A Scientific Seminar Dedicated to the Centenary of the Restoration of the State of Lithuania

RAMUNĖ VASKELAITĖ

Institute of the Lithuanian Language

In this exceptional year, as Lithuania marks the centenary of the restoration of its state and practitioners and theoreticians in many fields look back in an effort to reflect on the most significant work accomplished in various areas of state life over those years, the terminologists of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language decided to view the hundred-year span through a terminologist’s lens. On 12 October 2018, the Institute held a scientific seminar entitled “The Experience of Lithuanian Terminology: The Centenary of the Restoration of the State of Lithuania.” Understandably, there was no intention to assess comprehensively all the work of the century, since simply listing it—even the most significant achievements—would probably take longer than a single seminar, even if it were limited to just one area, such as the creation, standardization, or study of terminology. Thus, attention was focused mainly on the beginning of the century, on the difficult circumstances in which terms were needed not yet because representatives of a field had to communicate with one another, but first and foremost because there was a need to rebuild, restore, heal... And, as became clear from the presentations, this work was undertaken not by organized groups drawing on the opportunities offered by computing, but mainly by exceptional individuals working alone.

In her presentation “Compound Terms in Construction Terminology, 1918–1940,” Lina Rutkienė (Vilnius Gediminas Technical University), drawing on a 1929 source, provided figures illustrating the urgent need to rebuild: the First World War had destroyed 13,250 residential and 24,680 non-residential buildings. As the need to raise the country from the ruins grew, so too did the need for a theoretical basis for activity—scholarly literature—and, as is well known, such literature cannot do without terminology. The presenter linked the emergence of construction terms in that period not only to the need to rebuild, but also to a strong ambition to create—to apply new principles of composition and introduce new materials and technologies. From 28 sources on construction-science terminology (scholarly articles, textbooks, and other publications written in a scholarly style), she selected

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a particularly widespread group of neologisms of the time—compounds—and linked the abundance of this group to the foreign language then in use: unlike today, textbooks and articles were most often translated from German, where compounding is the most productive word-formation method. Having found a total of 262 synonymous compound construction terms in sources from 1918–1940, she established that in as many as 85% of them the second element is a noun, and that the most productive formation type is noun + noun (akmengruntis, akmenkaltis, ąžuolmedis, basliašulis, drenažgriovis, durpiagruntis). Among the construction neologisms most widely used, which found their way into later literature and into the Dictionary of Construction Terms published in 2002, the presenter mentioned dūmtakį, dūmtraukį, gelžbetonį, pusiausvyrą, šaligatvį, skerspiūvį, statramstį, vandentiekį; many others remained so-called textual terms, used by only one author in a single publication.

L. Rutkienė linked the characteristics of construction terminology of the period not only to the foreign language, but also to the authority and attitudes of the authors who wrote scholarly articles and books. The authors she mentioned were exceptional individuals: construction engineers who had studied at foreign universities and knew several foreign languages—Jonas Šimoliūnas, Pranas Morkūnas, Anatolijus Rozenbliumas, Pranas Jodelė, Jonas Kiškinas, and Juozas Gabrys. Construction terminology was also examined in another presentation at the seminar, which drew attention to its unnamed, anonymous creators. Roberta Stunžinas (Institute of the Lithuanian Language) first recalled that, at least in periodicals from the mid- and late nineteenth century, the principal source of the emerging terminology of construction science was folk terminology. Having chosen to examine a group of words that, from the perspective of scientific terminology, would have been excluded from the field of terminology—verbs—and selected 370 construction-action verbs and their derivatives from the electronic edition of the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language, the presenter argued in “Naming Actions in Folk Construction Terminology” that such action names form more than 30 distinct semantic groups. Numerous examples illustrated both general terms for the groups (statyti, dirbinti, rengti, taisyti, budavoti, dengti, stoguoti) and words denoting specific concepts related to them (straiguoti, žardyti, skiedruoti, išskiedruoti, užskiedruoti, pribudavoti, užbudavoti). The conclusions, also richly supported by examples, were that specificity is determined by word-formation devices and lexical meanings, and that specialized concepts are classified according to various features. As for origin, it was stated that only slightly more than half (63%) of the construction-action terms recorded in the Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language

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are of Lithuanian origin, while 47% are words of mixed origin with a Slavic root. Nevertheless, if this study were pursued further, it would probably be useful to examine the relationship of synonymy between borrowed and Lithuanian terms, especially since the issue of polysemy and homonymy was already touched on in the presentation.

