Kazimieras Būga ir lietuvių leksikografija

XXXVII (1997) PROBLEMS OF LEXICOGRAFY AND LEXICOLOGY Algirdas SABALIAUSKAS KAZIMIERAS BŪGA AND LITHUANIAN LEXICOGRAFY The history of Lithuanian lexicography is a complex and often tragic part of the history of our culture. For the fourth century, Lithuanians themselves and their foreign friends (sometimes even enemies) have been writing dictionaries of the Lithuanian language. For some, dictionaries were a learning tool. Others wrote them to better explain the words of the Bible. For others, the Lithuanian dictionary was a monument to a dying nation and language. Let us recall the thought expressed by Ferdinand Nesselmann in 1846: “In fifty years, the preparation of a dictionary of the Lithuanian language will be an impossible thing" (Nesselmann 1846: 149) — understand, the Lithuanian language will already have disappeared- ... Dionizas Poška apologized to the readers of his future dictionary: Nepeyk tun mana rasztu! nęs raszi artois, Su Zagre, ne Su Plūsna Ziemes Raszitois (Poška 1959: 86). Jakubas Brodovskis devoted thirty years to the Lithuanian language dictionary, but unfortunately did not see the fruits of his work. Antanas Juška entered the history of Lithuanian lexicography as a beautiful legend, who also did not see the fruits of his work. Only the hard-working Friedrich Kuršaitis successfully completed the great works and was able to write with satisfaction in his last work of lexicography, published in 1883, "Lietuvių-- germanų kalbų žodyne" (Dictionary of Lithuanian- -German languages): "Thus I finish my literary work on the Lithuanian language, wishing blessings to my nation, to which I belong by birth and for which I have worked honestly for a long time" (Kurschat 1883: XII). The Lithuanian national revival in the late 19th and early 20th centuries was led by people who were very interested in the problems of Lithuanian lexicography and sometimes wrote dictionaries themselves. The fact that the idea of a dictionary had penetrated deeply into the consciousness of the Lithuanian intelligentsia of that time could perhaps also be witnessed by this fact. A prominent representative of the Lithuanian national revival, Marijampolė gymnasium teacher Petras Kriaučiūnas, who himself prepared a dictionary of the Lithuanian language, recalls in “Varpe” (9/10, p. 229) in 1903 that his former pupil, the writer Antanas Vilkutaitis- -Keturakis, already mortally ill, wrote to him with broken nerves that he had as if won a huge sum of money in the lottery and “undertook from his own pocket to install Lithuanian newspapers in every larger city of Lithuania with generous payment of editors and writers; He also promised to print a good Lithuanian dictionary and other important Lithuanian books with his own money" (Kuzmickas 1981: 213—214). The future President of Lithuania collected material for the Lithuanian language dictionary Kazys Grinius, the future archbishop, the Blessed Jurgis Matulaitis and many other Lithuanian enlightened people of the time. When we recall Lithuanian language researchers of the early 19th and 20th centuries, we probably divide them into two groups: foreign professors of renowned European universities who had excellent linguistic education, but did not know the living Lithuanian language sufficiently well or even knew it, and ourselves, great enthusiasts of their work, who knew their mother tongue well, sometimes well-known its dialects, but did not have good linguistic preparation. Kazimieras Būga was the first researcher of Lithuanian language who lacked nothing – neither excellent schooling, nor a wonderful sense of the native language, nor talents, nor enthusiasm. K. Būga, who did not even have a certificate of high school graduation, had already collected several notebooks of Lithuanian dictionary material. In 1902 he began to write the material for the dictionary “not in notebooks, but on cards”. This date is rightly considered the beginning of the academic "Dictionary of Lithuanian Language" catalog. In 1912, Bogdanov graduated from St. Petersburg University and was left to prepare for a professorship in comparative linguistics under the direction of Professor Jean Baudouin de Courtenay. This date is also connected with K. Būga's activities as a lexicographer. In this year his first lexicographic work “Litovsko-russkij slovarčik k pervym 20-ti litovskim skazkam v izdanii “Lietuvių pasakos” (Vilnius, 1905), composed by K. K. Bugoju with the participation of I. A. Boduéna-- de-Kurtene (S.-Peterburg, 1912). It was for a purely practical purpose. A teaching tool for the Lithuanian language course taught at the University of St. Petersburg Baudouin de Courtenay and at the Higher Women’s Courses. Of course, today it is only an important detail that K. Buga’s name is written here next to the name of his great teacher. In 1912, the St. Petersburg Academy of Sciences commissioned K. Buga to edit and publish the second volume of Antanas Juška’s dictionary. K. Būga now, it can be said, devotes himself solely to this work. Birutė Tolutienė (Tolutienė 1961: 261-272) has described in detail K. Būga’s work on this work of Lithuanian lexicography. This marked the beginning of a long-standing relationship between the two. B. Tolutienė evaluated this work as follows: “K. The book has been extensively translated into other languages by J. A. A. Newman. The newly introduced meanings and the referenced sources of the writings provided many important data for the study of the history and use of the title word. K. Būga spared neither his own material, nor his knowledge, nor much work, and made entire studies of some of A. Juška's articles" (Tolutienė 1961: 263). Understandably, after such editorial changes, the dictionary diverged considerably from A. Juška’s original, with which the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences was not satisfied. K. Būga wanted to make a perfect