Mintys apie didelį kalbininką ir terminologą Joną Jablonskį 150-tų gimimo metinių proga

Reflections on the great linguist and terminologist Jonas Jablonskis on the occasion of the 150th anniversary of his birth STASYS KEINYS Institute of the Lithuanian Language Indeed, without Jablonskis’s textbooks and his constant, skillful corrections, it would be hard even to imagine what kind of literary language we would have today and how it would sound in school and public life. Jonas Palionis Photograph from the Jablonskis family archive. At the very end of 1930, the year of Vytautas the Great, on December 30, Jonas Jablonskis (K. Obelaitis, Petras Kriaušaitis, Rygiškių Jonas) was to be honored on the occasion of his seventieth birthday. However, this important, perhaps pivotal, milestone in a person’s life had to be commemorated without the celebrant himself—in the late afternoon of Sunday, February 23, of that same year, “the greatest creator of our standard language,” “the great man of language”1 passed into eternity 1 This is how J. Jablonskis was described in the first issue (p. 5) of the newly launched standard-language journal Kalba, as its editor, Pr. Skardžius, announced the sad news. 80 S. Keinys | Mintys apie didelį kalbininką ir terminologą Joną Jablonskį 150-tų... rest, and on the evening of February 25, after lying in state for a day in Kaunas Basilica, the deceased was laid to rest in the pantheon-like cemetery on Vytautas Avenue, not far from Kazimieras Jaunius, Kazimieras Būga, and other great figures of the nation2. J. Jablonskis’s contributions to our language and linguistics are so great that, even while still alive, he was called the father of written Lithuanian (as the standard language was then called). He was given this title in 1922 in a submission handwritten by K. Būga and signed by him together with Vincas Krėvė-Mickevičius and Eduardas Volteris, proposing that J. Jablonskis be appointed an honorary professor at the University of Lithuania (Piročkinas 1978: 145). This honored title was also used in the memoirs of the late President of the Republic Antanas Smetona, once his student, published in the second issue of the journal Kalbos, dedicated to the deceasedAtsiminimų bruožuose. It says: “J. Jablonskis is not only the father of our standard, written language, but also the most prominent reviver of the Lithuanian nation. Thus, his life is of interest not only to the linguist, but also to the politician and the researcher of our national revival. When he began his work, he found the Lithuanian nation with very few people conscious of their national identity, and even fewer enlightened people—intellectuals. Here and there3 they flickered like fireflies of St. John on a dark night” (Smetona 1930: 37). There is not the slightest doubt that J. Jablonskis was, is, and will remain among those people who did the most during the period of the National Revival, each in his own field and all through shared determination, dedication, work, and the sacrifice of their lives. It is no coincidence that he is mentioned alongside, and constantly compared with, the great figures of the Revival. The neuropathologist Dr. Viktoras Vaičiūnas, father of the poetė Judita Vaičiūnaitė, began his memoir by noting that when J. Jablonskis was brought for the first time to the Neurological Diseases Clinic of the Military Hospital in 1927, he “was placed in the same ward where the late Jonas Basanavičius had lain in 1924” (Vaičiūnas 1930: 66). Perhaps it was no coincidence that Prelate Jonas Mačiulis, the great bard of the Revival, Maironis, was called upon to conduct the funeral service for the deceased. And at the cemetery, among many other distinguished speakers, the President of the Republic delivered a farewell address (Merkelis 1930: 36). J. Jablonskis was one of our most prominent educators (many people in science, culture, politics, and other fields in the restored independent state took pride in having been his pupils or students, even decades later), and a contributor to the press from the very beginning of Aušros (later, for a time, even an employee), a campaigner for— 2 A quarter of a century later, as a student of linguistics, before transferring to the train for Vilnius, I would always go and pay my respects at the graves of our great linguists. Later, when those cemeteries were being demolished, they were moved to Petrašiūnai. 