Iškilusis bendrinės lietuvių kalbos ugdytojas Kazys Ulvydas

JONAS PALIONIS AN EMINENT CULTIVATOR OF THE STANDARD LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE, KAZYS ULVYDAS (On the 100th anniversary of the academician’s birth) Kazys Ulvydas (1910–1996) – vienas iš XX a. antrosios pusės kalbininkų, daug ir labai vaisingai pasidarbavęs ne tik lietuvių kalbos mokslo (gramatikos, leksikologijos bei leksikografijos), bet ir įvairiuose lietuvių bendrinės kalbos kultūros baruose. Sunkiais pokario sovietinės okupacijos metais jis (drauge su kitais) parengė praktikos reikalui labai reikalingą Lietuvių kalbos rašybos žodyną (1948), kurio pavadinimas neatspindi jo turinio, nes jame konspektiškai apžvelgti ne tik rašybos, bet ir skyrybos, kirčiavimo, linksnių vartojimo, tarmių klasifikacijos, vardyno dalykai, be to, pateiktas didokas rašybai ir kirčiavimui skirtas bendrinių žodžių sąrašas. Šis žodynas, keletą metų buvęs vienintelė daugialypė lietuvių kalbos sistemos pažinimo priemonė, nenustojo savo praktinės reikšmės ir ligi mūsų laikų. The scope and content of K. Ulvydas’s work to foster standard Lithuanian are most clearly revealed in Language Culture, a non-periodical publication launched in 1961 on his initiative and intended for the general public, whose 366 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 83 he was editor-in-chief until 1991, and a member of the editorial board until the end of his life. He published as many as 45 articles here, examining topical theoretical and practical issues in the standardization of the standard language. In the introductory article to the first issue of Language Culture, “The Tasks of Fostering Language Culture,” K. Ulvydas set out the publication’s main guidelines: to improve written Lithuanian, paying particular attention to the language of newspapers; to ensure continually that spoken standard language (then termed literary spoken language) kept pace with written language; to ensure the correctness of newly coined terms (by providing consultations with linguists); and so forth. He also expressed the incontestable view that “we should regard language culture as an inseparable part of a person’s cultural level” (p. 8). In the theoretical articles in later issues of Language Culture, most of which were introductory (and can rightly be called programmatic), K. Ulvydas discussed the concept of language culture (No. 9), language norms (No. 33), the social essence of language (No. 27), the language of the press (Nos. 7, 28), the school as the most important factor in raising language culture, the relationship of the native language with literature (No. 39) and with foreign languages (No. 45), and other issues. In articles of a practical nature, he wrote about the meaning and use of the preposition pas in contemporary Lithuanian (No. 3), offered a “small sampling” of pharmaceutical and medical terms (No. 21), discussed food-industry terminology (No. 43), and addressed the language of dissertations (No. 4). Nor did he overlook the role of individual linguists in fostering standard Lithuanian. On the occasion of his eightieth anniversary, he wrote about academician Juozas Balčikonis (No. 8), about Jonas Kruopas, the chief editor of the great Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language, who had died suddenly (Nos. 30, 54), about syntax and lexicon researcher Adelė Valeckienė (No. 30), and about Jonas Jablonskis’s views on language (No. 42). Although K. Ulvydas greatly valued Jonas Jablonskis’s views and contribution to the creation and standardization of standard Lithuanian, while studying at Vytautas Magnus University in Kaunas he also had the opportunity to become acquainted with new theories of the standard language developed by the Prague Linguistic School and disseminated by J. Jablonskis’s pupils Pranas Skardžius, Petras Jonikas, and others. Thus, K. Ulvydas’s conception of standard language culture brought together the Jablonskian tradition and innovative views. Like J. Jablonskis, he considered dialects the most important and fundamental source for cultivating the standard language, particularly one dialect that, owing to historical circumstances, had come to prominence in writing (in the case of standard Lithuanian, the southwestern Aukštaitian dialect); on the other hand, the standard language, J. PALIONIS. Išklisusis bendrinės lietuvių kalbos ugdytojas Kazys Ulvydas 367 Like the Prague linguists, he treated it as “a completely autonomous and unified system, with its own phonetic and grammatical structure, its own norms and laws of development, existing in both its forms: written and spoken” (KK, No. 2, p. 5). In an obituary-style article, “The Oak of Language Culture Has Fallen” (GK 1996, No. 4, p. 3), the well-known linguist Pranas Kniūkšta wrote: “His [i.e., K. Ulvydas’s] ideas and conclusions