The use of material from Lithuanian dialects and old writings, Latvian, Prussian, and other Indo-European languages, especially Slavic, together with reliance on statistical data, enabled the author to make a new and highly substantiated contribution to the discussion of the formation of the present-day Lithuanian accentuation system and the origin and development of many grammatical forms. J. Kazlauskas’s book is significant not only for Lithuanian linguistics, but also for Baltic studies, Indo-European studies, and general linguistics as a whole.

K. Morkūnas

R. Eckert, Baltistische Studien, Berlin, 1971, 102 p.

Professor Rainer Eckert of the University of Leipzig is “one of our own” to the linguists of our republic: we often meet him at conferences and meetings, frequently read his interesting articles published in the German Democratic Republic, the Soviet Union (first and foremost, of course, in our republic), and other countries. From time to time we come across his name in reports on the activities of Balticists in the GDR, translations of Lithuanian literature into German, and so on.

Recently, the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig published a separate volume in its series of reports: a collection of articles by this linguist entitled „Baltistische Studien“. The publication of such a book is a happy event, if only because it is the first book published in the GDR devoted exclusively to problems of Baltic studies. It is, as it were, a distant echo of the fine traditions of Baltic studies at the University of Leipzig and in German scholarship more generally, established by eminent German scholars in the previous century. August Schleicher, a pioneer of these traditions, is honored in a foreword written especially for this book by the distinguished GDR Slavist Rudolf Fischer, who notes, among other things, that interest in the Baltic languages has been growing again in recent years.

With A. Schleicher in mind, one can note the pleasing fact that over the past few years a particularly large number of interesting works on this German linguist—“a hero of linguistics,” as Fridrichas Kuršaitis once called him—have been published (by J. Dietze, R. Fischer, and others)¹.

R. Eckert’s book also opens with an article about A. Schleicher, “Zu August Schleicher's ‘Litauischer Grammatik’” (pp. 9–20). The author aptly characterizes Schleicher’s celebrated grammar, recounts the interesting history of the book’s creation, and recalls its significance for the history of Lithuanian-language research, the development of our literary language, and so forth. Naturally, the article also points out the weaknesses of A. Schleicher’s work, which were due primarily not to the author but to the state of linguistics at the time.

Perhaps only one of R. Eckert’s criticisms of A. Schleicher is a little too “harsh.” The author recalls a remark by A. Schleicher that has probably already become “winged” among many Balticists: Latvian is “eine in Laut und Grammatik jüngere Sprache (ist), die sich zum Litauischen etwa verhält wie das Italienische zum Latein” (cf. p. 13). R. Eckert is right to argue that Latvian had not yet been sufficiently studied at the time, and that only J. Endzelīns’s work filled this gap. Yet even after J. Endze-

¹The Americans reprinted perhaps one of the most interesting articles about A. Schleicher as a person and scholar, written more than a century ago by his distinguished student Johan Schmidt; see Portraits of Linguists, A Biographical Source Book for the History of Western Linguistics, 1746–1963, edited by Thomas A. Sebeok, I, Bloomington and London, 1967, p. 374–395.

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…of Endzelīns’s works, it seems to us, A. Schleicher’s vivid remark, with reference to the phonetics and morphology of Lithuanian and Latvian, has not lost its relevance.

It is true that R. Eckert, who for several years has been intensively investigating problems of Indo-European, especially Baltic and Slavic, heteroclysis, tends to find more traces of heteroclysis in Latvian than in Lithuanian. However, some of R. Eckert’s examples seem rather questionable. For instance, alongside Lithuanian šaulė, Latvian saūle, Old Prussian saule, he cites Latvian sāuls (which, in his opinion, is a remnant of the /-stem). Here, apparently, too much trust has been placed in dictionary evidence. Latvian sāuls is recorded just once, in the supplements to K. Mühlenbach’s dictionary by J. Endzelīns and E. Hauzenberga. It found its way there from L. Latkovskis’s description of the Skaista dialect². One of the most characteristic features of this dialect’s morphology is the tendency of ē-stem nouns to shift to the i-stem. In this dialect, instead of apse, upe, we find apss, ups, and so on.³ In a similar way, it seems, alongside Latvian zeme, Lithuanian žemė, and Old Prussian semmē (‘on the earth’), Latvian zems also arose. Naturally, such evidence cannot indicate any archaic features in Latvian morphology. Latvian vocabulary is quite another matter: it has in fact preserved a considerable number of very ancient features that have disappeared from Lithuanian.

The author of the article may not have chosen the example of A. Schleicher’s vowel alternation i: e: a: o (p. 15) entirely successfully, since Lithuanian mórai is not an indigenous word but a borrowing from the Slavic languages.

In listing the tradition of German-language Lithuanian textbooks initiated by A. Schleicher, it would probably also have been necessary to mention A. Senn’s *Kleine litauische Sprachlehre*, published in Heidelberg in 1929.

