-ti, and so on. It is doubtful that the root vė- arose here only in pre-vocalic position, while vėj- occurred in pre-consonantal position; it still seems to me that -j- in the word vėjas, Slavic vėjati, and so on, was more likely a suffixal element than part of the root. In the glossary of terms I noticed some questionable items, certain shortcomings, inconsistencies, and so on. For example, anonimas means not only an anonymous work but also its author. Garsynas encompasses the totality of the sounds of a language or dialect, that is, its vocalism and consonantism. Koinē is defined as a c o m m o n l a n g u a g e formed on the basis of some dominant dialect, but the term Lithuanian standard language ‘standard Lithuanian language’ is entirely absent, even though it was already widely used as a term in Lithuania before the war; it is now beginning to be used there as well. This name is also gaining currency as a term in linguistic literature, for example in Dr. P. Jonikas’s recently published work The Formation of the Standard Written Language in the Second Half of the 19th Century. The National Literary Language ‘literary language’ is modeled on the Russian nacional'nyj literaturnyj jazyk, and in Lithuania itself the term used most often is literatūrinė kalba ‘standard language’, which in fact means only ‘literary language’. Only one adverb, atgal, is included, but the adjective derived from it, atgalinis, is omitted entirely; consequently, important established terms containing this adjective are also missing, such as atgalinė (regressive) assimilation, atgalinis (retrograde) formation, ‘Rückbildung, retrograde Ableitung’, and so on. Vardažodis does not mean only ‘substantive’; it encompasses nouns and adjectives, and is therefore correctly translated into German as Nomen, Nennwort. Also missing are Lithuanian terms already in use: pérrašas ‘transcription’ (apparently coined by A. Salys, used in the Lithuanian Encyclopedia and elsewhere), pérbalsa ‘Umlaut’, pérkaita ‘Veränderung, Wandel’ (for example, priebalsių perkaita ‘Lautverschiebung’), and so on. Kaitýba means ‘flexion, inflection’. And so on. Perhaps I will write about this in greater detail elsewhere. 32 A review of my grammar of J. Kazlauskas will appear in volume III of Lituanistikos Darbai, in which our views on the nom. pl. vagies and so on are now almost identical. Everything I write here is only my first impression, so it should not be used elsewhere. With sincere good wishes Pr. Skardžius [7] 1973.I.8. Dear Sir, Thank you for the photocopies of K. Korsakas’s and V. Mažiulis’s letters, but I found nothing particularly noteworthy: the former contents himself with generalities, while the latter is greatly interested in your collaboration in Baltistica. A few days ago I received a letter from K. Korsakas in which, on behalf of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature, he promised to help with subject-matter information and Institute decisions on certain matters concerning the present standard Lithuanian language for the work I am now writing. K. Korsakas is an old acquaintance of mine, dating back to our student days, and he is well known in Lithuania as a Marxist critic of Lithuanian literature. It seems to me that you have understood the matter of the Lithuanian scouts rather narrowly: it is a patriotic religious youth organization for which any kind of communist propaganda is unacceptable, and therefore they cannot tolerate it in the publications they issue; on the other hand, scholarly linguistic work, even if written for a popular audience, is scarcely feasible for them, especially since they are themselves too poor to publish booklets of more specialized content, and therefore one cannot expect them to take a greater interest in linguistic content; of course, they are not as well trained in linguistics as your students, and perhaps only one or two of them are partly interested in Baltic studies, or perhaps in just one or another subject within Baltic studies, more likely Lithuanian. It is very regrettable that such a talented and restrained linguist as A. Sabaliauskas is gravely ill. This is a real misfortune for Lithuanian studies: J. Senkus, J. Kazlauskas, J. Lebedys, and E. Mikalauskaitė have recently died; here, Z. Ivinskis, A. Salys, and others. Such was fate. A. Salys is an old colleague of mine: we both entered the university in 1923, worked together for a long time, and I saw well how much he was committed to concrete scholarly work. While still at the University of Lithuania, I suggested that he write a comprehensive scholarly grammar textbook of the Lithuanian language for students, but nothing came of it: promises remained promises. Besides his excellent dissertation, he also left lectures on Lithuanian dialects, but these were written down by one of his lecture attendees, J. Labokas, not by Salys himself. 