constitute a coherent system of work on language culture, which may be called the Ulvydas school.” A short article cannot encompass K. Ulvydas’s multifaceted work in cultivating standard Lithuanian. Therefore, what follows must be confined to just a few areas of that work that remain relevant today: his efforts to improve standard spoken language, refine the terminology of various sciences, and promote language culture. K. Ulvydas’s concern for standard spoken language is reflected in his introductory article, “More Attention to Literary Spoken Language,” published in Kalbos kultūroje (No. 2). There he first identified the reasons why standard spoken language lagged behind written language. These included the comparatively late interest in its oral expression, the great expansion of the domains in which spoken language was used in the postwar years, and insufficient attention to pronunciation and stress in schools, lectures, presentations, and public life in general. In addition, he quite reasonably regarded the particular character of spoken language—its hurried expression and the structural differences arising from that haste and from the freer, faster flow of means of expression—as one of the reasons for the lag. However, K. Ulvydas did not use these reasons to excuse the very frequent pronunciation and stress errors made at the time, as today, on radio and television and in other instances of public language use. On the contrary, he maintained that “there is no justification whatsoever for cases in which an educated person takes no care, or takes little care, of the culture of their spoken language” (ibid., pp. 9–10). One can only regret that the Lithuanian intelligentsia did not take K. Ulvydas’s words, spoken as far back as 1962, more seriously—not only during the Soviet era, but also after Lithuania regained independence, when conditions became far more favorable for the flourishing of standard spoken Lithuanian. Even members of the Seimas elected by the public can now often be heard using incorrectly stressed forms that K. Ulvydas rightly corrected: Lietuvojøje (=Lietuvoje), sąjungà (=sąjunga), komìtet as (=komitètas), kilògramas (=kilogrãmas), and many others. I probably will not be mistaken in saying that errors of stress and pronunciation in general have not only failed to decrease, but that a host of new ones have appeared, which today’s regulators of standard language ought to discuss more frequently and more loudly. 368 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 83 K. Ulvydas’s efforts to improve our terminology are evident in articles published in Kalbos kultūroje, Kultūros baruose and elsewhere. In the aforementioned article on some pharmaceutical and medical terms, he considered differences in the use of expressions such as akių lašai || lašai akims, vaikų pudra || pudra vaikams, and explained the objectionable nature of phrases such as išvesti iš narkozės, išvesti iš šoko būsenos and others, on the grounds that they were supposedly literal translations from Russian. In all, this article answered 17 questions concerning terminology (No. 21). In another article in the same publication, “On the Formation and Use of Certain Terms and Other Words” (No. 25), K. Ulvydas wrote about terms used by food-industry workers that sound very similar but have different meanings: skerdiena, “the meat of a slaughtered and dressed animal,” and skerdenà, “a slaughtered animal.” He also discussed iškaulinėti, “to remove the bones” (instead of iškaulinėta mėsa he recommended bekaulę mėsą), and other terms. His article “Refining Food-Industry Terminology” (No. 43), devoted to the food industry, was also published in Kalbos kultūroje in 1982. Here K. Ulvydas criticized as unsuitable calques from Russian the names of types of milk pilnas pienas (=nenugriebtas pienas), sausas pienas (=pieno milteliai), yet for some reason tolerated žalią pieną (“raw milk,” i.e., milk just delivered), although the usual expression šviežias pienas is more appropriate for this. He recommended using the dairy-industry term primilžis, rather than išmilžis, primelžimas, to denote the quantity of milk obtained by milking. In general, K. Ulvydas took a broad view of the codification of terminology, as he did of the cultivation of standard language. Unlike some other linguists, he did not consider Lithuanian origin the foremost criterion for evaluating terms; instead, he looked at whether a term was formed correctly, how widespread its use was, and how clearly it conveyed its meaning. Thus, he did not condemn either certain widely used loanwords, especially international terms, or new technical names coined creatively in accordance with the rules of Lithuanian word formation. “New terms should be introduced only after thoroughly examining the essence of the concepts they express” (KK 1965, No. 9, p. 