Gimtosios kalbos riteris – ir vienas lauke karys

322 Languages and Culture | 86 Personnel ALBINA BATAITYTĖ Knight of the Native Language – and One Field Warrior This autumn, 2013, the library of the Lithuanian Language Institute organized an exhibition of works by the linguist Pranas Kniūkštas, dedicated to the 80th anniversary of his life and work. Representatives of the administration of the Institute, colleagues of the former Department of Language Culture, which he headed for a decade (from 1991 to 2001), employees of other departments and colleagues gathered at its opening on September 24 to honour the jubilee. In 2013, his new book Between Grammar and Politics (260 p., published by the Lithuanian Language Institute) was prepared and published. It includes articles written and published in the press over the past decade (2002-2012), as well as some unpublished ones. a. bataitYtė. 323 I would like to begin this article with an overview of the aforementioned book, because it discusses many topical and important issues that are directly related not only to language, but also to language policy, and to the laws passed by the government that regulate the use of the state language (this is also indicated by the title chosen by the author of the book). It is all the more necessary to talk about this because Pranas Kniūkšta is one of those rare linguists who reacts very lively and timely to current language problems, who reasonably and principledly polemizes with opponents – actors from various fields who try to spread hostile and often insolent ideas against the Lithuanian language, its organization and standardization. The book consists of seven chapters. The articles of the first two chapters – “Principles and provisions of language management”, “phenomena on the boundary of norms” – deal with the themes of plain language. A lot of space here is devoted to the language policy, practice, principles and ideology of the Language Culture publication. a separate article “Kazys ulvydas about language culture and society” reviews the articles of the long-time editor-in-chief of Language Culture, published in this publication during his 26 years of work (1961–1986). Assessing the linguist’s contribution to the current Lithuanian language, Pranas Kniūkšta emphasizes that “we cannot renounce the scholars’ ideas of the development and promotion of the Celtic language”. The articles published in the book have been published in the journals Kalbos kultūra, Gimtoji kalba, periodiniai leidiniai (where and when the article was published is indicated at the end). As the author writes in the preface to the book, the main focus was on the administrative language. It consists of two sections, namely ‘administrative language’ and ‘writing of names and surnames in documents’. although Pranas Kniūkšta considers his monograph Administrative language and its use, published in 2005, as his swan song, but, as we will see below, he has done quite a lot in the field of administrative language over the past decade. discussing the new draft of the State Language Act (p. 107–114), the author writes that it needs to be amended. two things that are contrary to the idea of the state language are most unacceptable: the competition of other languages with the Lithuanian language and the definition of public signs and regulation of their use. Pranas Kniūkšta also considers that there are redundant parts of the articles that are not necessary for this law, especially a lot of stationery stamps, confusion of the terms of the legislative acts. In addition to the published article „new code, old language problems“ (p. 115–126) the new Code of Administrative Offences is evaluated. 324 Languages Culture | 86 so (his project) language. although the language of the document is not bad, but it indicates a number of things to be corrected. Having devoted a lot of time and effort to the development of the rules of company names, the creation and use of company names, the author rightly raises the question why the Company Names Act was changed (pp. 127–131). Some of the amendments in question open the way to the spread of unregulated and unregulated trade names. Pranas Kniūkšta critically evaluates the new Rules for the Preparation of Documents, approved on 25 May 2006 (pp. 132–139). Next to the meaningful and necessary changes to the text, the author refers to the unnecessarily changed, that is to say, only “kitonically”, or corrected and overly subbureaucratised. Particularly relevant and important articles for society as a whole are in the fourth chapter of the book (pp. 147–170). they talk about the spelling of names and surnames in state documents – passports of citizens of the Republic of Lithuania. These are four articles: “On the bill on names and surnames” (20 July 2007), “Will the Seimas defend the Lithuanian language?” (19 June 2009), “Again an unconstitutional bill” (Kalbos kultūra, 2009, p. 82), “What could be the law on writing names and surnames in documents” (9–12 June 2010). Based on the Constitution and the Supreme Council Decision of 31 January 1991, Pranas Kniūkšta defends in principle the legal order – the use of the state language in public life. The main requirement is that the name and surname of the citizen of the Republic of Lithuania in the passport or other document must be written in Lithuanian, i.e. in Lithuanian characters. However, the drafters of this law ignore this and seek to legalize the writing of personal names of Lithuanian citizens of non-Lithuanian nationality in documents in Latin script and other languages. The amendments and revisions of this draft law, which have lasted almost a decade, have a clear aim – to allow Lithuanian citizens of Polish nationality to use Polish instead of Lithuanian in their documents. In this case, Polish would become the second official language in Lithuania. According to Pranas Kniūkštas, exceptions to the language choice can only be applied to Lithuanian citizens who have registered a marriage with a citizen of another country (abroad). Language is inseparable from state (or government) policy, it establishes legislation and other documents, and if its use is weakened here, statehood is weakened. This is what the authors of these articles emphasize. Pranas Kniūkšta discusses the reasons for language weakness and the efforts to counteract them in the article “foreign words, politics and legislation” of the fifth chapter (pp. 173– 179). That these are not merely reasonings, is well shown by „Kalbos ir a. bataitYtė. 