Lietuvių bendrinės kalbos sampratos istorija (XIX amžiaus antroji pusė – XX amžiaus pradžia)

BENDRINĖ KALBA 89 (2016) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 JURGITA VENCKIENĖ Lietuvių kalbos institutas THE HISTORY OF THE GENERAL INTELLECT OF THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE (SECOND HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY – EARS OF THE 20TH CENTURY) 1 KEY WORDS: common language, written common language, spoken common language, purity, codification. INTRODUCTION The question of the emergence, the beginning of the Lithuanian common language (hereinafter – bk) has been repeatedly examined in the works of linguists. Giedrius Subačius has discussed the attitude of Lithuanian scholars to the history of bk – it is usually associated with the history of the nation: “at a certain distinct stage of the development of the nation (state) there was also talk of a certain stage of the development of the standard language” (Subačius 2004: 89). In contrast, American and Western European linguists examine the development of common languages on the basis of their own characteristics, specific linguistic and social features (Subačius 2004: 97). Einar Haugen distinguished four aspects of bk formation: the choice of norm, the codification of form, the improvement of functions and the acceptance of society (Haugen 1966: 252). The emergence and development of Bk is related to society, and in particular to two aspects mentioned by E. Haugen: the choice of dialect bk and the acceptance of society. Pranas Skardžius also raised the role of society much earlier: as an important feature of the emergence and existence of bk he pointed to the emerging perception of the society (or at least part of it) that it has a common language, and its efforts to use that language: “[bk] is recognized, used or attempted to be used [here my – J. V.] as a universal means of communication throughout ethnographic Lithuania” (Skardžius 1927: 341). The purpose of this article is to show, based on the press and egodocuments, when the public, or at least a part of it, began to understand the concept of having bk and how they understood it. Arnoldas Piročkinas, who studied the problems of the formation of Lithuanian bk, wrote about the 16th–18th century literature that “[t]he conscious understanding of the common language had not yet arisen in M. Daukša and other Lithuanian writers of the time” (Piročkinas 1990: 6, see also Piročkinas 1990: 6). 1 The article was prepared based on the presentation “The History of the Crystallization of the Concept of the Common Lithuanian Language”, read at the scientific seminar Common Lithuanian Language Today: Reality, Illusion, Aspiration? (2015 05 22), which was organized by the Lithuanian Language Institute General Language Research Center. JURGITA VENCKIENĖ. Lietuvių bendrinės kalbos sampratos istorija (2nd half of the 19th century – beginning of the 20th century)|2 Pirochkin 1986: 30–31). The idea BENDRINĖ KALBA 89 (2016) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 of a common language was raised in Universitas lingvarum Litvaniae (1737), but it was not further developed (Piročkinas 1990: 8). 2. THE GENERAL UNDERSTANDING OF LANGUAGE IN THE END OF THE 18TH – 19TH CENTURY VIDURYJE XVIII amžiaus pabaigoje ir XIX amžiaus pradžioje bk tapo ne vieno autoriaus mąstymo object. G. Subačius (Subačius 1991, 58–64; Subačius 1996: 51–59; Subačius 1998 et al.) investigated the Daukanto, Juozapo Arnulfo Giedraičio, Antano Klemento, Kiprijono Nezabitauskio, Jurgio growing need for a beat language, the attitude of various Žemaičių authors (Juozapas Čiulda, Simonas Ambraziejus Pabrėža, Jurgis Pliateris, Dionizas Poška, Simonas Stanevičius, etc.) to such a language, and their efforts to create it. The Žemaičiai began to think about how to make the language common (for more see Subačius 1998: 20–21), which allows us to speak about the beginning of the creation of bk, although none of the models created at the time of discussion became bk. G. Subačius reconstructed such a concept