Palmira Zemlevičiūtė (Institute of the Lithuanian Language), who chose to examine medical terms, also drew attention to the rather difficult circumstances at the beginning of the twentieth century. She recalled that the First World War and the German occupation had scattered an already small group of medical practitioners, and publication of the specialized medical newspapers and journals that had previously appeared came to a halt. Nevertheless, medical knowledge continued to be disseminated, and, as can be inferred from the titles alone (“On War Diseases”; “On Pulmonary Consumption”; “Typhus”; “Scabies”), the dangerous diseases widespread in the postwar period encouraged its dissemination and, at the same time, the development of medical terminology. Yet this presentation too made clear that terminology could not have expanded in response to an objective factor without the subjective one—individuals. After publication of specialized periodicals ceased, Antanas Vileišis, Eliziejus Draugelis, Danielius Alseika, and Petras Avižonis undertook to disseminate medical knowledge in the non-specialized publications of the time, such as Moterų balsas, Dabartis, Lietuvos aidas, Tėvynės sargas, among others. In her presentation “The Presentation and Recognition of Synonymous Medical Terms in Texts from 1918,” the author chose to examine not the work itself but another question of enduring interest to terminologists: synonymy among terms. She argued that in medical texts from 1918 it is a common type of semantic relationship between terms. This time, however, the focus was less on how widespread synonyms were and more on a methodological problem: how to recognize them. Those used in the same text are easy to recognize, since they are often given in parentheses or linked by the conjunction or; however, identifying the synonymous relationship between terms used in different texts (kruvinoji, kruvinoji liga, krauligė, dizenterija; bado, beriamosi, dėmėta, dėmėtoji šiltinė) is not straightforward. Nevertheless, ways of identifying them were found, and the presenter listed such possibilities as the subject matter of the texts, the context in which terms are used, synonyms within a single text, features of the concept, and supplementary sources.

The seminar did not separately examine how widespread synonymy is in present-day medical terminology, but one presentation related to the current state of affairs suggested that it is abundant. In her presentation, Rūta Dubakienė (Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, Vilnius University), who described allergology as the branch of immunology most closely connected with the branches of biological science,

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“Lithuanian Allergy Terminology: Terms, Work, and Plans” discussed many questions that continue to arise for allergists, such as antigenic determinant or epitope, mites or house dust mites, DiGeorge syndrome or Di George syndrome; as several examples also show, these are related specifically to the synonymy or variation of terms. The same presentation also made clear, however, that considerable progress had already been made in standardizing allergy terminology: in 2002, the first Lithuanian textbook of allergology was published—R. Dubakienė’s Alergologija; in 2012, the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language approved the publication of the Explanatory Dictionary of Immunology and Allergy Terms, whose preparation was also assisted by the presenter, Prof. R. Dubakienė, an active developer of allergy terminology and author of textbooks, monographs, and articles. Terminology is developed in the publication Allergy, Asthma, Immunology and on the “Alergijos ekspertas” website. Speaking about future work, the presenter mentioned “many fields still lying fallow that need to be ploughed,” but the strongest grounds for hope that they will be cultivated and that terminology in this field will be guided in the right direction came from a view repeatedly expressed in the presentation: Lithuanian allergology, which has its own distinctive character in Europe, need not copy others—it needs to create its own terminology.