325 political images from Dieveniškiai“ (p. 180–192), where, after graduating from Vilnius University, he worked himself and practically experienced what the intersection of language and politics means (in South-Eastern Lithuania it is still happening to this day). By the way, he has studied the affairs of this region in a booklet published in 1990 Vilnius kraštas ir lietuvių kalba (published separately in Lithuanian, Polish and Russian). After difficult battles on the language front, victories and defeats, immediately another color shines and the sixth chapter of the book (pp. 195–213) breathes past – what is worth the title alone! – Knights of the Native Language. These are one of the editors of the Great Dictionary of Lithuanian Language, the editor and editor-in-chief of the three-volume academic grammar of Lithuanian language, the long-time editor of the publication of Language Culture Kazys ulvydas (100th anniversary of birth, 1910–1996), the terminologist Kazimieras Gaivenis (deceased prematurely, 1934–2003), the famous lexicographer Antanas Lyberis (1909–1996), the physicist academician Adolfas Jucys (1904–1974). Interesting memories of the author, detailed and sensitive evaluation of the work of these linguists, outstanding personality traits, sweet, warm words. By the way, Pranas Kniūkšta has written about famous Lithuanian linguists – Jonas Jablonskis, Kazimieras Būga, Juozas Balčikonis, Antanas Salis. The native sky of the Salantai (chapter 7, pp. 217–253) is also bright, or perhaps greatly brightened after the explorations of the son of his country, who did not eat bread in vain. First of all, here are published the documents of the acquisition of the Lithuanian language dictionary and other valuable information. by the way, here we should stop for a moment. At the end of the war, in the summer of 1944, the dictionary was transferred to Salantis by the linguist Antanas Salys, then director of the Lithuanian Language Institute, and handed it over to the local church priest. The famous linguist comes from the same region – his and Pranas Kniūkšta’s native villages are separated by only seven kilometers (Salys comes from the village of Rekaitė, Kniūkšta – from Barzdžių). Of the older generation of linguists, Pranas Kniūkšta highly valued Antanas Salis, wrote about him on jubilee dates, relied on his works, often quoted, and in the language order, it can be said, followed his marked path. Unfortunately, the linguists did not communicate directly – they were separated not only by age, but also by national borders. true, salys came to Lithuania in 1969 and attended the Lithuanian Language and Literature Institute. so, the last chapter of the book is dedicated to the native land, that is – the origin of the name of the salants, the names of the people of the native village of barzdziai, among them and his last name, research, which required both time and effort. had to find archive sources, investigate them, draw conclusions, compare with the present 326 Languages Culture | 86 facts. All this was done by the author very carefully and carefully1. discussed and Salantų speaking, and "Žemaitėška ruoda so pajoukavėmās" is worth not only the interest of the Zemgaling. After this rather concise review of the book Between Grammar and Politics, we should also return to the author’s biography. It must be said that the facts of the life and activities of the linguist Pranas Kniūkštas and his works have been described very consistently by the author Vladarskienė in the 81st volume of Language Culture on the occasion of his 75th anniversary. therefore, in five years' time, some things can only be repeated briefly, while others may need to be highlighted or emphasised more. A detailed evaluation of Pranas Kniūkštas’s works has been presented by the language historian Algirdas sabaliauskas in his book Lithuanian Language Research History, published in 2012. 1980– 2010 (pp. 229–233). Born on September 24, 1933 in Barzdžiuosè (Salantų vls.), Pranas Kniūkšta grew up here and graduated from Salantų secondary school. In 1954 he entered Vilnius University. studied Lithuanian language and literature, was a gifted, hard-working and active student. After graduating, he could immediately start working as a scientist, but because of the unfavorable characteristics written by the Komsomol secretaries of those days, he was not recommended even for pedagogical work as "not completely politically mature". Paradoxically, this job was successfully performed for six years in Dieveniškės (1959-1965). describes that period quite objectively in the book already mentioned and in the family history booklet. After moving to Vilnius, Pranas Kniūkšta started working at the Lithuanian Language and Literature Institute in 1967. Kazys Ulvydas, the head of the Department of Contemporary Lithuanian Language, had already noticed him as a talented student when he was giving lectures at the university. In 1971, he defended his PhD dissertation on "Adjectives with the suffix -inis and their grammatical synonyms". A separate monograph Priesagos -inis adjectives (1976) was published on its basis. As the author himself writes in his autobiography: "I defended my dissertation and was introduced to the works of language culture and sociolinguistics". Sociolinguistics was then understood as the propagation of bilingualism and the Russian language. Everyone was worried about it, but Pranas Kniūkšta had a different attitude to it – he focused on the usage and order of the language. 