3 The spelling and language of quotations and examples have not been edited in the article. Terminologija | 2010 | 17 81 campaigners for the rights of the Lithuanian language and public figures. His contributions to our imaginative literature were considerable—he devoted much of his time to editing, correcting, and sometimes printing the works of Žemaitė and other writers, and to the related efforts and concerns. Having arrived in 1893 to work as a teacher of classical languages at the Mintauja (Latvian: Jelgava) Gymnasium, J. Jablonskis soon also became known as someone engaged in scholarly work. In her monograph on Kārlis Mīlenbahs, the Latvian linguist Ina Druviete wrote that the example of J. Jablonskis, a younger colleague in the gymnasiums of that time, may have encouraged this Latvian educator to speak more boldly on matters of language scholarship, and that Jablonskis procured books for Mīlenbahs and was a source of information about Lithuanian dialects and Lithuanian life (Druviete 1990: 35). On the other hand, J. Jablonskis himself had much to learn from the far more vibrant Latvian cultural life, unhampered by the press ban, and from the work of language standardization. We must never lose sight of the appallingly difficult circumstances in which J. Jablonskis embarked on the work of creating a standard language. Belittled and despised by its own denationalized people and by outsiders, with no glimmer of hope and driven toward destruction, a language and a nation excluded from culture and scholarship, a nation with no primary school in its own language, persecuted and punished for possessing and reading any writing in Latin letters, with personal and place names being Polonized, Russified, and Germanized. Such was everyday life for the people of Lithuania during Jablonskis’s childhood and youth. And he himself was Jan Jablonski to some, Иван Осипович Яблонский [Ivan Osipovič Jablonskij] to others, born in the parish of Vladislavovas (the official name for Naumiestis at the time) (Piročkinas 1974: 36–38). Before Jablonskis began his linguistic work, Aušra had already awakened the spirit of Lithuanian identity in many readers, nurtured their love for their language, and shown its importance and necessity for the life of the entire nation; however, it had essentially not moved beyond sociolinguistic discussions of the language’s status. J. Jablonskis’s linguistic scholarship and all his language-related activity retain their value, because they ushered in a new stage in the creation and development of a standard language, one grounded in scholarship. Although he knew the classical languages well, and was a pupil of the leading figures in Russian historical-comparative linguistics at the turn of the nineteenth and twentieth centuries—Fylipas Fortunatovas, Fiodoras Koršas, and others—from whom he learned much and who inspired him to study Lithuanian, J. Jablonskis devoted himself to synchronic linguistic research and to putting the exemplary standard (written) language on the right track—or, in Arnoldas Piročkinas’s vivid phrase, clearing a path through the jungle of language (Piročkinas 1978: 14)—that is, to its creation, standardization, and development, and brought that language to maturity. In truth 82 S. Keinys | Mintys apie didelį kalbininką ir terminologą Joną Jablonskį 150-tų... There is no sphere of the standard language in which J. Jablonskis did not leave clearly visible traces. Indeed, in more than one such sphere he was the first and, in many respects, an unsurpassed pioneer. Pranas Skardžius drew attention to this in the article “J. Jablonskis,” published on the first anniversary of the linguist’s death, writing that, thanks to his keen feel for language and his ability to “separate the chaff from the grain of language,” he “could discern many of the laws of our language earlier than others and apply them to the standard language; thus he was the first to lay the foundations of our terminology, syntax and, in general, the language of written works” (Skardžius 1931: 9). Thus, among his countless other achievements, J. Jablonskis was also the first to lay the foundations of our terminology. It is true that some would probably object, recalling that the foundations of our written terminology—both its terms and its systems—began to be laid as early as the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and that writers of later centuries also worked on it. J. Jablonskis entered this field of language practice at the end of the nineteenth century, almost three and a half centuries after Martynas Mažvydas’s book, whose title page reads: “Katechismusa prasty Szadei, Makslas skaitima raschta yr giesmes del kriksczianistes bei del berneliu iaunu nauiey sugulditas Karaliavczvi VIII dena Meneses Sausia, Metu vszgimima Diewa M. D. XLVII. Soli Deo gloria”. It is therefore more accurate to say that Jablonskis laid the foundations of the terminology of our