Term synonymy, like types of term formation, is perhaps the problem most often considered by terminology researchers; and when terminology is understood as the management of terms, the question of the relationship between individual and collective work probably arises no less often. Views on this question vary, but the creation of terminology—and especially its standardization—is very often regarded as a collective activity, and it is assumed that term dictionaries are better prepared when compiled and reviewed by collectives. Nevertheless, not only the history of terminology but also the present day shows how many successful neologisms would never have been created had dictionaries not been prepared by individual creative and enthusiastic people; scientific literature, including university textbooks, is regarded as one of the main sources of terminology and is in fact more the result of the work of individuals than of collectives. The presenters who examined terminology at the beginning of the century also mentioned many outstanding individuals, and Asta Mitkevičienė (Institute of the Lithuanian Language) recalled especially distinguished figures—the signatories of the Act of Restoration of the state marking its centenary: Jonas Basanavičius, Mykolas Biržiška, Antanas Smetona, Pranas Dovydaitis, Jurgis Šaulys, Jonas Vileišis, and Saliamonas Banaitis. In her presentation “The Signatories of the February 16 Act and Their Footprints in Lithuanian Literary Studies Terminology,” after listing the signatories who had in one way or another contributed to the creation of literary terminology, she focused mainly on the literary scholar, translator, diplomat, and lawyer Kazys

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Bizauskas and the terminology in the first textbook on literary theory that he prepared. The presentation made clear, however, that the terms were attributable to the author only in the first editions of the textbook; in the third edition (1922), they had been reviewed by the Terminology Commission, which began operating in 1921 and was itself composed of exceptional individuals: Kazimieras Būga, Jonas Jablonskis, Juozas Tumas-Vaižgantas, and others. The Commission’s work was not always smooth, however: not all members attended the meetings, and drama and theatre terms remained unreviewed... The presentation did not consider what matters more in creating and standardizing terminology—the distinction, efforts, and creativity of an individual, or the resources and expertise of a collective—or whether there is any conflict here at all. It ended, however, with a rather eloquent conclusion: “The establishment of terms is not the concern of one interested person or author, but a common concern of us all.” Eloquent because it was made by an exceptional individual—K. Bizauskas.

An extraordinary individual was also discussed in Rita Katelytė’s (Institute of the Lithuanian Language) presentation, “The Formation of Nouns in Mečislovas Reinys’s Psychological Terminology.” Archbishop, diplomat, politician, and professor of theology and philosophy Mečislovas Reinys translated Georgijus Čelpanovas’s Psychology Textbook from Russian (a free translation, published in Vilnius in 1921). Focusing on one group of terms in the textbook—Lithuanian and hybrid one-word nouns—the presenter found that suffixal derivatives made up the largest proportion of these terms (reproduction, thinking, consideration, abstraction, attention, pity, sense of smell, revenge, imagination). They account for as much as 77%, whereas only about 4% of compounds—widely used in construction textbooks around the same time—were found in the psychology textbook, together with prefixal derivatives. The seminar did not raise the question of what caused such marked differences between terminology developed around the same time (the field, the attitudes of the term creators, or other factors), but it is plausible that one stimulus may have been the foreign language: the author of this textbook translated not from German but from Russian.

Regina Kvašytė’s presentation also began with an exceptional individual and the centenary commemoration, although she spoke of a linguist born in Latvia, better known in Lithuania as the creator of Esperanto and an interlinguist. The centenary of Ernests Drežens’s (Ernests Drēziņš) birth was solemnly commemorated at an international conference held in Latvia in 1992. Beginning her presentation with a fact and a name that at first glance seemed unrelated to Lithuania’s centenary, the author of “On Cooperation between Lithuanian and Latvian Terminologists” revealed a particularly important aspect of the restoration of the state, which today,

