Kazimieras Gaivenis – a champion of the Lithuanian language

RASUOLĖ VLADARSKIENĖ

Vilniaus Gedimino technikos universitetas

KEYWORDS: lexicon, terminology, language standardization, dissemination of language recommendations

Kazimieras Gaivenis entered the history of Lithuanian linguistics as one of the most prominent Lithuanian terminologists. The strengthening of Lithuanian terminology in the second half of the 20th century, the preparation of terminological dictionaries, and the organization of terminology are associated with this linguist; he is presented in these terms in the Universal Lithuanian Encyclopedia (VLE VI), the Encyclopedia of the Lithuanian Language (LKE 2008: 180), Algirdas Sabaliauskas’s History of Lithuanian Language Studies (2012: 233–235), and other publications. This field of work was the most important to him, and it was here that he accomplished the most. The many works listed in the bibliography of K. Gaivenis, published in 2003 (KG 2003), testify to this linguist’s versatility and, at the same time, his focus. All his work revolved around terminology and related subjects: lexicon, syntax, stress and pronunciation, onomastics, the language of science and administrative language, and translation.

Whether considering theoretical problems in terminology or practical matters of terminology management, K. Gaivenis was first and foremost a champion of the Lithuanian language. This article discusses the terminologist’s work in standardizing and promoting Lithuanian, and in educating and developing language skills.

K. Gaivenis was a dedicated worker for language culture. And not only because he wrote about 60 articles for the Language Culture journal, contributed to its production, and was a longtime member of its editorial board. Language culture mattered to K. Gaivenis throughout his life, which he devoted to making the language as cultivated as possible, and to ensuring that people knew the possibilities offered by the language and could use them appropriately. He cared not only about the correctness of Lithuanian and the proper formation of terms, but also about the expressiveness, appeal, precision, and clarity of language, and its aesthetic as well as ethical qualities—language etiquette.

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From issue 36 to issue 74 (1979–2001), that is, for 23 years, K. Gaivenis was a member of the editorial board of the journal Language Culture. At that time, the publication’s purpose and task were to refine and improve the native language so that it could best meet society’s needs. Language Culture established and consolidated the directions of postwar Lithuanian standard-language planning and the nature of work on language culture. It was the first periodical devoted to language practice to begin publication in postwar Lithuania. The nature of its articles was shaped by one of the most important tasks of Language Culture at the time—to offer language advice to the public in as popular, accessible, and understandable a form as possible (Kniūkšta 2002). The ideas disseminated by the publication’s contributors and authors resonated with K. Gaivenis, and he therefore gladly took part in language-culture work.

His first publication in Language Culture was the article “Inaccuracies in the Use of Nominative Participial Constructions,” published in issue four in 1963; it was one of his first articles. In the next issue, number five, two of his articles appeared, and thereafter several articles appeared every year for thirty years, until a separate journal of terminology began publication in 1994.

Most of the linguist’s articles (more than 33) published in Language Culture were, naturally, devoted to terminology: here he considered general problems in terminology as well as practical questions concerning the structure of complex terms, the correctness of names, and the translation of terms. However, K. Gaivenis did not limit himself to terminology alone. Likewise, his work as a language-culture specialist was not confined to the journal Language Culture. He wrote about language not only in journals of linguistics and language practice, but also in other publications aimed at a wide range of readers: general publications such as Vakarinės naujienos, Lietuvos rytas, Nemuno kraštas, Gimtasis kraštas, Kalba Vilnius, Tarybinė moteris, Moteris, Tarybų darbas, Laikas ir įvykiai and the newspaper of his native Utena district; professional publications such as Žemės ūkis, Kooperatininkas, Savininkas, Tarybinė mokykla, Bibliotekų darbas, Statyba ir architektūra, Sportas, Mūsų gamta, Mūsų sodai, Sveikatos apsauga, Lietuvos fizikos rinkinys, Fizikų žinios; cultural publications such as Literatūra ir menas, Kultūros barai, Pergalė; publications for readers interested in science, including Mokslas ir gyvenimas, Mokslas ir technika, Už tarybinį mokslą (Kaunas), and Mokslo Lietuva; and publications for schoolchildren, such as Lietuvos pionierius, Moksleivis. This wealth and variety of publications shows that throughout his work K. Gaivenis strove to contribute as much as possible to public education and to the development of people’s linguistic awareness

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of education, and therefore sought to make his words reach as widely as possible, to reach people in as many different professions as possible, and to have the greatest possible impact on them.

