2 recenzijos

At the end of the book there is an extensive bibliography of Baltic studies printed in the German Democratic Republic from 1948 to 1968, as well as works by scholars of that country published in the press of other countries. It records 249 entries devoted to various problems of Baltic linguistics, Lithuanian and Latvian literature, folklore, and the history of Baltic studies. A further 52 bibliographic entries concern the cultural relations between the Sorbs (Wends) and Lithuanians. This extensive bibliography was prepared together with Professor R. Ekert by another of our sincere friends, Dr. Frido Metskas of the GDR, an active promoter of Lithuanian culture. As the bibliography’s authors themselves point out, it would be extremely difficult to compile a completely perfect bibliography all at once, and so they 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. Mühlenbach’s and J. Endzelynas’s dictionary was published in 1923–1932, while the third volume of J. Otrembskis’s Lithuanian grammar appeared in 1956 (this volume was published before the other volumes). It is to be hoped that this work by Professor R. Ekert will be not only a fine echo of the traditions of German Baltic studies, but also the beginning of significant new research into Baltic studies in the German Democratic Republic. R. Ekert dedicates this work to a former companion from his student days—the Russian linguist V. M. Ilič-Svityč, thereby seeming once again to remind us that the tragic death of this scholar was a painful loss for Baltic studies as well. 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 considerable progress and, in the scope of its work and the value of its output, has far surpassed the other republics of the Soviet Union engaged in analogous 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 reflect the characteristic features of Belarusian dialect phonetics and morphology, syntactic constructions, and the variety and distribution of individual phraseological expressions and dialect vocabulary. On the basis of this atlas, Belarusian dialectologists— * Compiled by a team of authors: Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences R. Avanesovas; Candidate of Philological Sciences A. Arašonkava; Doctor of Philological Sciences M. Birila; Doctor of Philological Sciences N. Vaitovič; Doctor of Philological Sciences A. Grucas; Junior Researcher 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 Researcher A. Čaberuk. Edited by Corresponding Member of the USSR Academy of Sciences R. Avanesovas, Academician of the Academy of Sciences of the BSSR K. Astrachovičius (Krapiva), and Doctor of Philological Sciences J. Mackevič. 245 …have risen to a higher level of linguistic geography: they have prepared an excellent atlas of their dialect isogloss maps, in which the principal bundles of isoglosses are analyzed synchronically and commented on, their centers of formation and dynamics established, and questions concerning the origin and development of individual dialect features and groups of features highlighted; the interconnections among the phonological systems, grammatical structures, and lexical phenomena of the main Belarusian dialects, as well as their relations with neighboring Russian, Ukrainian, and Polish dialects and, in many cases, Lithuanian dialects, are brought to light. The Atlas of Belarusian Dialect Isoglosses substantially revises the classification of these dialects used up to now and, drawing on all levels of dialect structure (phonetics, grammar, and lexicon), identifies new dialect groups, giving a precise and clear characterization of them and revealing the typical differences between the groups. The atlas also delineates dialect zones, bringing much new linguistic insight to the formation and history of the Belarusian language. All the isogloss maps in the atlas are divided into two major parts: maps of isogloss typology (1–70) and maps whose isoglosses show the division of the Belarusian language into dialects and dialect zones (71–80). The maps of isogloss typology are divided into 9 sections according to the centers and directions of spread of the features they depict. The first section presents 21 bundles of isoglosses, comprising 118 dialect features that originate in the southern and southwestern corner of the Byelorussian SSR and spread in a broad band across the entire country in a northeasterly direction. All these bundles of isoglosses extend beyond the territory of the Byelorussian SSR and meet Russian linguistic areas as well as the dialects of long-established Belarusian and Russian populations in the Lithuanian SSR. Bundles of isoglosses 1–9 and 12–16 also extend into Ukrainian linguistic territory, while 1–12 cover Belarusian dialects in the Polish