The substantial article “Slawismen mit i- Stamm im Litauischen” (pp. 21–55) presents an extremely careful morphological and derivational analysis of i-stem Slavicisms in Lithuanian. Perhaps only in one or two places do the labels attached to Lithuanian words raise doubts: Lit. (= Lithuanian), Lit. dial. (= dialectal), Alit. (= archaic, from old written sources). In this case, it would probably have been better to present both the Slavicisms labeled Lit. and those labeled Lit. dial. as a single group.

Furthermore, are Lithuanian kūtis and Latvian kūts really Germanic borrowings? Is it not more plausible that this word entered Lithuanian from Latvian, while Latvian kūts, as an indigenous Baltic word, might be connected with corresponding words in the Slavic languages? Of course, this too cannot be asserted categorically.

In the article “Altpreussisch brendekermnen und seine Teilentsprechungen im Slawischen” (pp. 56–59), semantic Slavic parallels are given for the second component of this Old Prussian word (cf. Old Church Slavonic črěvo ‘intestine’, Slovenian črevata ‘pregnant’, etc.). It is interesting that, as the author notes in the corresponding addendum, F. Nesselmann had already attempted a similar explanation of the origin of the Prussian word. In later works on Prussian studies, however, this explanation was not given sufficient consideration.

The book’s final article, “Zur Heteroklisie im Baltischen und Slawischen” (pp. 60–74), is particularly interesting. In it, the author seems to argue very persuasively against skeptics of the heteroclysis theory, finding new and interesting instances of heteroclysis in the Baltic and Slavic languages.

² L. Latkovskis, Skaistas izloksne, „Filologu biedrības raksti“, XV, Rīgā, 1935, p. 37.

³ L. Latkovskis, ibid., p. 38; cf. also M. Rudzīte, *Latviešu dialektoloģija*, Riga, 1964, pp. 337–339.

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At the end of the book is a comprehensive bibliography of Baltic studies published in the German Democratic Republic between 1948 and 1968, as well as works by scholars from that country published in the press of other countries. It records 249 entries on various issues in Baltic linguistics, Lithuanian and Latvian literature, folklore, and the history of Baltic studies. A further 52 bibliographic entries concern cultural relations between the Lusatian (Sorbian) and Lithuanian peoples.

This extensive bibliography was compiled together with Professor R. Eckert by another sincere friend of ours, Frido Metskas, a doctor in the GDR and an active advocate of Lithuanian culture. As the bibliographers themselves point out, it would be exceedingly difficult to produce a completely perfect bibliography all at once, and they therefore ask their readers to help supplement it. In response to this request, we will point out a couple of items that should probably be included in the bibliography:

Ambr. Jonynas, Der Kampf der Fronbauern gegen die Gutsherrschaft im Spiegel der litauischen Märchen, Schwänke und Schwankmärchen, „Deutsches Jahrbuch für Volkskunde“, Bd. VII, Berlin, 1961, p. 205–214.

K. Korsakas, Bericht über die Folklorerforschung in Litauen, „Deutsches Jahrbuch für Volkskunde“, Bd. VI, T. 2, Berlin, 1960, p. 451–453.

A couple of minor corrections: K. Miülenbach’s and J. Endzelin’s dictionary was published in 1923–1932, while the third volume of J. Otrębski’s Lithuanian grammar appeared in 1956 (this volume was published before the others).

One hopes that Professor R. Eckert’s work will be not merely a fine echo of the traditions of German Baltic studies, but also the beginning of significant new research in Baltic studies in the German Democratic Republic.

R. Eckert dedicates this work to his former fellow student, the Russian linguist V. M. Illich-Svitych, thus reminding us once again that Baltic studies, too, were deeply affected by this scholar’s tragic death.

A. Sabaliauskas

Лінгвістычная геаграфія і групоўка беларускіх гаворак, Мінск, 1968 [Izoglosų interpretacija], 318 p.; Лінгвістычная геаграфія і групоўка беларускіх гаворак, Мінск, 1969 [80 lingvistinių žemėlapių]*

Belarusian linguistic geography has made great strides and, in the scope of its research and the value of its output, has considerably surpassed the other republics of the Soviet Union engaged in similar dialect research. A major scholarly achievement in this field was the first monumental „Dialectological Atlas of the Belarusian Language“ (Дыялекталагічны атлас беларускай мовы), prepared by a team of authors and published in 1963. Its 338 maps (most of them in color) and accompanying commentaries present the most characteristic features of Belarusian dialect phonetics and morphology, syntactic constructions, and the diversity and distribution of individual phraseological expressions and dialect vocabulary. Building on this atlas, Belarusian dialectolo-

* Compiled by a team of authors: Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences R. Avanesov; Candidate of Philological Sciences A. Arashonkava; Doctor of Philological Sciences M. Birila; Doctor of Philological Sciences N. Vaitovich; Doctor of Philological Sciences A. Grucas; junior research fellow I. Kavaličiuk; Candidate of Philological Sciences A. Krivickis; Corresponding Member of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR, Doctor of Philological Sciences J. Mackevič; Candidate of Philological Sciences J. Ramanovič; junior research fellow A. Čaberuk. Edited by Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences R. Avanesov and Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR K. Astrachovičius (Krapiva), Doctor of Philological Sciences J. Mackevič.

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