RASUOLĖ VLADARSKIENĖ

Institute of the Lithuanian Language

PRANAS KNIŪKŠTA IN THE SERVICE OF LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE CULTURE

Pranas Kniūkšta, longtime editor and preparer of the publication Kalbos kultūros, celebrated his 75th birthday in the autumn of 2008.

Pranas Kniūkšta was born on September 24, 1933, in the village of Barzdžiai, in Salantai rural district, Kretinga County, into a large peasant family. He began his schooling at Kausgalviai Primary School; from 1946 he attended Salantai Secondary School, graduating in 1954.

Kniūkšta pursued higher education at Vilnius University from 1954 to 1959, studying Lithuanian language and literature. The hardworking and tenacious Samogitian excelled in his studies; he was interested in questions of linguistic scholarship and was an active member of the Lithuanian language club. Most of his examinations were graded very good. He graduated from the university with honors in 1959.

As someone with an aptitude for scholarly work, Kniūkšta had been slated to work at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature, but he received a character reference stating that he was “not fully politically mature,” and was therefore sent to Dieveniškės Secondary School (Šalčininkai District). He initially worked there as a teacher, and a year later became head of studies. He distinguished himself as an active educator and a good organizer of methodological work and the teaching process, and was therefore appointed head of the methodological office of the Education Department in Eišiškės.

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His rapid teaching career did not diminish his desire to devote himself to research. In 1967, Kniūkšta began working in the Contemporary Standard Lithuanian Language Department of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature. That same year he enrolled in postgraduate studies, which he pursued until 1970. In 1971, he defended his candidate of philological sciences (now doctoral) dissertation, “Adjectives with the suffix –inis and their grammatical synonyms,” and in 1976 published a monograph based on it, Priesagos –inis būdvardžiai. Daryba, reikšmės, gramatiniai sinonimai. He worked at the Institute first as a junior and later as a senior research fellow. From 1991 to 2000, he headed the Language Culture Department at the re-established Institute of the Lithuanian Language. Since 2002, he has worked at the Institute on a contractual basis.

The linguist’s research is wide-ranging: he focuses primarily on contemporary Lithuanian usage, the theory and practice of language culture, language policy, and, over the past couple of decades, issues of administrative language*. He works purposefully, responds to the most important needs of practical language use, and strives to carry out every task impeccably. Exacting of himself and others, he steadfastly draws attention to shortcomings in language and argues convincingly for the harm they cause.

He built a solid foundation for his subsequent scholarly work by contributing to the major grammars of Lithuanian: the third volume of the academic Lietuvių kalbos gramatikos, Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos gramatiką, and the Russian-language Грамматика литовского языка. Kniūkšta wrote several chapters for each of these publications. He also contributed to the preparation of the prescriptive manual Lietuvių kalbos rašyba ir skyryba.

Kniūkšta has worked longest on the periodical Kalbos kultūra—from 1971 to the present—devoting most of his energy and heart to it. His first contribution to Kalbos kultūra was an article in issue 13 (1967), shortly after he began working at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature. More substantial work began in 1971: at first Kniūkšta helped prepare issues, and later served as a member of the editorial board, compiler, and responsible editor. He charted the publication’s direction, brought authors together, edited their articles rigorously, and patiently taught younger colleagues to write scholarly articles.

As compiler of the issue and later its responsible editor, he upheld the publication’s principles and followed them consistently in his own articles. In Kniūkšta’s view, the publication Kalbos kultūros should raise, discuss, and resolve language questions of importance to everyone; above all, it should turn its attention to new linguistic phenomena, studying and evaluating them.

* The Institute of the Lithuanian Language published a bibliography of the linguist’s works: Pranas Kniūkšta. Bibliografija, Vilnius, 2008, 48 pp.

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Kniūkšta’s articles in Kalbos kultūroje can be divided into several groups. The most significant are those that consider principles of language planning and raise theoretical questions of language culture. Many such discussions appear in articles devoted to reviewing the journal itself. Writing about the work and significance of people who made important contributions to the Lithuanian language and its culture (Kazimieras Būga, Antanas Salys, Juozas Balčikonis, Kazys Ulvydas, Kazimieras Gaivenis, and others), the linguist also reveals his own views on language standardization.

The largest group consists of articles on clerical and administrative language; there are 25 of them. The range of issues examined is broad: the formation and meanings of particular words and their combinations, commentaries on the language of various documents, and the development of Lithuanian clerical language. Much has been written about the names of companies, institutions, and organizations; the formation, shortening, and inflection of literal and symbolic names have been examined in detail, and more complex cases of usage have been explained. Alongside articles on administrative language, mention should be made of writings about the difficult path Lithuanian took to become the state language and, later, about the challenges of consolidating this status, as well as the work of the Commission of the Lithuanian Language.

Kniūkšta explored the intricacies of word formation in more than one issue of Kalbos kultūros; his writings on the subject are brought together in the article “Regularities, Rules, and Individual Facts of Language” (1980, issue 38, pp. 23–37). A separate mention should be made of the series of articles on adjectives formed with the suffix -inis.