People’s Republic. Bundles of isoglosses 1–11 are particularly noteworthy because they distinguish the ancient Polesye dialect continuum, which is connected with the problem of the ethnogenesis of the Eastern Slavs. It is also important that, although Polesye stands apart from other dialect zones, it does not form an isolated area, but shares numerous features with neighboring territories. Bundles of isoglosses 13–21 in this section (Grodno, Lida, Ashmyany, Voranava) are of considerable practical and theoretical significance for the study of corresponding features in Lithuanian dialects, especially the Lithuanian loanword мянтайска (map 20; cf. Lithuanian mentė), the spread of certain syntactic constructions (ехаў на кані | ехаў канём; ехаў на возе | ехаў возам — map 14; пагнаў валы | пагнаў вало́ў; знайшоў грыба | знайшоў грыб — map 20.), and so forth. The second section is devoted to bundles of isoglosses extending northward. It consists of 8 maps (22–29), reflecting 36 phonological, morphological, lexical, and word-formation features. These bundles of isoglosses separate the linguistic area of the Pripyat basin from the main mass of Belarusian dialects. This is a clearly transitional type of dialect between Belarusian and Ukrainian. The third section includes 7 bundles of isoglosses (30–36), encompassing 33 dialect features and extending from the southeastern part of the country toward the northwest. Some of these bundles of isoglosses (30–31) distinguish the transitional Belarusian dialects of the Gomel area. The fourth section brings together 16 bundles of isoglosses (37–52), running southwestward from the eastern corner of the republic. They encompass 92 phonetic and lexical features and form a coherent concentration of isoglosses that clearly distinguishes the dialect area of the Mogilev and Vitebsk regions from the general linguistic area. From a structural-genetic perspective, these bundles of isoglosses are closely interconnected and interdependent, 246 although the features they comprise differ. In close contact with neighboring Russian dialects, the Mogilev–Vitebsk dialect complex shares numerous phonological and lexical features with them. Particularly important among these is the soft pronunciation of sonorant r before front vowels (elsewhere r is hard and the vowels are retracted). Of particular interest here are the isogloss bundles of the Astravets dialect subgroup (46–51), which also extend into the Belarusian dialects along the border of the Lithuanian SSR. They are a subject for serious further study, including from the perspective of Lithuanian–Belarusian linguistic contacts. The fifth section comprises three bundles of isoglosses (53–55) with 20 dialect features. They run directly southward from the northern corner of the republic. The first two bundles in this direction (53–54), which distinguish the Braslav corner from the general dialect area, are especially noteworthy. In terms of its lexical features, on the one hand it comes somewhat closer to the Russian dialects of long-established populations in Lithuania, Latvia, and Estonia, and on the other, to neighboring Lithuanian dialects (especially considering that Lithuanians and Belarusians still live intermingled in some places around Braslav). For example, the Russian word вагойня, found nowhere else in Belarusian dialects, is used here, as is the Lithuanianism жэгіні (cf. Lithuanian žaginiai), among other forms. The sixth section comprises 7 bundles of isoglosses (56–62) running in a southeastern direction from the northwestern outskirts of the republic. They encompass 44 lexical-semantic features, some of which also occur in the dialects of long-established Russian and Belarusian populations in Lithuania and Latvia. Together, they also distinguish as a separate dialect unit the outlying Belarusian dialects adjacent to the Lithuanian SSR, which share certain features with neighboring Lithuanian dialects or have been influenced by them. For instance, only here is the Polonism кру́йка | еру́йка (map 57) widespread; it partly coincides with the name used for this object in the Lithuanian SSR (as shown well, for example, by the manuscript map of responses to item 58 in the program for the Atlas of the Lithuanian Language). Unlike the rest of Belarusian grammatical structure, the feminine nouns мышца, зямля (map 56) here have shifted to the мясц., зямля declension type. The onomatopoeic verb зука́ць ‘to speak’, found only in this area (map 58), has close semantic relatives in Latvian and Lithuanian dialects, for example Latvian ukace ‘eine Klatschbase, Lügerin’ (K. Mühlenbachs, Latviešu valodas vārdnīca, edited, supplemented, and continued by J. Endzelīns, IV, Rīga, 1929–1939, p. 296), and Lithuanian ūkauti. Of importance to Lithuanian