33 Another important work is the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Written Language, to which he contributed from the middle of the letter P onward: here he did quite a lot that was useful to the study of the Lithuanian language and to general Indo-European linguistics; but that work was the most important reason why, thanks to Prof. A. Senn’s efforts, he was able to come to this country at an early age. Having a good command of linguistics and broad erudition, he wanted to publish only good, thoroughly prepared works, and therefore wrote very few of them. At the University of Philadelphia he had to teach many courses for which he had to prepare anew, since he had not studied them specifically. In this country I never had occasion to speak with A. Salys about his work, but from his interview on the occasion of his 60th birthday (it was published in Draugas) I learned that he had planned to write a distinctive etymological-historical dictionary of the Lithuanian language, which was to differ considerably from E. Fraenkel’s dictionary. He had already begun preparing material for it in part, writing various historical-linguistic articles for LE (= …a further monograph, “Lithuanian Hydronyms with -nt-.” When I receive the proofs, I shall immediately write up a summary and send it to you. That is all for now. I have expressed my views on certain matters about which my opinion may be of some interest to you. I wish you success in your work on Baltic studies: with your determination, you can accomplish a great deal here. With sincere good wishes Pr. Skardžius [8] 1973.I.14 Dear Sir, I am glad that I can be of some help to you, although in the present circumstances my help is very limited. You are an enthusiastic scholar, devoted to academic matters, and this scholarly spirit of yours inspires me as well. I spent my whole life engrossed in scholarly pursuits, but in the final quarter of my life I was able to do very little actual scholarly work: several scholarly projects I had conceived and partly begun remained unfinished because of an unexpected catastrophe. While still in Germany, I had reached an agreement with the university press in Göttingen to translate my Lithuanian Word Formation into German, and I had already completed nearly a third of the work, but circumstances here did not allow me to finish it. Nevertheless, this has not diminished my scholarly interest in the least. And I am very glad that I can sometimes talk with you about one scholarly matter or another, even though lack of time does not always allow me to examine everything more deeply. Now, concerning A. Sabaliauskas’s booklet Words Come to Life. You did very well to translate the booklet into English, and it ought somehow to be published. The Lithuanian Scouts in this country are not particularly suited to this undertaking. A few days ago I met and spoke about it with V. Trumpa, a historian and former assistant at the University of Lithuania, now working at the Library of Congress. He thinks that the “A. Mackus Book Publishing Fund” might perhaps publish this booklet; its administrator is Mr. G. Vezys (6349 So. Artesian Ave., Chicago, Ill. 60629). This man is a good acquaintance of V. Trumpa, since he (V. Trumpa) belongs to the Fund and, I believe, is even a member of its board. The Fund is an association of liberal-minded people; if you decide to approach it, V. Trumpa would provide the necessary assistance; just let me know when you decide to do so, if you have not already committed yourself elsewhere. I would support this undertaking as well. V. Maciūnas once reported that the proofs of the above-mentioned article would be sent off— 35 They were sent before Christmas, but I still have not received them, and without the manuscript, which is to be sent together with the proofs, I cannot really write the summary properly. As soon as I receive it, I will write this summary at once and send it to you as soon as possible for translation. I know that long Lithuanian sentences are rather difficult to translate into English. Thank you for your promised help. With best wishes Pr. Skardžius P.S. Do you perhaps know anything more about A. Sabaliauskas’s fate? P.S. [9] 1973.II.14 Highly esteemed Colleague, At last I have received the manuscript of my work and the proofs from V. Maciūnas, and therefore only now have I been able to write the summary. It is not really a summary in the true sense of the word: I have briefly set down in it the ideas of the introduction and the conclusions themselves. I must admit that I did not know how to condense the whole work, which is quite specialized, any further or more concisely. I know very well that Lithuanian sentences, especially my own, are often longer than is customary in English; this is made particularly difficult by subordinate participial and half-participial compressed sentences. Even so, I tried to write shorter sentences, but this time, too, I did not do much better. Perhaps you can somehow “break them up.” Please send the translated “summary” directly to V. Maciūnas (247 E. Albanus St., Philad. 20., Pa. 19120) I shall be most grateful for this help. With best wishes Pr. Skardžius 36