1 The history of the Kniūkštai family is closely connected with the history of the native land. This is a booklet prepared by the author himself and published in 2013. a. bataitYtė. The knight of the mother tongue – and one soldier in the field 327 began preparing and editing the publication Language Culture in 1972, and was the editor-in-chief of this publication from 1994 to 2003. He not only edited, taught young authors to write, but also wrote himself – he has published about 100 (larger or smaller) articles in Kalbos kultūra2. In the 75th volume of Language Culture Pranas Kniūkšta discusses 25 issues of the publication, published over a period of 17 years (1986–2002). provides a coherent overview and evaluation of everything that has been written and published during this period, the changes that have affected the publication itself, reminds the editors and authors, the most important language policy issues that arose at the time, discusses language management and strategy. “The task of language culture is to examine current language phenomena, evaluate them and provide recommendations for their use,” writes the author (Between Grammar and Politics, p. 30). However, the linguist notes that recently the publication is dominated by review articles, lacking specific recommendations for the evaluation, standardization and use of new language phenomena. In an article written much later, “The words and wishes of language postmodernists”, which was published in “Native Language” (2011, no. 3, pp. 25–30), Pranas Kniūkšta polemizes with the new generation of postmodernists (Lithuanians and others) who advocate “freedom of speech”, proposing to completely reject the criterion of language correctness and leave the usage loose. “[t]he most scientific research should not be considered to be the computation of sociological surveys and empirical data. The most important thing is to investigate the linguistic essence of the phenomenon [...], and the results of such an analysis should already be compared with the data of usage,” says the linguist, because he will not go far who “is satisfied with the handling of empirical facts and justifies everything that can be found in jargon, pasta or otherwise unclean language” (Between Grammar and Politics, p. 54). In support of the author’s ideas, a typical scheme of a sociolinguistic article can be presented from current language practice: in the introductory part of the article, foreign authors and works are usually listed (with the date of publication), in one other case their thoughts are quoted in order to bring them closer to the intended purpose of the article (the list of sources at the end of the article – about 2-3 pages of English-language literature). hereinafter referred to as ‘technical means’ – research methods (usually surveys) and tools. tables, diagrams, statistics. even though everything is already counted (in percentages and their hundredths) and obvious, but the second part is still explained in the text (the importance of article 2). 85 issues of Language Culture were published until 2013 (from the 81st they are called volumes). 328 Language Culture | 86 volumes!). And what about that? „Y r a k a i p y r a “, – some politician or economist would say (when he is unable to say anything else). or a sociolinguist? there is no linguistic analysis, recommendations even less, only socially naked facts of usage, sometimes even clearly directed. Pranas Kniūkšta always recognized the primacy of living language over artificial rules in his work on language standardization and warned linguists about the danger of over-normalization: “In our work on language standardization, we must leave space for language freedom. must be recognized the variations of norms and their gradual change, the distinction between major (true) and minor (codification) errors, the different requirements of different areas of use and styles of language, the prestigious and simple common language [...]” (Language Culture, vol. 68, pp. 38–39). Language is alive, it is constantly changing, it cannot be squeezed into a narrow framework of norms and rules and its development can not be artificially halted, but it should not be like a river without banks, carrying all the garbage with the water. The fact that language garbage is missed and that there are attempts to bring it back into use is well illustrated by a conversation of new language ideologues published in the press a couple of years ago, in which several cultural actors participated. Pranas Kniūkšta responds to their harassment, contempt for the common Lithuanian language and the work of linguists, their arrogant and insolent ideas that go beyond the elementary requirements of normal discussion in his article “What do the new language ideologists proclaim?” (Between grammar and politics, pp. 55–59). “Why do men and women of science speak so strangely? – asks the author of the article. – this is how they fight against language defenders and the official ideology of the Lithuanian language. uses metaphors, hyperboles, does not avoid insults [...].’ All these arguments have a clear aim – the Lithuanian language does not need to be protected, standardized or regulated. The linguist Pranas Kniūkšta devoted the most mature and productive period of his life to the preservation and management of the native language. The bibliography of his works published in 2008 contains a total of 358 publications, of which 13 are books, the rest are articles published in linguistic works, periodicals, newspapers, magazines. In the last five years, they have contributed with 20 articles and two new books (Between grammar and politics and A look at family history). Administrative language, which the linguist consistently studied after Lithuania regained its statehood and with the increase of its areas of use and needs, has already been discussed earlier, but the important work of a. bataitYtė in this area still needs to be mentioned. The knight of the native language – and the one out there warrior 329 Office Language Tips, of which 5 editions have been released3. During the last decade Pranas Kniūkšta has written and published several books important for the practice of administrative language: Įstaigų, įmonių ir organizacijų pavadinimai (2004), Viešieji užrašai (2007). 2006 – The New York Times and the New York Times News Service (NYT) announce the creation of the magazine. Corrections and corrections (2007). Pranas Kniūkšta’s book “Language use and ordering” (Lietuvių kalbos vartosena ir tvarkyba), published in 2001, is also important for language usage and standardization. The author has compiled his articles on various language issues written over three decades (until 2001). it was discussed in the 75th Notebook of Language Culture4. Aware of the great responsibility of schools in the development of society’s culture and literacy, the linguist did not remain on the sidelines – in 1983 he prepared (with Antanas Lyberis) the Teaching Dictionary of Lithuanian Spelling and Pronunciation (more than 10 reprints were published). Another publication for pupils is the Lithuanian Language Handbook (Pranas Kniūkšta is the compiler and author of 3 chapters). The linguist was not indifferent to literature all his life, he loved not only to recite, but also to examine the language of writers, especially poets. In 1981 he published the book The Writer and the Word. The new book Between Grammar and Politics contains an unpublished article “The Harmony of Poetry and Syntax” (based on the poems of Justas Marcinkevičius), which examines the harmony of poetic thought and language, which, unfortunately, as the author says, is often lacking in contemporary poetry. At the end of this article, the author would like to highlight the portrait of the linguist with a few more personal traits. since 1995 I had the chance to work together with this year’s anniversary on the publication of Language Culture. initially as editors, and later as compilers, carry out all editorial and publishing work for the preparation of the publication. was a bit awkward and not easy, because the publication required both diligence and responsibility. Working together, we published ten issues of Kalbos kultūra. I couldn't say that in those ten years we'd come together on anything serious. Of course, sometimes there was dissatisfaction of the editor because the issue lacked good articles, when it was not possible to gather strong authors (the researchers of the institute were no longer obliged to write for Language Culture, as before, now it was their free will – when they want, when they can...). 3 of a total of 5 editions of this publication since 1993 (6 – online). 4 See also the reviews: Acta Linguistica Lituanica, 2002, no. 47; Gimtoji kalba, 2002, no. 330 Languages Culture | 86 so I got to know the jubilee more closely – as a head of department, editor of the publication and, of course, as a personality. As the head of the department, he was tolerant – he did not count the minutes or hours that an employee spent at the desk. It was important to the manager what he did and how he did it. As an editor he was demanding and strict. An article that did not meet the requirements of Language Culture was rejected immediately, without waiting for a meeting of the editorial board, or the author was required to rework it substantially. However, he was attentive to young unskilled authors, especially young Lithuanian scholars who came to work in the Language Culture Department. He was very interested in learning languages, so he wrote a book on how to learn languages. Many good words can be chosen to honour the jubilee, but most importantly – he is a true Zemgalist, patient, unbending, hard-working, not lacking a sense of humor, who has repeatedly shown an example of courage and citizenship in public life, defending not only the language, but also the state affairs related to it. well, and what would a husband do without the support of a good wife? As he himself writes in his family history, he carefully chose his wife Genutė Dagytė, a classmate, a Lithuanian, who came from the Biržai region, and who has helped him a lot in both work and life. On the occasion of the anniversary, the linguist Pranas Kniūkštas was presented with a greeting from the President of the Republic of Lithuania, letters of thanks from the Speaker of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania and the Mayor of Vilnius City Municipality. On October 18, 2016, the Kretinga Motiejaus Valančiaus library hosted a conference “Between grammar and politics” dedicated to the 80th anniversary of the linguist. The value of a person is shown not only by his works, written or unwritten, but also by the spiritual energy that he radiates around him. With his scientific work and practical educational activities, the linguist Pranas Kniūkšta has done much for the people of Lithuania. Wishing the jubilee good health and every success, we hope to see him the same in the future – principled and demanding, nurturing and caring for the mother tongue.