Terminijos įvairenybės

TERMINOLOGICAL DETAILS AND PUBLICATIONS VARIETIES OF TERMINOLOGY 1. V. Kudirka and the word sakalas V. Kudirka was not afraid of the Lithuanian word; he kneaded it like a good potter kneads clay. In his writings we find both interesting occasionalisms (e.g., šliupofobija, brazilijomanija) and distinctive neologisms. For example, he called boric acid by the newly coined word pusrūgštė, a cannon by the word griaustuvas, a hiding place by paslaptimi, and an arms bearer by skydberniu, and so on. The words griaustuvas, paslaptis in these meanings are not even found in the great “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language,” while the words skydernis, pusrūgštė are cited only from V. Kudirka’s writings. In his satires, V. Kudirka also created several personal names for Russian tsarist officials. One of them was Deržiubka. In V. Kudirka’s words, he was “a good man and a great womanizer.” The motivation behind Deržiubka’s surname is clear and simple to every reader. From the point of view of word formation, however, this neologism is interesting in several respects. In Russian, imperative forms can serve as the first component of compound words of the “verb + noun” type, for example: держиморда, перекати-поле, гори-цвет. Lithuanian has no such formations. We have only what is probably the sole old and strange Lithuanian word kaliboba, meaning “the fourth husband of a woman.” The word-formation specialist P. Skardžius called this word a very old formation. In dialects, after all, we have imperative forms without the formant -k as well, for example: giedy “sing,” dedy “put,” kaly “strike.” Thus, although V. Kudirka’s personal name Deržiubka led us somewhat astray, only interesting sakalai can do that. In the preceding sentence we deliberately used the word sakalas in the same lexical sense in which V. Kudirka used it. He used this word to mean “an utterance.” V. Kudirka derived the word sakalas from the verb sakyti (“to say”). Thus V. Kudirka’s word sakalas, “an utterance,” and the term sakalas, “a bird of this kind,” are true homonyms. Even a century later, many of V. Kudirka’s sakalų remain interesting not only to linguists. 105 2. Vaižgantas and the word pasakėčia It is probably clear to everyone that the literary term pasakėčia is an artificial word. Before this term existed, the word pasaka was used. S. Daukantas and J. Želvavičius (1822–1886), who translated 25 fables by I. Krylov and published a collection of them, called fables pasakėčia was formed from the word pasaka by adding the suffix -ėčia. The academic “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language” may give the impression that J. Jablonskis coined this term. However, the term pasakėčia was probably not his neologism. The Institute of the Lithuanian Language holds the minutes of the Terminology Commission, which operated under the Ministry of Education in 1921. They show that on October 13, 1921, K. Būga, A. Dambrauskas, J. Jablonskis, T. Ivanauskas, V. Krėvė, P. Mašiotas, J. Tumas, A. Smetona, and A. Vireliūnas discussed literary terms. J. Tumas reported on the matter. The term pasakėčia was approved that day. Unlike the entries for other terms, it has no explanation attached to it; therefore, one may suppose that J. Tumas proposed this neologism and the other participants in the meeting agreed. 3. Mathematician Z. Žemaitis and the term number The verb to count is derived from the word number. The latter word is relatively old. It was used with the meaning of the quantity of concrete objects by M. Daukša, S. B. Chilinskis, and other figures of our early written literature. However, as a mathematical term, the word number is new, having appeared only during the First World War. One of its godparents as a term was the mathematician Prof. Z. Žemaitis. This is how he wrote about discussing the term with J. Jablonskis: “The question of the name for number was examined in depth. Until then, the terms skaitlis, skaitlinė, skaitlius were used, as well as the verb skaitliuoti, derived from the latter. To us mathematicians, skaitlius seemed quite acceptable, since living speech also had words of a similar structure: derlius, drėblius, dieglius, perteklius. J. Jablonskis did not strongly object to that word, but would under no circumstances agree to forming the word skaitliuo-ti from it: supposedly, a noun can be formed from a verb, but forming a verb again from such a made-up noun is impermissible; on that occasion he harshly condemned the already fairly widespread neologisms” 106 such as mokytojauti, gydytojauti and the like. J. Jablonskis proposed using the word to count, and it was clear to us all that these would be the best terms”1. Later, the word number became a generic name and grew into a large family of specific terms, e.g.: binary, decimal, derived, imaginary, negative, positive, fractional, integer number, and others. Some of these specific terms are somewhat vivid and name interesting concepts. For example, the concept named by the term amicable numbers was known as early as the 5th century BCE. These are numbers each of which equals the sum of all the divisors of the other number (excluding the number itself). Strange as it may seem, amicable numbers are completely unlike one another. For example, 220 and 284 are amicable, because the divisors of the first number (1, 2, 4, 5, 10, 11, 20, 22, 44, 55, and 110) sum to 284, while the divisors of the second number (1, 2, 4, 71, 142) sum to 220. More than fifty pairs of such amicable numbers are now known. But nowhere in the world will we find a mathematician who could say how many pairs of amicable numbers there may be in total. The term perfect numbers is also interesting. The ancient Greek mathematician Euclid was the first to use the concept of “perfect numbers,” in the 3rd century BCE. He discovered the first four perfect numbers. The smallest two were 6 (1+2+3) and 28 (1+2+4+7+14). In the 16th century, mathematicians discovered three more perfect numbers. The largest of them is expressed using 19 digits. About 20 even perfect numbers have now been found in all. How many perfect numbers are there in total? No one knows exactly yet. In programming theory, too, we find interesting terms containing the word number, e.g.: square number and triangular number. The first term denotes a number that can be represented by dots arranged in a square, while the second denotes a number that can be represented by dots arranged in a triangle. Although Z. Žemaitis helped establish the term number, the lexicographer D. Sutkevičius was the first to try to establish this word as a term. He num- 1 Žemaitis Z. Lietuviškos matematinės terminologijos istorijai // Lietuvių kalbos leksikos raida. V., 1966. P. 196. 