of bk created or attempted to be created by Žemaitijos authors: „bk will be common and equal to all the public language of the nation“ (Subačius 1998: 20– 21), although it is emphasized that uniformity, universality, nation, language were perceived differently by different authors. For example, J. A. Pabrėža thought about a bk only for the Žemaites (about 1831), and S. Daukantas in his late period of writing – for the Žemaites and Vysokiai of Greater Lithuania and the Lithuanians of East Prussia (Subačius 1996: 53–54, 56). During the episcopate of Motiejus Valančius (1849–1875), many priests wrote in a dialect mixture, more or less adhering to their dialectal basis, but “trying to be also high-language” (Jonikas 1972: 135). M. Valančius himself, who led and supervised the religious literature, seems to have lost his thoughts on a common language. Nevertheless, it should not be forgotten that M. Valančius took care to publish books for the Eastern Highlanders in their dialect, since they allegedly did not understand Žemaitija writings: in 1852 he commissioned Juozas Zenevičius to translate the catechism written in Polish by Juozas Želvis into the Eastern Highlander dialect, and in 1865 he urged Antanas Baranauskas to write to the locals in their dialect. In addition, Petras Jonikas has mentioned M. Valančius’ pastoral letters to the believers in their dialect (Jonikas 1987: 238). This would show that the common language of all Lithuanians It still seemed impossible to Mr. Valančius. JURGITA VENCKIENĖ. Lietuvių bendrinės kalbos sampratos istorija (second half of the 19th century – early 20th century)|3 BENDRINĖ KALBA 89 (2016) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 3. GENERAL INTERPRETATION OF LANGUAGE IN THE SECOND HALF OF THE 19TH CENTURY Interest in the BC issue intensified in the second half of the 19th century. In the egodocuments of the time, the press is full of considerations about bk, discussions on various issues of language sharing. 3.1. Rašomoji bendrinė kalba Common language researchers agree that the first standardized written language emerged, (apie tai plačiau žr. Subačius 2001: 127). Ne išimtis ir lietuvių bk – aptariamojo laikotarpio initially perceived only as written. A. Baranauskas, who was appointed in 1870 to teach homilitics – the theory and practice of preaching in Lithuanian – at the Žemaičių (Telšių) seminary in Kaunas, needed a common language, primarily for teaching purposes (Stakauskas 2003: 71). A. Baranauskas was interested in creating a model of a common written language (so-called raszybos), the spoken language in his project remained 1875 10 04 (16): 6): dialectal (Baranauskas ti. The structure of A. Baranausko written common language (hereinafter – rbk) was close to the South-West Highland dialect (see Jonikas 1937: 50; Zinkevičius 1986: 78), but the writing attempted to encode the peculiarities of other dialects as well. The rbk model of A. Baranauskas, although it was popular among Catholic clergy and used in the Žemaičių bishop’s chancellery until 1908, did not grow into a bk, as did the 2 projects of Žemaičių authors in the early 19th century. Kazimieras Jaunius, who also taught Lithuanian at the Žemaičių seminarija in Kaunas (since 1885), developed the idea of the Rbk, which encodes dialectal characteristics (Sabaliauskas 1979: 172). He (Jaunius [1880–1892]: 6) emphasized that dialectal tuviu spelling cannot be translated into our language that a large part of our Žemaičiai tůs words where „uo“ is pronounced as one letter „u“ that the men of science have directed tůdvi letters to be united into a kruva and written so: lůma, lůkis, lůszas, klůnas, szlůti, plůsztas and other similar words, as the readers are quite 3 interested in the „Overview“ what and on the distant més in place .. 2 For more details see. Venn 2014. 