A few things stand out when leafing through the works written by K. Gaivenis that offer language recommendations.

As already mentioned, the linguist wrote mostly about terminology and the management of terms, above all about issues he considered important at the time; a considerable number of his short articles came about because people asked for answers to one or another question that had arisen. Until 1995, when staff of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language began consulting the public, the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature (since 1990, the Institute of the Lithuanian Language) provided institutions and individuals with telephone consultations on language matters. People very often called about terms, so the Institute’s terminologists really did have a great deal of additional work to do. K. Gaivenis gladly advised both inquirers and younger colleagues on the suitability of terms.

K. Gaivenis examined not only problems of terminology, but also other lexical issues. With an excellent feel for language, the linguist drew public attention to unusual lexical phenomena that could mislead people and harm language culture. For instance, in one article he warns about treacherous words—paronyms—which denote entirely different things but sound very similar. Such words mislead not only schoolchildren but also experienced press workers. He draws attention to the phrase šokti pasiutišką sambo, since sambo is a form of self-defence, and corrects it to šokti pasiutišką sambą; he advises readers not to confuse the meanings of afektas ir efektas, kompanija ir kampanija (Gaivenis 1980). The linguist was drawn to lexical curiosities and shared his observations about the colorful variety of words with readers in the booklet Margas žodžių pasaulis. Writing about the diversity of words, he remarked: “[W]ords can be secretive and deceitful. Alongside clear and unambiguous words, hundreds upon hundreds of associatively misleading words also live in the language. Sometimes they are interesting, and sometimes they are painful lessons” (Gaivenis 1987a: 79). It was precisely the deceitfulness of such words that he revealed to language users, teaching them how not to fall into word traps.

K. Gaivenis paid particular attention to the accuracy of translations. In the article “A Few Lexical Inaccuracies in Prose Translations,” he expressed indignation at the inappropriate choice of botanical and zoological terms even by experienced translators. He gave an example from a translation of I. Bunin’s novella Mitios meilė: “velvety black-and-red hornets busily burrowed in the flowers... Hornets, or wasps, are striped like zebras and do not burrow in flowers at all. A glance at the original,

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makes it clear that the word is имели, and it should have been translated as samanės or kamanės.” The article goes on to argue against other terms that have been translated inaccurately, advising translators to take scientific terminology and nomenclature into account. It notes that pilkųjų strazdų is an inaccurate translation, since ornithologists do not use the compound species name pilkieji strazdai, as the song thrush and the mistle thrush are also gray in their own way. The novella should have used smilginių strazdų. Drawing attention to inaccuracies in translation, the linguist not only quotes dictionary definitions but also teaches readers how to use dictionaries, especially when a word is polysemous or used in an idiom, so that prieblandos does not become sąlygiška tamsa, and putojanti gira does not turn into rūgščiais kopūstais (Gaivenis 1966a: 25–28).

As a terminologist, he knew the particular characteristics of terms very well and saw how they were entering general usage; here, too, he perceived a certain danger. In the article “A Few Remarks on the Figurative Use of Technical Terms and Professionalisms” (Gaivenis 1966b: 55–56), the author states that the figurative use of technical terms should be readily comprehensible to readers and logically justified—that is, motivated. For example: “It is good that our poets have finally liberated the e n e r g y that lay hidden in the a t o m s of thought <...> This book also contains more instances of cold admiration for an image o r i g i n a l l y c o n s t r u c t e d.” However, he criticizes instances in which terms obscure the meaning of a sentence and are used without justification, for example: “Thought here no longer has a poetic s p r i n g.”

Terms are used in the language of science, and K. Gaivenis also considered it very important in what context and in what sentences they appeared. Fully aware that correct terms alone are not enough for the language of science to develop, he wrote both about the general principles of scientific language and about other specific matters on which its condition depends. He advised on how to combine Latin and Lithuanian terms appropriately, how to use numerals to indicate the quantity or order of things, and taught the forms of ordinal numbers and how to read numbers raised to powers correctly. He acknowledged that the language of scholarly works has quite a few distinctive features.