present-day standard language: he established an understanding of what terminology should be, how it is created, where its resources should be drawn from, and how terms should be formed—a view that has remained essentially unchanged to this day; he also developed and systematized terminology, coined terms in various fields himself when necessary, and helped others to do so. J. Jablonskis entered the field of terminology from the very beginning of his work on language. In laying the foundations of the present-day standard language—the chief means of communication uniting the whole nation—and bringing it, in its role and expressive potential, to a level with languages that had been developing for longer, one could not leave aside the work of creating and improving the language of specialized fields and its terminology. It is therefore no surprise that already in his first article under the heading “Matters of Language,” published in 1892 in Varpas, among other things, he demonstrated the correctness of the words and terms tardyti, tardymas and tardytojas; proposed using the words valdininkas, viršininkas, prekymetis, velionis rather than the hybrid urėdninkas, the calque met­turgis, and the loanword nabašnikas; and recommended replacing the irregular derivative rašėjas with the correctly formed words rašytojas and raštininkas, defended the borrowed terms redaktorius and gubernija, and criticized the supposedly Lithuanian forms used in their place, rėdytojas, rėdyba, and so on. Terminologija | 2010 | 17 83 etc. (JR IV 12–18). The great language cultivator made meaningful changes to terms, even when correcting texts that were not dictionaries at all. For example, in an article published in 1927 about the language of the newspaper Ūkininko patarėjas (“And Again, Matters of Newspaper Language”), in the section on correcting matters of syntax, he replaced the participle in the phrase importuoti veisliniai paukščiai with the Lithuanian adjective atvežtiniai, and made the beekeeping term magazininiai rėmai clearer and more Lithuanian—sandėliniai avilio rėmai (JR V 165–167)—thereby showing that writing should be as clear as possible, and therefore as Lithuanian as possible, for rural people and others alike. A number of terms were also corrected in the article “Matters of Newspaper Language,” published in the last-mentioned, first 1930 issue of Kalba, for example: dvasiškija, dvasiškiai (= dvasininkai), kariškiai (= kariai), kanoniškos teisės (= kanonų, kanoninės teisės), konkordato pildymas (= konkordato vykdymas), labdaringa draugija (= labdarių, labdaros draugija), patriotinis auklėjimas (= patriotiškas auklėjimas), susilaikymas nuo balsavimo (= nebalsavimas), and so on (JR V 223–225). In his articles and short pieces on language, and in his reviews of textbooks and other publications, over nearly four decades J. Jablonskis corrected more than a thousand terms, removing from our terminology barbarisms and other unnecessary loanwords, hybrids, and calques, as well as current words or neologisms that were unclear, opaque, and therefore unsuitable as terms, and incorrectly formed derivatives. On the other hand, he proposed no fewer terms in those writings and other works, and seemingly the greater part of his proposals became firmly rooted in our terminology, in many cases forming its core. Through the proposed terms and the not-so-infrequent (as is often said) brief, but at times, when needed, extensive comments and explanations, readers of his writings were taught to draw terms first and foremost from people’s language—that is, from living speech—or, when necessary, to form them in the way people themselves customarily form words. No one will ever count how many terms, and what kinds, he corrected or proposed in spoken conversation to people working in the most diverse fields who had sought his advice or help. A very valuable part of the great terminologist’s legacy is his collaborative workshop. For serious and fruitful work in terminology is impossible without knowledge of the subject—indeed, a good command of it—and without excellent mastery of the language and a feel for its spirit. For that reason, one person working alone can usually accomplish little here. Moreover, it is very useful to discuss and consider proposed terms more broadly, so that they suit not only those selecting or compiling them. J. Jablonskis seems to have liked to consult about terminology with specialists in other fields as well as with linguists— 84 S. Keinys | Mintys apie didelį kalbininką ir terminologą Joną Jablonskį 150-tų... —linguists. This is indicated by the gatherings held in the early twentieth century to discuss religious