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with scholars able to participate without hindrance in European and global conferences, is often taken for granted. Scholars from 13 countries around the world took part in the 1992 conference in Latvia, demonstrating how their opportunities for cooperation were beginning to expand. Focusing on cooperation between Lithuanians and Latvians, the presenter discussed not only the continuation of the 1992 conference (in 2002 and 2012) and the participation of Lithuanian terminologists in those conferences, but also the reciprocal exchange of information—articles on Latvian terminology published in Lithuania and vice versa, participation in editorial boards, and bibliographic materials. The principal disseminators of information named were Rūdolfas Grabis (Rūdolfs Grabis), Valentina Skujinia (Valentīna Skujiņa), Juris Baldunčikas (Juris Balduņčiks), Maris Baltinis (Māris Baltiņš), and others; among Lithuanian scholars, Stasys Keinys, Solvita Labanauskienė, Albina Auksoriūtė, and Kazimieras Župerka; and perhaps the most active disseminator of information on Latvian terminology, terminologists, and terms is the presenter herself.

Another presentation at the seminar might be taken to add that over the century, not only opportunities for cooperation but also those for managing and researching technological terminology had expanded remarkably. Gintautas Grigas (Vilnius University), for example, presented the terminology portal of “Microsoft” (https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/language), which makes it possible to compare computing terms in more than 100 languages. Although the presentation “A Review of the Lithuanian Section of the Microsoft Company Dictionary” made clear that this computerized data collection was not without shortcomings (the Lithuanian translations of some terms are questionable, and some terms have not been translated at all), in September 2018 it contained a total of 115 bilingual dictionaries (English and another language), making the opportunity to compare computing terms all at once impressive. Anticipating the portal’s potential uses, the presenter first mentioned using it to compile computing dictionaries and translation memories.

When discussing the relationship between computing and language, it is customary to mention not so much the opportunities that computing offers for language research as the other side of the issue—the danger to the functioning of the Lithuanian language. Many things are identified as sources of danger: computing in general, the internet, the electronic environment, and computing terminology. The widespread view in society that computing terms need not be translated into Lithuanian and that it is better to use English ones makes one of the points in Alvydas Umbrasas’s (Institute of the Lithuanian Language) presentation, “Computing Terms Denoting People,” rather surprising

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conclusions. Having examined a group of computing terms presented in 7 computing dictionaries, the speaker observed that borrowed neologisms denoting people (internautas, kibernautas, infonautas; hakeris, krekeris, lameris, luzeris) are inferior in both number and variety to terms of native origin, at least as regards terms naming people, while most other borrowings (abonentas, administratorius, adresatas, analitikas, ekspertas), like hybrid formations, are not coined but adopted ready-made from the general language. Nevertheless, this conclusion was based solely on dictionary material, which, as is well known, is generally assessed from the perspective of language norms or at least edited by a language editor. Examining actual usage, especially online usage, would probably have led to different conclusions about neologism usage tendencies. On the other hand, the tendency not to translate directly from English but to adopt words already in use in Lithuanian may be a feature specific to computing dictionaries’ group of personal designations. The many English terms denoting people provided (employee, reviewer, owner, liveware, media librarian, software designer, network surfer, first-time user) show that even if merely adapted phonetically, they would be rather awkward to pronounce, which may also be an important factor in the tendency to avoid so-called foreignisms. Thus, the aforementioned conclusion alone would by no means suffice to dispel the myth that computing poses a threat to the Lithuanian language. However, the speaker did not set out to do that. The aim was to examine terms denoting people in computing dictionaries; having examined them, the main conclusion was that dictionaries tend to take personal designations (Lithuanian and non-Lithuanian alike) from other fields rather than create specialized ones intended solely for computing.

Taken together, the presentations reviewed show that the seminar dedicated to the centenary of the restoration of the Lithuanian state examined only certain areas of terminology use. However, by touching on issues, current concerns, and conditions both at the beginning and at the end of the century, they created a whole field of meaning that makes it possible to assess what has remained unchanged in terminology over the century and is perhaps to be regarded as constant, and what has already become a thing of the past or is a task for the present; on this basis, it is possible to envisage guidelines and directions for action as a new century begins.

Received 2018-10-20

Ramunė Vaskelaitė Lietuvių kalbos institutas P. Vileišio g. 5, LT-10308 Vilnius E. paštas [email protected]

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