3 “acoustic, phonetic” (LKŽe). JURGITA VENCKIENĖ. Lietuvių bendrinės kalbos sampratos istorija (Second half of the 19th century – beginning of the 20th century)|4 The theory of dialect BENDRINĖ KALBA 89 (2016) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 harmonization developed by A. Baranauskas and K. Jaunius was at least partially applied in a Žemaičių ir Lietuvos Apžvalgoje (1889–1896), Žemaičių dvasinės seminarijos auklėtinių periodical published by Pranciškus Urbonavičius and Kazimieras Pakalniškis. P. Urbonavičius (1895: 3) rašė: “uo” is used to make “ů”. The idea of harmonizing dialects in written language seemed attractive to Jonas Basanavičius (1899: 9): We have to reform our graphic language in such a way that it becomes a universal language for expression – 4 it can be – in all our dialects, so that words expressed in our spelling signs can link properly people in various Lithuanian dialects. His proposals on how to encode the peculiarities of dialects, how to reflect differently pronounced sounds in writing (common pronunciation also seemed unnecessary to J. Basanavičius), he set out in the book Prie istorijos musun rašybos, published in 1899, and further supplemented in the 1902 edition of Ožkabalių dainų. 5 For example, J. Basanavičius proposed to mark the Afrikaans [dž] with the diacritical letter <dad>, which „[ž]emaiţiai tures miduržodije kaipo paprastan d ištartie“ (Basanavičius 1899: 12); [č] was marked with the diacritical character <ţ> – “In Žemaitija, where it has not yet been softened, this ţ sounds like a bad t” (Basanavičius 1899: 13) 6 . Thus, in the last decades of the 19th century and even later, some bk creators and users thought that a rbk that encoded the characteristics of various dialects was necessary and appropriate, and did not want to share the pronunciation. 4 Price "common" (LKŽe). 5 J. Basanavičius’ bk project should have been known to the intelligentsia earlier, from his Ožkabalių dainų (1884) and Ethnological Details (1893). 6 Because of his peculiar rbk theory, J. Basanavičius was not invited to become the editor of Varpas (1889–1905) – the publishers of the newspaper were afraid that he would not apply it in this publication (see [Bagdonas] 1937 01 11: [I]). This indicates that the publishers of periodical press felt their bk model still very fragile. JURGITA VENCKIENĖ. Lietuvių bendrinės kalbos sampratos istorija (second half of the 19th century – early 20th century)|5 BENDRINĖ KALBA 89 (2016) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 3.2. Choice of the dialectal basis of Bk and fixation of bk in the 1880s Lithuanian periodical publishers have chosen a different path than the proponents of the rbk theory of dialect harmonization. Since Aušra (1883–1886), whose publishers decided to rely on the Lithuanian grammars of August Schleicher (1856) and Friedrich Kuršaitis (1876), the language of periodical press was chosen as the West Highland dialect of Lithuanian of Greater Lithuania (hereinafter – DL) and East Prussia (hereinafter – RP). The decision to rely on a single dialect was also based on the words of Jonas Jablonskis in 1893: “We will never master all our dialects in our spelling” (Jablonskis 1893: 5). The conscious awareness of the public that it has such a language is very important for the emergence of Bk. In the last decades of the 19th century, when illegal Lithuanian press began to be published, the public, or rather the more educated part of it, began to realize that the dialectal basis bk had been chosen, and decided to have bk. In the third year of the publication of Aušra, in December 1885, Serafinas Laurynas Kušeliauskas wrote to the priest 7 Aleksandr Burba about the language abełna: „raszant del lietuwiu ir žemajcziu, rejk tajkintis su kałba abełna“ (Kušeliauskas 1923: 12). Soon bk was recorded by Antanas Vytartas (1887, rašliaviška kalba, see below, section 3.4), Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas (1888, written language, see below, section 3.3), Jonas Mačiulis-Maironis (1891, see below, section 3.4), Mečislovas DavainisSilvestraitis (1891: 70, literary language), Antanas Milukas (1892: 27, rašliaviškas dialektas), J. Jablonskis (1893, written language, see below, section 3.3), Vincas Pietaris (1894: 87, literary language) and others (for more see Venckienė 2007: 27–30). Thus, in the last decades of the 19th century, the intelligentsia began to understand the need for a common, primarily written language. It was an exemplary language model to be followed. 