language, syntax, and other terminology. During the First World War (then called the Great War), Lithuanian teachers at schools for Lithuanian war refugees operating in the Russian city of Voronezh (where instruction was in Russian), while preparing the way for future Lithuanian schools, discussed and adopted terms for various school subjects and prepared Lithuanian textbooks (Jablonskis also urged them to do so; he himself compiled the reading book Vargo mokyklai, Mūsų žodynėli, wrote Lietuvių kalbos gramatiką, published in Vilnius in 1919, and translated an arithmetic textbook). The memoirs of participants in those discussions show that the leading figure and guide was the teacher J. Jablonskis (see Mašiotas 1930: 48, Žemaitis 1956: 34–36; for more, see Piročkinas 1978: 136–139). The terminology work carried out in Voronezh, and probably earlier, is reflected to some extent in the aforementioned Mūsų žodynėlis. Vargo mokyklos4 supplement, published in that city in 1918 and compiled (the booklet says “collected”) by Rygiškių Jonas (Jablonskis’s favorite pen name after the press ban was lifted). Alongside other words, this booklet contains a substantial collection of terms from various fields. Most of these terms became firmly established in our standard language and have been familiar since schooldays, and used when needed, to essentially all the people of Lithuania. Moreover, many of these terms took root in place of so-called international words (and terms). Here is a handful of the booklet’s terms whose earliest, or one of the earliest, sources recorded in the great Lietuvių kalbos žodyne are Jablonskis’s written works: akìratis “горизонтъ,” ántspaudas “печать,” apýskaita “отчетъ” (Dabar pajamų ir išlaidų a p y š k a i t ą rašau), ašigalis “полюсть (земли),” atèminys “вычитаемое,” atimtìs “вычитание (veiksmas),” atógraža “тропикъ,” atóstogos “отпускъ (для отдыха), каникулы,” àtšvaitas “рефлекторъ,” ãtvaizdas “портретъ,” bendróvė “товарищество, общество,” braižýba “черчение (menas),” braižìklis “kuo braižoma, brėžtukas,” brėžinỹs “чертежъ,” dabità “франтъ,” daigýnas “питомникъ,” dalýba “дѣленіе (veiksmas),” dalìklis “дѣлитель (veiksmo skaičius),” dalinỹs “дѣлимое,” dalmuõ “частное (veiksmo skaičius),” daugýba “умноженіе (veiksmas),” daugìklis “множитель (veiksmo skaičius),” dauginỹs “множимое,” deguonìs (dẽguonì) “кислородъ,” dienóvidinis “меридіанъ,” dùjos “газы, газъ,” eilėraštis “стихотвореніе,” esmẽ “суть, сущность,” grýnan glis “углеродъ,” įstaiga “учрежденіе” (mokslo, darbo į s t a i g a), kainóraštis “прейскурантъ,” kū́ryba “(dailės) daryba;” 4 Vargo mokyklai. Būrelio mokytojų rinktinys kalbos mokslo reikalui is a two-volume reader compiled by J. Jablonskis. The first edition appeared in 1916 in St Petersburg. Terminologija | 2010 | 17 85 “творчество” (folk, popular creativity), glacier “глетчер”, vest “жилет”, specific gravity “удѣльный вѣсъ”, half-equation “половина уравнения”, scale “масштабъ”, plot “участокъ”, fable “басня”, endurance “выдержка, стойкость”, drawing “рисунокъ; очеркъ (Drawing drawings; charcoal drawing)”, pencil “карандашъ”, pencil case “пеналъ”, phrase “оборотъ, конструкція (expression)”, equator “экваторъ”, written character “письменный знакъ”, phenomenon “явление, выражение (Not everyone notices a linguistic or electrical phenomenon. An algebraic expression)”; product “произведение (number resulting from an operation)”, notebook “тетрадь”, bill “счетъ”, self-government “самоуправление”, concept “понятие”, numerator “числитель” (numerator of a fraction), digit “цифра”, printed matter “printing, something that is printed”, polar circle “полярный кругъ”, addition “сложение; составъ”, identity “тождество”, painting “живопись”, painting “something being painted or that has been painted”, paintbrush “кисточка, кисть”, fraction “дробь” (common and decimal fractions), regulator “регуляторъ”, management “вѣломство” (He served in road administration), imagination “воображение”, hydrogen “водородъ”, denominator “знаменатель” (denominator of a fraction), continent “материкъ” and pottery “гончарное изделіе”. Before long, many of these terms also found their way into mathematics textbooks and textbooks in other fields, as well as glossaries of terms and collections, published in Lithuania itself. Pažinti mūsų dabartinės terminologijos kilimui svarbus yra ir 1924 m. išleistoje verstinėje Samuelio Smailso knygelėje Pareiga ir tiesumas įdėtas žodynėlis, kuriame paaiškinta „apie du šimtu ne visad paprastų skaitytojui kalbos žodžių ir posakių, vartojamų šitame ir kituose tos rūšies rašinėliuose“ (p. 34). Tai daugiausia etikos terminai ir žodžiai. Ir iš šio žodynėlio čia pateikiamas taip