K. Gaivenis’s thoughts on the development of Lithuanian scientific language remain highly relevant today: “A certain scholar even says that our language is poor and inflexible, that when you say or write something in another language, you can neither add nor take anything away. In fact, this is an illusion, a deception. What we lack is not terms or special constructions; what we often lack is respect for our native language. Everything can be expressed

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to formulate the most complex problems and express the most significant ideas in Lithuanian words. One need only not be afraid to say what no one has said before, to say it intelligently, logically, and, most importantly, in Lithuanian. Thus, the language of science must be created; no one will create it for us” (Gaivenis 1987b: 19).

In response to society’s needs, K. Gaivenis advised people on how to avoid the shortcomings of bureaucratic language and how to write official documents and meeting minutes correctly. Describing the characteristics of the bureaucratic style, he wrote that although this style is “not characterized by wordiness and vividness, there is no need to impoverish it artificially either, or to make do with a single word when at least several more precise equivalents are available. For example, who does not know that discipline and rules are violated, an oath is broken, peace is disrupted, disturbed, and order is undermined. Corresponding names for the agents are formed from these verbs, cf.: a violator of discipline or rules, an oath breaker, a disturber of the peace, one who disrupts it, and an underminer of order.” The linguist believes it is wrong when, following the example of Russian, which uses a single word in these cases, the Lithuanian word violator begins to displace its listed neighbors (Gaivenis 1967: 71).

He cared not only about the correctness of written language but also about the features of spoken language, drawing attention to shortcomings in farmers’ speech: unacceptable calques, and errors of stress and pronunciation. In the newspaper Tarybinis mokytojas, he considered how spoken language should be fostered.

That K. Gaivenis was an excellent teacher and an engaging storyteller is evident from his educational articles for schoolchildren in Lietuvos pionierius. Collected together, they were published as the little book Nuostabioji žodžio šviesa (Gaivenis 2014). Although the articles were written between 1979 and 1988, they are so appealing that they should also delight the digital generation of children, since language changes very slowly and many of the things described remain relevant today. In them, the linguist speaks vividly and expressively, in language children can understand, about parts of speech; explains the origins of words and the variety of developments in the history of grammar and vocabulary; introduces readers to the languages of neighboring peoples (Latvians and Roma) and more distant nations; demonstrates the kinship of languages through their similarities and differences; explains how surnames came about; teaches words of politeness; and tells about the names of mushrooms, birds, and colors. To make complex linguistic phenomena easier for schoolchildren to understand, K. Gaivenis ingeniously compares them with things familiar to children. For example, here is how masterfully he explains the importance of context for a word: “A word—

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—is somewhat like a jellyfish. It looks beautiful and natural only in water. Take a jellyfish out of the water, and all that remains of it is a lump of jelly. A word, too, is alive only in a sentence, in a particular style of language” (Gaivenis 2014: 126). Every article shows an effort to interest schoolchildren in the variety and oddities of language while fostering their ability to speak and write correctly, precisely, clearly, vividly, and politely.

When discussing K. Gaivenis’s language advice, it is essential to examine what informed his recommendations and what criteria underlay his proposals. He urged people not to depart from the language of the people (Gaivenis 1970), although he understood that “the distance of the language of science from the language of the people is natural and regular in probably many languages, but it should not be artificially hastened” (Gaivenis 1987b: 20). In selecting a term, he proposed taking account of the systematicity of terminology, but did not consider brevity an obligatory requirement. He maintained that every term should be correct in its formation and grammar, but not necessarily short (Gaivenis 1991: 34). He considered the requirement that terms be stable and traditional no less important than systematicity (Gaivenis 1973: 21). He drew attention to the motivation of terms. In his view, it is not entirely accurate to regard unmotivated terms as unsuitable, since a term’s motivation often fades through frequent use, and this is a regular phenomenon (Gaivenis 1987b: 20). He criticized words with strange and incomprehensible formations, for example, banguotavimas (Gaivenis 1981: 63), and disapproved of awkward terms (išstovą, atstovą) (Gaivenis 1981: 64).

When correcting objectionable language phenomena, K. Gaivenis was moderate; he emphasized the importance of ensuring that “language cultivation is not overshadowed by tiresome didacticism and that trivial details are not confused with important matters” (Gaivenis 1990: 19). He viewed society’s superficial attitude toward language errors with caution and urged that a phenomenon be examined thoroughly before recommendations were made: “People who work outside philology but are interested in matters of language cultivation often equate a language error with incorrect word formation. This is not entirely accurate: an incorrectly formed word may not, in certain cases, be a language error, while a perfectly well-formed neologism may sometimes be a harmful and undesirable word. When assessing neologisms, one must ascertain not only their derivational typology but also the sphere of language in which they function, whether they have other Lithuanian or international equivalents, and what semantic relationships exist among them” (Gaivenis 1974: 27).