3.3. Spoken common language Almost at the same time, when the existence of rbk is recorded, the intelligentsia begins to raise the question of the spoken bk (hereinafter – shbk). J. Tumas-Vaižgantas has been repeatedly mentioned by scholars, who since 1888 “concerned with the intelligentsia, began to speak in written language” (Jonikas 1987: 352). In 1891, J. Mačiulis-Maironis recorded in the šbk: "From the dialects, 8 Kauniszkē was chosen, which is the most beautiful and which is already spoken by the majority" (Mačiulis-Maironis 1891: 181). Thus, at the beginning of the last decade of the 19th century, at least educated speakers not only realized the existence of a common written language, but also began to orient their spoken language towards it. 7 "Abel, the universal, the whole, the general" (LKŽe). 8 The title page of the book indicates that it was written in 1886, so the author could have written about the formed bk not in 1891, but even earlier. JURGITA VENCKIENĖ. Lietuvių bendrinės kalbos sampratos istorija (Second half of the 19th century – beginning of the 20th century)|6 Soon after, in 1893, J. Jablonskis also BENDRINĖ KALBA 89 (2016) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 emphasized speaking bk, mentioning that it would be intended not only for the intelligents, but for all users of the language (Jablonskis 1893: 9): if the present written language goes ever more and more perfectly, without changing dialectically (= in its forms), then whether later or sooner we will want that all, the Augštaičiai or the Žemaičiai, will be able to speak and pronounce in the same way as the Lithuanian pioneers, the intelligents, will speak, we will want to hear everyone in our Lithuania pronounced and spoken in the same way. Petro Avižonis’s Lietuviška gramatikėlė (1898) was, among other things, intended to be used for learning the dialect – the author indicates that the accent marks for the Žemaites and Eastern Highlanders show how to pronounce the written forms of the language (Avižonis 1898: 1). Thus, in the last decades of the 19th century, the intelligentsia begins to realize that they have a bk based on one (Kaunas, Zanemunė) dialect, and begins to try to speak it. The aim is to make it acceptable to other sectors of society. 3.4. Requirements bk. Purity From the press and egodocuments it is clear that as soon as the bk was realized, the purity requirement began to be raised. The language purity was demanded by the Aušra (1883–1886) editorial staff. In the fifth issue, the editor’s reply to Petru Arminas-Trupinelis reads: “Miklink tik ir naudok gryną kalbą” ([Aušros redakcija] 1883: 151). Later, this was also mentioned by Jonas Šliūpas: “In order to raise and sustain the grieni language, it is necessary that all writers try to write in a grieni and beautiful way” (Šliūpas 1884: 147). P. Jonikas has mentioned that in Aušra the criterion of purity was 9 applied not only to the lexicon but also to other parts of the language (Jonikas 1987: 310), for example, words of foreign origin [f] were tried to mark <p> [p] (grapas ‘graph’ A6 1883: 156, pamiliją A2 1886: 59), [ch] – <k> [k] (kolerôs ‘cholera’ gen. sg. A5 1883: 140). In the first issue of the newspaper Šviesa (1887–1888, 1890) in 1887, probably by Antanas Vytaras, it was written: “The language of our newspaper will be used raszliaviszka pure, adding where nowhere else 10 another word dēl pareiszkimo” (Vytartas 1887: 3). The purity of language was mentioned by Vincas Kudirka. Here we should also mention the observation of Jon Palionis that the Lithuanianness of the Aušrininkai, 9 who created for the purpose of language purification, is, admittedly, “sometimes very poor” (Palionis 2014: naujadarus germanizmams, slavizmams ir tam tikriems tarptautiniams žodžiams pakeisti, svarbiausia buvo 14–19). 