pat, kaip iš Mūsų žodynėlio, parinktų terminų pluostelis, pvz.: asmenybė (asmenybė) „Persönlichkeit; ličnost“, bėydis, -dė ir bėydiškas, -ka „be ýdų, neturįs ydų, nevýdingas“ (jis beydis, beydiškas ir visas jo gyvenimas), dorópročiai, -čių „doros įpročiai (dorovė)“, doróvė „Sittlichkeit; moralność; nravstvennost’“, garbėtroška (ir garbėmyla) „garbიანōris (garbanōris), -rė, garbės trokštąs žmogus; garbės godas, garbės troškimas; ehrgeiziger Mensch, Ehrgeiz; čestoliubivec, -liubije“5, įtaiga „Einflüsterung, Eingebung; vnušenije (įteigimas)“, nedoróvė „Unsittlichkeit; niemoralność; beznravstvennost’“, núotaika „Gemütsstimmung; 5 By the way, the word Lietuvių kalbos žodynas does not include, at the very beginning of the explanation of ambition and in its usage examples, the word garbánōris, -rė with the variant garbanōris; nor does either edition of the first volume include the accentual variant asmenybė, listed first in this glossary. 86 S. Keinys | Mintys apie didelį kalbininką ir terminologą Joną Jablonskį 150-tų... “raspolōženije ducha”, person responsible for duties, –woman “a person capable of (and accustomed to) performing their duties” (A duty-holder sees to it that others, too, perform their duties honestly)6, endurance “the ability (capacity) to endure for a long time”, desire “a great desire for something (a craving)”, attachment “Anhänglichkeit; priviazan­nost’”, abstinence, self-restraint “Enthaltsamkeit; vozderžanije, vozderžnost’, vozderžannost’ (abstinence)”, order “Verfassung, Ordnung; stroj, ustrojstvo”, self-observation “Selbstbeobachtung; samonabliudenije”, fellow countryman, –woman “Landsmann…; sootečestvennik, –nica; a person from the same homeland (the same region as someone else)”, form of government “Regierungsform; sposob pravlenija”, public figure, –woman “a person active in public life”, fellow native, –woman “a person from the same land, from the same region as someone else; Landsmann; zemliak, zemec”. There is no reason to doubt that J. Jablonskis contributed more than anyone else to the incorporation of all the words mentioned in both glossaries into our standard language and its terminology, and to their becoming established there. It is more difficult to determine which of these words he actually coined himself. Yet anyone well acquainted with the linguist’s writings on language and other subjects can see clearly that he was a great, indeed at that time the greatest, master of words. This arose from his constant effort to gain a truly thorough and broad knowledge of dialects and local speech, folklore, and the language of the best writers; and, as a result, from his exceptional sensitivity—unmatched in the circumstances of his time, especially in the first decades of the twentieth century—to the Lithuanian character of the language, the so-called spirit of the language. It also came from his ability, applying the words of the preface to the textbook Lithuanian Grammar. A Textbook for Writers and Readers (1901), to distinguish numerous foreign words and “a considerable number of phenomena that foul our people’s language”, in other words, to separate the chaff of language from the grain, since “only the grain of the people’s language should be used in grammar” (Kriaušaitis 1901: 1). His strong philological education and knowledge of classical languages and more than one modern language greatly helped in this. J. Jablonskis spent his entire life as a linguist pursuing this scientific path towards ever greater knowledge of language and recognition of its impurities. As a result, the words he used and recommended increasingly came to fit the concepts they named so well that it is not easy to say whether a given word or term was one he had heard somewhere, found in written sources, or coined himself. Most of them bear no marks of individuality; even clear formations do not seem like neologisms. These words are not only gathered in the glossaries he himself compiled, but are also scattered throughout his many writings on language, on other fields, and on matters of public life; ultimately, they are 6 In this word, apparently, the meanings of “person with duties” and of the modern official have merged. Terminologija | 2010 | 17 87 in translations, edited writings by others, or in spoken words addressed to those who asked questions or sought advice. How clearly, simply, and vividly J. Jablonskis wrote for people can be seen very well from his little booklet Cholera Is Approaching—Take Care!7, published in 1908 as a supplement to the Viltis newspaper (Merkelis 1931: 24), from which two excerpts are included here. 1) Cholera is a terrible disease of Asia. From Asia, its homeland, it sometimes comes to Europe and reaps its people. It reaps the people of Lithuania, truth be told, not often, but it has been doing so for quite a long time. Since the time it began visiting our land, it has been nearly a hundred years... (p. 1). 