linguists is the isogloss for past participles characteristic of this area, with endings -улы, -увы, which function predicatively (especially to express the progressive aspect, e.g., я тут давно быуины), and the range of the Lithuanian loanword дзірван (map 59). The seventh section consists of two bundles of isoglosses (63–64). One runs southwestward (8 features), the other northwestward (7 features). These bundles bring into focus the central (core) dialect area of Belarus, reveal its general characteristics, and show how it connects with the peripheral areas. The distribution of dialect features across this territory suggests that they spread from this center toward the periphery. Unlike earlier bundles of isoglosses, these differ in that some of their characteristic features form compact, bounded areas. In addition, a whole complex of linguistic features converges here, distinguishing the southwestern and northeastern dialects, whose isoglosses do not form compact bundles. The eighth section is devoted to four westward- and eastward-running bundles of isoglosses (65–68), which highlight the so-called meridional isoglosses, encompassing 22 dialect features. The meridional isoglosses are noteworthy because they have been identified for the first time in Belarusian dialectology and reveal (though not entirely clearly) the broadly distributed— 247 This western Belarusian dialect area (which will be fully delineated once “The All-Slavic Linguistic Atlas” has been published) does not constitute a unified whole, but is characterized by considerable variation in one or another dialectal feature, largely dependent on the history of differing political, economic, cultural, and linguistic relations in the territory. Particularly interesting is the fact that the linguistic features of the western Belarusian dialect area differ greatly in origin. Some are new (especially a certain layer of vocabulary), others (grammatical features, as well as some of the vocabulary) are old, and still others reflect the manifestations of certain political changes. Chapter Nine presents two bundles of isoglosses delimiting closed dialectal areas (69–70), which link 10 phonetic and lexical features and distinguish a completely enclosed Slutsk dialect island in the southeastern Belarusian dialect. The first part of this work examines and interprets a total of 390 dialectal features of the Belarusian language. The second part of the work is a concise summary of the research in the first part. Drawing on the actual pattern of isogloss bundles, which constitutes a relatively coherent system of contemporary Belarusian dialects formed over a long historical process, and on detailed studies of that system, this part presents maps of a new dialect classification (71–75) and dialect zones (76–80), together with their interpretation. The new dialect classification also presents and offers a scholarly interpretation of the following division of the principal Belarusian dialects: the Polesie dialect group and the main Belarusian linguistic area (first division); the northeastern dialects (comprising three dialect groups—the northern, Vitebsk-Mogilev, and Polotsk) and the southwestern dialects (comprising three dialect groups—the southern, Mozyr, and western), as well as the central Belarusian dialects (second division). For the first time, five dialect zones are distinguished in the territory of the Belarusian language (third division): 1) southeastern, 2) northwestern, 3) central, 4) eastern, 5) western. From the perspective of the history of Lithuanian-Belarusian linguistic contacts, the last zone, especially the direction in which its features are most intensive, is the most interesting and promising for further research. Going beyond the subject matter of this significant work, the book’s interpretations of the isoglosses include a third major chapter, which analyzes in detail questions concerning the genesis of Belarusian dialects. The publication “Linguistic Geography and the Classification of Belarusian Dialects” is a major achievement of Belarusian dialectologists, and a new and significant step forward for linguistic geography in the Soviet Union. This excellent and carefully prepared scholarly work is a principal source for further research in Belarusian linguistics and in other Slavic and Baltic languages, as well as for comparative studies. The analysis of linguistic-geographical material on Belarusian dialects presented in it is an excellent model for analogous linguistic-geographical research on other peoples of the Soviet Union and abroad. In 1971, the author and editorial team was awarded the USSR State Prize for its body of work in Belarusian linguistic geography, which is of great value to linguistics. E. Grinaveckienė 248