10 The article “Introduction” (pp. 1–3) is signed by Ernest Weyeri, but according to J. Tumas-Vaižgantas, “Feel the work of a priest here” – probably the editor A. Vytaras was in mind. Vanda Zaborskaitė also considered A. Vytartas to be the author of the article, guessing that Jonas Mačiulis-Maironis could have contributed to it (Tumas-Vaižgantas 1924: 10; Zaborskaitė 1999: 10). 1987: 62). JURGITA VENCKIENĖ. Lietuvių bendrinės kalbos sampratos istorija (Second half of the 19th century – beginning of the 20th century)|7 writing on behalf of the BENDRINĖ KALBA 89 (2016) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 publishers of Ūkininko (1890–1905), a newspaper for less educated readers (Kudirka 1890: 1–2): It can be difficult to understand the use of pure Lithuanian language. <...> However, even if it is difficult to learn pure Lithuanian, you can quickly get used to it. <...> Dēlto-gi do not despair readers, if 1. No. „Ukinįko“ would be too hard to read! Far away will be easier. In the same year, the review of the Žemaičių ir Lietuvos apžvalga called attention to the vocabulary of tombstone inscriptions ([Pakalniškis] Zuikis 1890: 117): Why should we use words of a foreign language, when we have “the same in our own language.” Instead of „źonka“ or „szvogerka“ wouldn’t it be nice to write Lithuanian words „moters“ and „pati“? In 1891, J. Mačiulis-Maironis (1891: 182) also raised the requirement of purity, alongside proper spelling: “it is not easy to write, but it already requires the raszytor’s knowledge of scientific writing and the purity of language”. A. Milukas also wrote about the need to avoid dialects in his review of the 1892 edition of Vaikų kningelės (1892: 27): The publisher apparently did not forget to ask the editors of the work this question: allegedly, he translated from the Žemaitiszko into the current Raszliaviszk dialect (dialect), but either because of speed, or because of lack of knowledge of all the peculiarities of both dialects, he added many expressions and forms not used in the current Raszliaviszk dialect. Aleksandras Dambrauskas (Adamas Jakštas) also demanded a purely Lithuanian bk in 1898 (see below, section 3.6). The question of the purity of the Bk was also discussed in personal correspondence: in 1885 this requirement was raised by S. L. Kušeliauskas (1923: 112–113): „Rejk, that tikraj butu grina kałba and that wisi ta kałba understandu.“ Vadinasi, suvokdama turimą bk, nors dar net nesant kodifikuojamo veikalo, ją vartojanti part of society no longer tolerated non-Lithuanianness, the criterion of bk purity became relevant. Jis laikytinas seniausiu, pirmiausia iškeltu bk reikalavimu, nors dabar nebėra svarbiausias (plg. "Girdenis, Pupkis 1970: 65–67". 3.5. Territory of consumption The territory of consumption of bk was also considered during the period considered. As already mentioned, at the end of 1885 S. L. Kušeliauskas wrote that bk were common to Lithuanians (i.e., to the Altais) and JURGITA VENCKIENĖ. Lietuvių bendrinės kalbos sampratos istorija (Second half of the 19th century – beginning of the 20th century)|8 Samogitians (see Figure 3.2). Not BENDRINĖ KALBA 89 (2016) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 even a decade later, in 1893, Jonas Spudulis outlined broader limits for the use of bk (rasztkalbės) – it should be common to the DL and RP Lithuanians: “it is necessary to establish wēl, that there would be a common language in the writings between the Prussians and the Lithuanians” (Spudulis 1893 11 26: 3v). Five years later, in 1898, A. Dambrauskas emphasized that bk (rašliaviška kalba) is common to all Lithuanians, regardless of their place of residence: it is used not only in ethnographic Lithuania by Lithuanians of all dialects, but also in Europe and the United States of America. (Dambrauskas 1898: 2–3): Szendien <...> Žemaitis or Augsztaitis, Djukas or Kapsas, Zanavykas or Guogas, – all understand each other as Lithuanians, all aim to write in the same way, renouncing their dialectal features of the language <...