5). A typical example of K. Ulvydas’s close examination of the concepts expressed by terms is his explanation of the food-industry terms mentioned above, skerdiena and skerdenà: The word skerdiena must never be confused with the word skerdenà, which is formed from the same stem with the suffix -ena. Specialists need two terms: skerdenà and skerdiena, because here they strictly distinguish between two concepts. The slaughtered animal, before it is eviscerated and processed by the meat industry J. PALIONIS. Iškilusis bendrinės lietuvių kalbos ugdytojas Kazys Ulvydas 369 specialists call by the word skerdenà, and that word is used in the plural. For example, carcasses are counted, cf.: dvi skẽrdenos, du šimtai skerdenų, and so on. The meat of a slaughtered and processed animal, prepared for consumption, is designated by the term skerdienos. Thus, in a shop we can buy skerdienos, while the workers at a meat-processing plant, having just slaughtered an animal, already have skerdèną; having slaughtered two animals, they have dvi skẽrdenas, and so on. And only when the carcass is eviscerated, processed, and prepared for consumption is it called skerdienos. The word skerdenà is well formed, and editors are sometimes needlessly unwilling to accept it, needlessly replacing it with the word skerdiena. Both words are needed; they denote different concepts, and both should be used. (KK 25, p. 34). It is quite difficult to determine K. Ulvydas’s contribution to the creation and codification of Lithuanian terminology, because his work in this field was very extensive. It took the form not only of articles devoted specifically to terminology issues, but especially of editing normative Lithuanian-language dictionaries, since K. Ulvydas served on the editorial board of more than one such dictionary. In addition to the aforementioned Lietuvių kalbos rašybos žodyno, he edited the 1954, 1972, and 1993 editions of the Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos žodyno; moreover, he was the responsible editor of volumes III–V and XI–XVI of the great Lietuvių kalbos žodyno. There is no doubt that he actively participated in the codification of the terminology in those dictionaries, and that K. Ulvydas’s voice determined the fate of more than one term. K. Ulvydas wrote in many of his articles about the need to devote greater attention to promoting language culture and about the factors that help raise it. He rightly regarded the school as the most important factor in improving the standard language: “...only the school largely determines the level of language culture of every young person receiving an education” (KK, No. 14, p. 3). However, Lithuanian-language teachers often complain that their work is undermined by teachers of other subjects who teach in poor language and are generally unconcerned with language culture (ibid., p. 5). These words also apply to today’s schools in restored independent Lithuania. Alongside the school, K. Ulvydas, like other theorists of the standard language, often highlighted the importance of the press, especially periodicals, literature, cinema, theatre, radio, television, and the family in fostering the culture of standard Lithuanian. He mentioned only the role of the computer, since computerization had not yet become widespread in his time; today it overshadows many other influences and, unfortunately, often negatively affects the efforts of schools and advocates of standard-language culture to improve language. 370 KALBOS KULTŪRA | 83 Even during the Soviet period, the Lithuanian Radio program “Let Us Speak and Write Correctly” contributed to the promotion of standard-language culture. In it, K. Ulvydas explained to the public issues of phonetics, morphology, syntax, and spelling that were of current interest. The program was very popular and persuasive, thanks to the speaker’s distinctive pronunciation and the logic and clarity of his presentation. In concluding this brief overview of characteristic aspects of the work of K. Ulvydas, one of the most prominent figures in the cultivation of standard Lithuanian in the second half of the twentieth century, I would also like to add that his work, like that of many other Lithuanian scholars of the Soviet period, bore the imprint of the ideology of the time: it disparaged the culture of standard (literary) Lithuanian in pre-war independent Lithuania and extolled the conditions for its development during the Soviet period. Yet in more than one instance this was necessary in order to discuss publicly at all the pressing problems of what he called the “immense national treasure”—standard Lithuanian. That ideological imprint does not diminish Kazys Ulvydas’s very substantial contribution to the cultivation of our standard language. J. PALIONIS. Iškilusis bendrinės lietuvių kalbos ugdytojas Kazys Ulvydas 371