2) How can one recognize cholera? A person who has contracted cholera has diarrhea; their bowels become loose. Their stools become increasingly watery and frequent. In addition, the person begins to vomit, and cramps seize their legs. The pains grow worse; the person cannot bear it and screams aloud. A few hours pass, and the patient changes completely: the eyes sink in, the nose becomes pointed, the whole body looks very thin; the skin turns bluish and cold. The patient is thirsty and wants to drink, but cannot quench their thirst, because everything they drink is immediately vomited back up (p. 3). Only a few points of spelling (the forms piauna, mūsų, skystyn, akis are now written pjauna, mūsų, skystyn, akys), for someone accustomed to something other than today’s internet-and-phone “spelling,” along with the adverb senai, in place of which nearly everyone is now accustomed or taught to use seniai, show that not everything in the writing of the author of this little booklet is spelled as he himself began to write somewhat later and as is taught today. Otherwise, this is the finest and most correct language of our day, even though it was written more than a hundred years ago. Reading texts written and edited or corrected by Jablonskis is a pleasure: the subject matter is clear and easy to understand, and the language is fluent and precise, without incomprehensible words or expressions. He knew the resources of the language well, knew how to use them himself, and, when correcting the language of others, did not restrict the variety of ways in which ideas could be expressed. In his numerous articles on the cultivation of language, J. Jablonskis not only corrected, among other things, unsuitable terms, but also expressed general thoughts on what terms should be like and how terminological work should be carried out8. Above all, these thoughts grew out of the general principles for the regulation and cultivation of language that he had established early on, and out of a certain ideal of the standard language—what he called the written language—that is, an understanding of what that language should be like so that, while remaining genuinely Lithuanian, it might best meet society’s communicative needs in every circumstance of national life and, later, of life in its own state. 7 Many thanks to our colleague Palmira Zemlevičiūtė, who procured the text of this publication. 8 For more detail, see the article “An Overview of the Creation of Lithuanian Terminology (up to 1940),” published in Kalbotyra, vol. XVIII (1967), pp. 21–25. 88 S. Keinys | Mintys apie didelį kalbininką ir terminologą Joną Jablonskį 150-tų... The foundation for all work on creating and developing the standard language, and thus also terminology, and the measure of its value, for J. Jablonskis and his school was the living language, which the linguist himself usually called the language of the people. This term denoted the language of dialects and folklore; the language of writers who wrote and write in a living language was also mentioned (among them, perhaps most often, K. Donelaitis, S. Daukantas, M. Valančius, and Žemaitė). However, as noted, things in vocabulary, grammar, and other areas that had been forced into the standard language and adopted from foreign languages over the centuries were unacceptable and therefore had to be weeded out. This was also brought to the attention of language correctors in the short article “Trifles and Major Matters (in the Science of Language),” published in 1925. Responding to A. Vireliūnas’s inaccurate arguments for using imagine a wide river rather than picture a wide river, J. Jablonskis drew attention to the matter in question in these words: “To support his opinion, the author of the article takes a considerable number of language examples, gathered from certain writings [the first fascicle of A. Juška’s dictionary is mentioned below. – St. K.] and from the language of the people. But a hunter must be cautious with those writings and with the language of the people; while displaying all his ‘truth’ on this occasion, A. Vireliūnas was not entirely cautious” (JR IV 305). Such caution requires both linguistic knowledge and sound judgment. In the enormous article published in 1928—more like a study—“Matters from Our Language Dictionary,” which contained not only a great many, in the author’s words, “individual observations” concerning V. Kamantauskas’s