> In this way one Lithuanian raszliaviszka kałba was easily earned and mastered, which is now used by all almost better writers of our country, regardless of where they live – in Europe or America. Thus, in the last decades of the 19th century, the concept of the area of use of bk was expanded: bk was understood as the language of all Lithuanian-speaking territories, used also by Lithuanians living in other countries. 3.6. Extension of functions The functions of bk, which had arisen under the conditions of the press ban, could not be freely expanded, it could not be used in government institutions, schools. In 1898, A. Dambrauskas, continuing the testimony of J. Tumas-Vaižgantas and J. Mačiulis-Maironis about the efforts of the intelligentsia to speak bk, urged to expand the scope of the use of bk – it should be used not only for communication among the intelligentsia, but also in the church (Dambrauskas 1898: 4): it would be much better if every Lithuanian priest, having learned well one purely Lithuanian raszliaviszkos kałba, in that kałba and everywhere skełbtu the word of God, without worrying about the inclusion of local dialect characteristics. <...> And let no one be my, but we czia what perversity we proclaim. <...> In church matters, as far as we know, dialects do not prevail everywhere, but kałbos raszliaviszkos. which, apparently, were not restricted by government requirements – tombstone inscriptions. Atkreiptas dėmesys ir į dar vieną, labai asmenišką ir kartu viešą kalbos vartojimo sritį, It is recorded in the press that most of the notes were written by those who knew grammar (Turauskas 1901: lietuvių antkapių užrašų rašoma lenkiškai, raginama juos rašyti lietuviškai, siūloma, kad tokius 15): JURGITA VENCKIENĖ. Lietuvių bendrinės kalbos sampratos istorija (Second half of the 19th century – beginning of the 20th century)|9 Zemaitės, always write to the blacksmith BENDRINĖ KALBA 89 (2016) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 on a note what words must be carved on the cross <...> If you don't know how to put words together well and grammatically, then ask someone who knows Žemaitijos grammar well to make the signature. Thus, the part of society that used bk for mutual communication began to take care of its spread to other areas of consumption, wherever possible, first of all – to the church. Attention was also paid to the language of the tombstone inscriptions. 3.7. The need for codification of BC In the last decades of the 19th century, there was a need to codify bk. V. Kudirka wrote in Varpe in 1889 (Kudirka 1889: 105): Nowadays every razer works his own grammar and each one razes in a certain way – otherwise it cannot be, until we have a short, clear grammar, which would answer stacze on more important language listening, without any hesitation. In 1890, Juozas Adomaitis-Šernas, the editor of the Belpo, noted that grammar was necessary to unify the spelling norms: “In order for one type of writing to emerge and remain, one kind of support is needed, one kind of tool from which everyone could learn that type of writing” (Adomaitis-Šernas 1890: 65). Feeling the need to establish spelling norms, around 1890 the bellmen took the initiative: they hectographed the set of spelling rules prepared by V. Kudirka "Standards" (1987: 326). In 1895, P. Urbonavičius, editor of the Žemaičių ir Lietuvos Apžvalga, raised the question of grammar: “then we will see a kind of writing, when our literary leaders (professors) will renounce laziness, and will produce good grammars” (Urbonavičius 1895: 3). In 1897, a co-worker of Tėvynės Sargas, Pranciškus Gaigalas, urged the writing of a grammar: "We must work hard, work hard, to stop our kałbai and raszybai zomatus, so that we would not be wrong when writing." (Gaigalas 1897: 18). In the absence of a proper grammar of the Lithuanian language, the Varpas editors were looking for a solution: at the beginning of 1898 they proposed to translate the grammar of Julius Schiekopas (1879–1881), later recommended to rely on P. Avižonis’s Lietuviška gramatikėlė, which introduced the Varpas’s spelling model ([Varpo redakcija] 1899: 37):