107 called arithmetic. A distinctive feature of our language is also that the concept of “a great many” is expressed in everyday speech by the idiom without number, while the concept of “few” is expressed by under the number. 4. Naturalist T. Ivanauskas and several Lithuanian names for birds of distant lands Our renowned naturalist Prof. T. Ivanauskas traveled extensively. He described his travel impressions in several books, for example: “A Naturalist’s Notes” (V., 1982), “Three Months in Brazil” (K., 1931 and V., 1960), “About Beasts and Birds” (V., 1956), “Birds of the World” (V., 1971), and others. In his books we find interesting coinages—the names of birds from distant lands. We will briefly discuss some of the terms he used, especially those that still need refinement. In the “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language,” the word petrėlis has only one meaning: it was used to refer to a ladybird. However, the word also had another meaning. T. Ivanauskas (and not only he) used petrelis to refer to a small seabird (Oceanodroma leucorrhoa) as well. As a storm approaches, it appears close to ships and was considered a harbinger of storms. The term is undoubtedly of biblical origin, deriving from the name of St. Peter. The little bird seems to run across the surface of the water, bracing itself with its feet against the crests of the waves. It does this because a ship’s propeller, especially during a storm, brings many tiny animals to the surface, on which these little birds feed. The term should undoubtedly be regarded as standard and acceptable for use. Birds almost the size of geese live along the coasts of the Atlantic and other oceans, though their numbers have now been greatly reduced. T. Ivanauskas wrote about them as follows: “The order of pelicans also includes the family of boobies (Sulidae). The name ‘sula’ is borrowed from Old Scandinavian, and one of the best-known species (S. bassana) takes its name from Bass Rock, off the east coast of Scotland. In some languages (German, Polish, Russian), these birds are called fools. This ill-chosen name comes from the fact that, folding their wings, they plunge into the water from a great height like stones in order to catch fish. In Lithuanian we still have no name for this bird, so I propose the name ‘padūkelis,’ which is not derogatory and better suits this bird’s 108 bold actions”2. The word padūkelis, used in this sense, is not found in the “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language.” This term is fairly uncommon. The bird’s unusual behavior, taken as the distinguishing feature of the concept, is not its “games,” as the motivation of the word padūkelis might suggest. Therefore, we would suggest calling this bird by a different term (e.g., narūnpaukštis, and the like). In Canada lives a bird related to thrushes, Dumetella carolinensis. T. Ivanauskas calls it kačstrazdis (its voice is supposedly similar to a cat’s meow). This coinage is incorrect. In Lithuanian, it is better called katstrazdis. In South America lives a family of birds in the woodpecker order, which T. Ivanauskas calls honey-guides (Indicatoridae). These sparrow-sized birds are very fond of the brood of hymenopterous insects. T. Ivanauskas writes about them as follows: “To reach a bee’s nest, the little bird enlists the help of others—a bee-eater, a badger, or a human. Having found a bee’s nest, the bird calls in a distinctive voice and, keeping close to the person, approaches the place where the nest is until it finally reaches its goal. In this way it can lead a person for about 1,000 meters; then it stops and waits for the honey to be taken, while it gets the brood”3. Elsewhere in the same book, T. Ivanauskas calls this bird medvedis (p. 148). Both terms (honey-guide and medvedis) are fairly uncommon. We would suggest deriving the bird’s name from the word honeycomb, that is, koriapaukštis, and the like. The word bitininkas is already taken, as it denotes another little bird that occasionally wanders into Lithuania—Merops apiaster. Large birds of prey—the vultures—are widespread in Eurasia. They feed on carrion. One species, the griffon vulture (Gyps fulvus), is also described in “The Fauna of Lithuania” (V., 1990). The largest representative of their subfamily is the bearded vulture (Gypaëtus barbatus). This term is formed in the same way as the words žuvėdra and žmogėdra. Other similar compounds, skruzdėda (not skruzdėdra) and pelėda (not pelėdra), are formed somewhat differently. Why? Could there have been some mistake here? No, everything follows a regular pattern. The words 2 Ivanauskas T. Pasaulio paukščiai. V.:Vaga, 1971. P. 44–45. 3 Ivanauskas T. Ten pat. P. 203. 109 fish-eat-er and water-eat-er are formed together by making a compound word and adding a suffix. Thus, the ornithological terms water-eater and fish-eater are entirely correct. However, T. Ivanauskas’s variant aviedra4 should not be considered normative. Kazimieras GAIVENIS 4 Ivanauskas T. Ibid. P. 66. 110