Borisas Larinas

„the problem of this spoken language B. Larin explored in his other works!?. Lithuanian linguists are particularly interested in B. Larino’s Lithuanianist works. As already mentioned, B. Larinas became interested in Lithuanian linguistics during his studies. Not satisfied with written sources, he decided to learn the Lithuanian language from the people themselves. During the summer of 1913 and 1914 he had come to Lithuania twice and visited many villages in the then Raseiniai, Telšiai, Panevėžys, Ukmergė and Trakai counties. Here he collected words related to folk life and culture, studied dialects and recorded their characteristic features. The fruit of these trips was the work “Material from Lithuanian dialectology”*, which was published much later and consists of a description of the Nemunaitis dialect, a dictionary of words collected from various dialects with historical and etymological notes and examples of dialect texts. Although dialectological studies of the Lithuanian language have become more accurate and their methods have improved considerably since the time of writing this work, some of the author’s observations, lexical data, and especially theoretical generalizations are still relevant today. Probably, for the first time in Lithuanian dialectology, we find here a view of dialect not as a complex of characteristic features, different from written language, but as a distinct linguistic system. B. Larin emphasizes that the task of the dialectologist is to discern and describe the dialectal norm, which determines the communication of the dialect representatives, but in its pure form it rarely appears in the usual composition of speech'*. Interesting are the author's remarks on the issue of bilingualism, explaining the different fate of Polish and Russian language elements in Nemunaitis dialect. The lexical material of Lithuanian dialects was used by B. Larin in many later studies and articles. Most of his works related to Lithuanian studies were published in the last two decades, when, after the restoration of the socialist order in Lithuania, his contacts with Lithuanian philologists were re-established and continued until his death. In his linguistic studies of this period he studied the problem of the relations between the Baltic and Slavic languages, examined specific lexical and grammatical equivalents of Lithuanian, Latvian and Old Russian, making extensive use of material from non-Indo-European (especially Finno-Ugric) languages. Among such works of B. Larin is noteworthy the article "About the word anrapo"'*. After detailed analysis of Slavic data, B. Larin pa12 B. A. Jlapun, O 3anncsx HHOCTPAaHIEB KaK HCTOYHHKE NO HCTOPHH pyccKOrO s3biKa, «<Tpyznar lOGuaefinoit Hayunoji cecchu. 1998. "That's it," she said. Hayk, JI, 1946, p. 71-—85; PasroBopuktit si3abik MockoBekofi Pycu, kn. : Hauajnsnbrtit stan OopMHpoBaHH; A PYCCKOro HanHOHAJIbHOTO S3bIKA, JI, 1961, pp. 22-34 et al. 138 B. A. Jlapuu, Marepnajist no JAHTOBCKON AHAJNEKTONOrHH, «SISHK H JHTepaTypa», T. 1, JL, 1926, p. 93—170. 14 Idem, p. 93—94, 98. 15 Idem, p. 101—104, 16 5. A. Jlapun, O ecsoBe axrapo, kn. : A collection of writings dedicated to akad. Prof. Dr. J. Endzelinam, Riga, Latvia 1959, p. 149—162. 249