Lithuanian dictionary from the material of A. Juška’s dictionary. However, he quickly realized that this was impossible because the material was not sufficient, not everywhere it was reliable, and in addition, it was collected only from a small part of Lithuania. The checks and additions took an incredibly long time. The work was also slowed down by the slowness of editor-in- -chief Philip Fortunatov's work. K. Būga works at the universities of Perm and Tomsk. In 1918 he was awarded the professor's title. Very intensively collecting material for his future vocabulary. In 1920, he returned to Lithuania with a cartography of four sheets of the Pudy dictionary. Soon his library will quadruple. On May 13, 1923, K. Būga began writing his dictionary, in which he decided to write about every word everything that was then known in linguistics. The work of K. Buga ended tragically. The second volume of the dictionary was published after the author's death. K. Būga himself reacted very critically to his dictionary: “Let no one seek perfection or consistency in the Lithuanian language dictionary.” All this, working in haste, hardly anyone will achieve [...] "The Dictionary of Lithuanian Language" is to be considered a draft, which I would not dare to publish under better conditions of life in Lithuania, first of all not yet well processed and smoothed. I am sure that our descendants will not blame me for this draft, because the draft will also provide considerable material" (Būga 1961: 696). In 1930, a new dictionary edition was organized. The Ministry of Education appointed Juozapas Balčikonis to lead it. The editorial secretary Napalis Grigas, a man without degrees or higher education diplomas, even frightens his former professor Vincas KrėvėMickevičius by taking over the repetition of K. Bogda dictionary from the University: “Now we will know who will continue the work of editing the dictionary, which after Bogda no one has dared to undertake so far” (Grigas 1981: 23). The new edition immediately faced the problem of what kind of dictionary to prepare. It was possible to continue to publish the material accumulated by K. Buga. But what will replace, in the words of Janis Endzelynas, the spirit of K. Buga, who perceives and interprets this material so penetratingly? (Endzelins 1979: 669). The nature of the vocabulary has been fundamentally changed. His library has grown. The author of the dictionary, it can be said, became the whole nation. Today we are pleased to have seventeen volumes of the dictionary. This dictionary is undoubtedly the most important work of Lithuanian linguists of our century. According to Kostas Ostrauskas, a Lithuanian playwright and critic in the United States of America, this is “perhaps the most wonderful Lithuanian book”, which should be read “page by page, not just, if necessary, searching for the word and its meaning” (Ostrauskas 1989: 7-8). Bronė Vosylytė, who studied K. Būga's lexicographical activity and devoted many years of her life to the academic "Dictionary of the Lithuanian language", correctly stated that "Būga's dictionary began a new stage in the development of Lithuanian lexicography — the stage of the publication of the great "Dictionary of the Lithuanian language"" (Vosylytė 1956: 113). The dictionary has been written by several generations of Lithuanian lexicographers. However, two personalities — Kazimieras Būga and Juozas Balčikonis — were most deserving of this work. LITERATURE Būga K. 1961: Selected Writings 3, Vilnius: State Political and Scientific Literature Publishing House. Endzelins J. 1979: Selected Works 3, 1 d., Riga: Zinatne. 1981: How I Became a Gardener. —Our Language 1, 21-25. Kurschat F 1883: Lithuanian-German Dictionary, Halle A. S.: Verlag der Buchhandlung 3 des Orphanages. Kuzmickas V. 1981: Antanas Vilkutaitis-Keturakis, Vilnius: Mokslas. Nesselmann G. H. E 1846: The Lithuanian Lexicon. —New Prussian provincialBlatter B. 2, H. 2. Ostrauskas K 1989: “Words, words, words...” —Metamorphoses 56:3–15. Poška D. 1959: Raštai, Vilnius: Valstybinė grožinės literatūros leidykla. 1961. pp. 111. "Antonín Dvořák". —Literature and Language 5, 87—3717. 1956. pp. 56. "Dictionary". —Literature and Language 1, 84-113. Kazimieras Būga (1879–1924) was the first specialist in the Lithuanian language who lacked neither excellent training nor the knowledge of and feeling for his mother tongue. Biiga’s life and the history of the Academic Lithuanian Dictionary are two things which are inseparable. In 1902, Būga, still a secondary school student, began rewriting his collections of words on special slips. This date is considered to be the beginning of the card index of the Academic Lithuanian Dictionary. In 1912, Būga graduated from the University of St. Petersburg and began preparing for a professorship in the department of comparative linguistics headed by Jan Baudouin de Courtenay. In 1918 he was granted the rank of professor. In 1920 he returned to Lithuania. He brought with him a large file of cards for his future dictionary. On May 13, 1923, Būga began writing the dictionary. He tried to record everything that was known up to that time about each word. In 1924 the first book of his dictionary was published. On December 2, 1924, Buga’s untimely death was a tragedy for Lithuanian linguistics. In 1930 the Ministry of Education directed Juozas Balčikonis to continue Būga's work. It was decided to increase as much as possible the card of index accumulated by Būga and to write the dictionary anew. In 1996 the seventeenth volume of the Academic Lithuanian Dictionary was published. All in all, there will be twenty volumes of the dictionary. The Academic Lithuanian Dictionary is the most important work of Lithuanian philology of our century. It has been prepared by several generations of Lithuanian linguists. However, the greatest contribution to this work was made by Kazimieras Būga and Juozas Balčikonis.