Concise Dictionary of Language Errors and Barbarisms, but also general reflections and advice for language correctors, the great teacher of language wrote these fundamental, programmatic words: “It seems to me that it is not so much the words themselves as their meaning that must be translated h u m a n e l y into our language,” and he taught language correctors: “correct h u m a n e l y, and that’s all!” (JR V 181), then expanding on the thought as follows: “Correct everything in language that needs correcting, everything that is expressed in an inhuman or incorrect way; when necessary, correct not only those words in the text that the author of this dictionary calls undesirable foreignisms” (JR V 184). On more than one occasion, J. Jablonskis taught that new terms, too, should be formed in the same way as people form ordinary words (JR III 37, IV 143–144, V 14, etc.). Opposed to unnecessary coinages, he emphatically advised against forging needless and elaborate words and terms: “<...> let us allow it [our language – St. K.] to grow in its own way, according to the rules of our own people; let us not force into it without any need a l l s o r t s o f n e w c o i n a g e s, at least those that each of us can invent in a different way, without bringing any genuine benefit to the subject matter of society being presented in that language” (JR V Terminologija | 2010 | 17 89 216). J. Jablonskis wrote this in response to the neologisms scattered throughout A. Vireliūnas’s booklet The Development of Our Language, some of which were intended to replace established Lithuanian terms or their components, for example: vowel alternation (vowel change), primitive peoples (original peoples), universe (the whole entirety), as well as so-called international terms, for example: dialogue (two-speaking), history (past-being), climate (weather-being), culture (work-being), literature (writing-thing), methodology (teaching), organ (body-thing), pedagogy (upbringing), symbol (meaning-thing), and so on (JR V 213–215). Incidentally, at the very beginning of his productive work on language, our linguist stated the essence of his approach to developing the vocabulary: “In relying on an exception [for the sake of an exception – St. K.] when creating a new written word, one can never find a sound basis” (JR IV 22). An important and highly instructive feature of J. Jablonskis’s character and work was his lack of obstinacy: he made room for others’ well-founded opinions and left them free to choose. Very often he offered more than one correction or suggestion for a better, more precise expression; he wanted readers to have options to choose from, but, above all, he wanted usage different from the linguist’s suggestion to conform to the laws of the language of the people. A. Piročkinas summed up this feature of the great language developer’s work exceptionally well in his book At the Sources of the Standard Language, writing that raising the language of the people as the foundation of the standard language “was also a profoundly democratic path: not to impose an ‘intellectuals’ language’ on the people, but to make the people’s language the language of intellectuals and the intelligentsia together with the people” (Piročkinas 1977: 99). Although he wrote no theoretical books or articles on the standardization of the standard language or on terminology, through his language-standardization work, his translations, the textbooks and books from other fields that he edited or corrected, his advice to specialists in various fields, and his collaborative work on language and terminology in certain gatherings and commissions, he laid the theoretical and practical foundations for developing the standard language, as well as for terminology and its practice. Finally, he trained a considerable number of active and dedicated workers in our language and its terminology, who in turn passed on Jablonskis’s scholarship and spirit to their students. Assessing and summing up the linguist’s work, his associate Juozas Balčikonis wrote in the first volume of Jablonskis’s Works: “As long as our language resounds among the peoples of this earth, it—cleansed by him of foreign rubbish, clarified and enriched with new words—will proclaim his name from generation to generation. From a poor means of communication among peasants, as Lithuanian was regarded, through nearly half a century of unceasing work he made it a perfect instrument of thought, suitable for use in every culturally organized coun- 90 S. Keinys | Mintys apie didelį kalbininką ir terminologą Joną Jablonskį 150-tų... to gyvenimo srityse“ (J. B. 1932: XI). Tarsi tęsd amas šias mintis, kalbininkas