The journal Kalbos kultūros is one of the linguist’s most important platforms. In all, he wrote 90 articles, short and long, for this journal—almost a third of all his articles published in print. We hope this number will continue to grow each year.

Kniūkšta was also drawn to literature throughout his life, or, more precisely, to the means of linguistic expression. He wrote articles about the language of writers and poets, gave conference presentations, and in 1981 published the book Rašytojas ir žodis. In examining writers’ language, the linguist seeks to combine literary and linguistic understandings of language. He is also a skilled wordsmith himself, something he particularly likes to demonstrate at various events, captivating audiences with his persuasive and vivid speech, and often speaking in Samogitian as well.

In his work on language standardization, Kniūkšta has always been at the center of the most pressing developments. From 1987 to 1991 he was secretary of the Commission of the Lithuanian Language; from 1992 to 1999 he was a member of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language under the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania. He made great efforts to ensure that the status of Lithuanian as the state language was established not only in law but also in practice. He prepared the Rules for the Formation of Company Names (1992) and their supplement, “The Grammatical Gender of Names

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žodžių vartojimas ir rašymas“ (1995), kuriuos Kalbos komisija patvirtino kaip oficialius dokumentus. 1990 m. lietuvių, lenkų ir rusų kalbomis išleido knygelę Vilniaus kraštas ir lietuvių kalba, ją rašant pravertė Dieveniškėse ir Eišiškėse įgyta patirtis.

The linguist actively participated in the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language’s deliberations on Lithuanian punctuation. He is continually concerned with the correctness of public language and is an active member of the Public Commission for State Language Affairs of the Vilnius City Municipality.

In language standardization, Kniūkšta recognizes the primacy of living language over artificially systematic rules. He warns fellow linguists against the danger of excessive normalization: “When working to plan language, we must leave room for linguistic freedom as well. Variants of norms and their gradual change must be recognized; major (genuine) and minor (codification) errors must be distinguished, along with the differing requirements of various spheres of language use and styles, prestigious and ordinary standard language, ideal language norms, and actual usage of the standard language” (“The Aim of Language Planning Is to Develop the Language,” Kalbos kultūra, issue 68, 1996, pp. 38–39).

For more than the past two decades, Kniūkšta has been researching and standardizing Lithuanian administrative language. As an expert, he assesses the language of draft documents, prepares language expert reports for courts, and speaks at seminars on clerical language. The most important works in this field are Kanceliarinės kalbos patarimai, prepared with contributors (five print editions have appeared, and the sixth is online), and the comprehensive monograph Administracinė kalba ir jos vartosena (2005).

While pursuing his scholarly work and language standardization, Kniūkšta did not forget the needs of schools: “Life requires schools to lay the foundations of language and develop the awareness that people once acquired from their families and surroundings. Those days are gone when the teacher’s main task was to teach reading, writing, and grammar. Now we must teach language itself as well” (“The State of the Lithuanian Language and the School,” Literatūra ir menas, October 15, 1988). Fully aware of the immense responsibility schools bear for fostering society’s language culture, the linguist could not remain on the sidelines. In 1983 he prepared Mokomąjį lietuvių kalbos rašybos ir kirčiavimo žodyną (with A. Lyberis). This educational resource, revised and expanded, was reissued nearly ten times. Another popular, frequently reissued publication for pupils, much appreciated by them, is Lietuvių kalbos žinynas. Kniūkšta compiled it and wrote three of its sections.

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The linguist published scholarly articles on issues of language culture, sociolinguistics, the language of belles-lettres, and administrative language in the Academy of Sciences’ Proceedings, Issues in Lithuanian Linguistics, and elsewhere. His most significant articles were collected in the volume Language Use and Regulation. Kniūkšta seeks to disseminate language standards as widely as possible and to explain them thoroughly to ordinary language users; accordingly, he has published many articles on topical questions of language regulation and policy in various newspapers (Tiesa, Tarybinis mokytojas, Lietuvos aidas, Lietuvos žinios, Literatūra ir menas, Savivaldybių žinios, and others) and journals (Mūsų kalba, Gimtoji kalba, Gimtasis žodis, and others), and has published several booklets for the general public: Names of Institutions, Enterprises, and Organizations (2004), Public Inscriptions: A Look at Documents and the Streets of Vilnius (2006), The New Rules of Punctuation. What They Offer and What We Need to Understand for Ourselves (2007), and News on the Rules for Preparing Documents: Corrections and Errors (2007).

Kniūkšta constantly emphasizes that linguistic scholarship must be grounded in practice and that the most pressing phenomena should be examined first. His sustained efforts to reconcile linguistic theory, practice, and users’ needs have made his work valuable not only to linguistic scholarship but also necessary for society, as evidenced by the repeated editions—often more than one—of the works he has prepared.

On the occasion of this happy anniversary, one would like to wish this steadfast Samogitian, who has accomplished so much significant work, renewed inspiration, creative energy, and robust health.

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