Thus, the linguist made language recommendations very responsibly, having thoroughly examined the phenomenon being criticized; and about his duty to language, he wrote: “We all

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We live in the house of language. These houses were built for us from words by generation after generation over many centuries. It is our duty to improve and beautify them further, and leave them as they are for the future—for the time to come” (Gaivenis 1987a: 111). He did so throughout his life, leaving future generations newly coined words, organized terminological systems, and a respectful, responsible attitude toward language.

K. Gaivenis was a terminologist who accomplished a great deal in the second half of the last century and a linguist with broad interests. Throughout his career, he sought to raise the public’s language culture; alongside his scholarly work, he actively engaged in language standardization, education, and outreach, writing extensively about current language issues in popular and professional publications. The linguist provided consultations with great care, examining problematic phenomena in depth and adhering to the criteria of systematicity, stability, and popular language. The terminologist’s many theoretical and practical works are a major contribution to nurturing the Lithuanian language and fostering the public’s language culture.

LITERATURE AND SOURCES

Gaivenis K. 1966a: Keletas leksinių netikslumų prozos vertimuose. – Kalbos kultūra 11, 25–28.

Gaivenis K. 1966b: Keletas pastabų dėl techninių terminų ir profesionalizmų vartojimo perkeltine reikšme. – Kalbos kultūra 11, 55–56.

Gaivenis K. 1967: Kanceliarinis stilius. – Kultūros barai 8, 71.

Gaivenis K. 1970: Nenutolkime nuo liaudies kalbos. – Žemės ūkis 10, 39.

Gaivenis K. 1973: Terminijos ugdymo vingiai. – Kalbos kultūra 25, 19–27.

Gaivenis K. 1974: Naujadaras naujadarui nelygu. – Kalbos kultūra 27, 27–30.

Gaivenis K. 1980: Paronimai – klastingi žodžiai. – Kalbos kultūra 39, 48–50.

Gaivenis K. 1981: Terminologijos smulkmės. – Kalbos kultūra 41, 62–66.

Gaivenis K. 1987a: Margas žodžių pasaulis, Vilnius: Mokslas.

Gaivenis K. 1987b: Pasakyti logiškai ir lietuviškai. – Kalbos kultūra 52, 19–21.

Gaivenis K. 1990: Rūpintis mokslo kalba ir terminija. – Kalbos kultūra 59, 17–19.

Gaivenis K. 1991: Pora terminologijos mažmožių. – Kalbos kultūra 61, 32–34.

Gaivenis K. 2014: Nuostabioji žodžio šviesa, Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos instituto leidykla.

Kniūkšta P. 2002: Kalbos politika, teorija ir praktika „Kalbos kultūroje“ – Kalbos kultūra 75, 9–30.

KG 2003: Kazimieras Gaivenis. Bibliografijos rodyklė. Sudarė A. Noreikaitė, Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos instituto leidykla.

LKE 2008: Lietuvių kalbos enciklopedija, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidybos institutas.

Sabaliauskas A. 2012: Lietuvių kalbos tyrinėjimo istorija 1980–2010, Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas.

VLE VI – Universal Lithuanian Encyclopedia 6 (Fau–Goris), Vilnius: Institute of Science and Encyclopedia Publishing, 2004.

KAZIMIERAS GAIVENIS – A CAREFUL CULTIVATOR OF THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE

The article highlights the role of the famous Lithuanian terminologist Kazimieras Gaivenis in Lithuanian linguistics and terminology. He was a versatile, but also focused linguist whose activities contributed to the strengthening of Lithuanian terminology, compilation of terminological dictionaries and ordering of terms.

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Beside his scientific work Gaivenis was also involved in terminology ordering as well as educating society on various different subjects of language and terminology – he published many articles about various linguistic issues in professional journals and popular magazines. His consultationson problematic issues were well-considered and well-grounded and based on the criteria of systematicity, constancy and current living language. The numerous theoretical and practical works of Gaivenis made a significant contribution to the development of the Lithuanian language and linguistic culture.

Received 2014-12-08

Rasuolė Vladarskienė

Vilnius Gediminas Technical University

Saulėtekio Ave. 11, LT-03227 Vilnius

Email: [email protected]

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