Alfonsas Kalnius atsiminimuose apie J. Jablonskį po keturiasdešimt metų teigė: „Be Jablonskio didžiulio indėlio tiesiog neįmanoma suprasti mūsų bendrinės kalbos – didžiausios tautos kūrybos ir turto – susidarymo“ (Kalnius 1974: 19). J. Jablonskis buvo didžiausias dabartinės bendrinės mūsų kalbos kūrimo meto triūsėjas. Jis įstatė tą kalbą į brandos kelią ir gerai pavarė į priekį jos brandinimo darbus. Į tą kelią jis įstatė taip pat mūsų terminologiją ir pats buvo žymiausias ypač mokykloms ir viešajam gyvenimui reikalingų terminų kūrėjas. Tuo atžvilgiu J. Jablonskis gali būti vadinamas dabartinės mūsų terminologijos tėvu. J. Jablonskis’s writings have long been classics of our linguistics and language standardization. Several generations of people have passed through his school of language. Everyone who cares about the Lithuanian character of the language should still attend it, and our schools in particular should return to it. And everyone engaged in language work should complete Jablonskis’s university—that is, study and understand his legacy as thoroughly as possible—especially the many language standardizers and correctors working today. If we want our ancient language to remain Lithuanian in the future and to continue to be a source of national pride, we must not allow the light of Jonas Jablonskis–Rygiškių Jonas to go out. SOURCES AND LITERATURE Druviete I. 1990: Kārlis Mīlenbahs, Rīga. J. B. 1932: Trumpas gyvenimo aprašymas. – Jablonskio Raštai. Redagavo J. Balčikonis. Kaunas. T. 1, XI–XXVIII. JR I–V: Jablonskio Raštai. Redagavo J. Balčikonis. Kaunas, 1932–1936. T. 1–5. Kalnius A. 1974: [Atsiminimai apie J. Jablonskį]. – Mūsų kalba. Nr. 7, 16–19. Kolera artinas – pasisaugokite! Parašė Rygiškių Jonas. Vilnius, 1908. Kriaužaitis P. 1901: Lietuviškos kalbos gramatika. Rašytojams ir skaitytojams vadovėlis. Tilžė. LKŽ I–XX: Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language. Resp. (male) ed. J. Balčikonis (vols. 1–2), K. Ulvydas (vols. 3–5, 11–16), J. Kruopas (vols. 1–2, 6–10), V. Vitkauskas (vols. 17–20). Vilnius, 1941–2002. Mašiotas Pr. 1930: Šis tas iš Rygiškių Jono sunkaus gyvenimo. – Kalba. Sąs. 2, 44–48. Merkelis A. 1930: Jonas Jablonskis. – Language. Fasc. 2, 7–36. Merkelis A. 1931: Jablonskio bibliografija. – Archivum Philologicum. Kn. 2, 15–37. Mūsų žodynėlis. „Vargo mokyklos“ priedėlis. Surinko Rygiškių Jonas. Voronežas, 1918. Palionis J. 1959: J. Jablonskio kalbiniai taisymai. – J. Jablonskis. Rinktiniai raštai. Vilnius. T. 2, 5–54. Piročkinas A. 1974: Jono Jablonskio gimimo metrikai. – Mūsų kalba. Nr. 7, 34–38. Piročkinas A. 1977: Prie bendrinės kalbos ištakų. J. Jablonskio gyvenimas ir darbai 1860–1904 m. Vilnius. Piročkinas A. 1978: J. Jablonskis – bendrinės kalbos puoselėtojas, 1904–1930. Vilnius. [R. J.] Glossary. – Smailsas S. Duty and Honesty. A Schoolchild’s Translation (with a glossary). Šiauliai, 1924, 34–55. Skardžius Pr. 1930: Jonas Jablonskis †. – Language. Fasc. 1, 5. Skardžius Pr. 1931: J. Jablonskis. – Archivum Philologicum. Kn. 2, 5–14. Smetona A. 1930: Recollections. – Language. Fasc. 2, 37–44. Vaičiūnas V. 1930: In remembrance of the late Jonas Jablonskis. – Language. Fasc. 2, 66–68. Žemaitis Z. 1956: Iš atsiminimų apie J. Jablonskį. – Literatūra ir kalba. Vilnius. T. 1, 32–39. Terminologija | 2010 | 17 9 1 THOUGHTS ABOUT THE GREAT LINGUIST AND TERMINOLOGIST JONAS JABLONSKIS. ON THE OCCASION OF 150 YEARS OF HIS BIRTH The paper provides an overview of contribution the of great Lithuanian linguist professor Jonas Jablonskis (1860–1930) to the development, normalization and consolidation of modern standard Lithuanian; to the increase in its role and expansion of its functions; and to the development of Lithuanian terminology almost from the start of the National rebirth movement at the end of 19thth century. He carried out his work under very difficult conditions of tsarist persecution, the ban on Lithuanian press in Latin alphabet (until 1904), Polonization and Russification of the country and finally in the independent state of Lithuania re-established in 1918. During nearly five decades of intensive activity standard Lithuanian reached the period of its maturity. The paper also reveals the theoretical principles of language normalization as well as creation and development of terminology followed by Jablonskis. Jablonskis’ role in the development of standard Lithuanian was so great that in his own lifetime he was called the father of standard Lithuanian. Received 2010-12-03 Stasys Keinys Lietuvių kalbos institutas P. Vileišio g. 5, LT-10308 Vilnius E. paštas [email protected] 92 S. Keinys | Mintys apie didelį kalbininką ir terminologą Joną Jablonskį 150-tų...