Žvilgsnis į kasybos barą

Eduardas VODZINSKAS A GLANCE AT MINING Lithuanian mining terminology consists of common-language words, neologisms, international terms, loanwords, and calques from Russian, German, and other languages. Not all terms that make their way into print take root. Some calques are replaced by more meaningful words. For instance, the calque pilmūtė for the Russian term целик, offered in V. Gudelis’s “Dictionary of Geological and Physical-Geographical Terms” (V., 1956), is hard to imagine even when one knows its meaning: “a part of a mineral deposit left as a support holding up the roof of an underground excavation to prevent collapse.” Hence another term is used — atram.sluoksnis. It corresponds to the English term pillar, “support, column, post.” A support stratum is also the part of a mineral deposit left in an open pit for vehicles to travel on when soft rocks underlie it. In J. Dalinkevičius’s articles, it is written that he studied at a mining institute (in Russian, горный институт); later, after the Second World War, it was stated that he enrolled at a mining institute “to study geology and the sciences of the mining industry”1. Lithuanians who later studied at this institute would say that they had studied at a mining institute and worked where minerals were extracted, whether the mines were in mountains or hollows. Without dividing people into mountain miners and hollow miners, and calling the field of study encompassing all mines mining, it is also fitting to call this St. Petersburg institute, as some do, a mining institute. When the term mountain mining was abandoned and mining came into use, V. Kvietkauskas, deputy editor-in-chief of the then Chief Editorial Office of Encyclopedias, remarked that he felt as though he had moved from the bed of a truck into the cabin of a passenger car. Lithuania still has no underground mines, although the need for them—for example, to extract anhydrite—has been discussed for a long time. There are mines in neighboring countries—Poland, Belarus, and Estonia. Information about mines and the work done in them also comes from Lithuanian political prisoners, deportees, and emigrants in other countries. Little is known about the Lithuanian mining terms used in emigrants’ books and newspapers. Their collec- 1Žr. kn.: Lietuvos geologija ir profesorius Mykolas Kaveckis. V.-K., 1969. P.45; Juozas Dalinkevicius. V., 1988. P. 30. 44 tion is to be gathered from writings by political prisoners who worked in mines and were sent back from Lithuania, in which even unheard-of terms can be found, for example: shaft-quarry, roof above the shaft opening, temperature gauge, percussion rock-drilling machine2. The last two terms are clear, but the first two are like puzzles. In the past, when the simplest picks were used in mines, the work site was called a cutting place; since digging was also needed there, it was also called a digging place. But for a long time now, rocks in mines have been broken up by machines and even explosives, and then excavated and transported using various mechanical means. It is inaccurate to call such a work site a cutting place, because that term does not encompass the most important operation—excavation. Therefore it is called a digging place, like a mine (not a cutting mine), a coal mine (not a coal-cutting site), and so on. In Lithuanian, the words asla and padas are used both with distinct meanings (house floor, shoe sole) and as synonyms (pavement floor, pavement base). In mining, these terms are sometimes used with the same meaning, especially in speech, but more often they have distinct meanings: for example, the lower surface of a selected seam or deposit is called the sole, while the surface on which it rests is called the floor. They become synonyms only when, say, a selected seam in a mine has been excavated (instead of floor, sole is also used). To avoid confusion, it is suggested that these terms not be conflated and that each be used consistently, regardless of whether the seam has been excavated. The same applies to the names for the upper surface of a seam and the lower surface of the overlying seam (and rocks). Most often, the rocks overlying the selected seam are called the roof (in Russian, кровля; in English, roof), whereas if the seam has been excavated underground, the surface of the rocks hanging above the void is called the ceiling. Sometimes, when loose rocks lie above the selected seam and part of the seam is left to support them, that part is also called the roof or the temporary ceiling. Ideally, the upper surface of the selected seam would be called the roof, and the surface covering it the ceiling, regardless of whether the seam has been excavated. Incidentally, this will probably be resolved in practice once Lithuania has an underground mine. At present, when measuring the thickness of a stratum or seam, it is said to be measured from the roof to the sole, while an underground excavation is measured from the ceiling to the floor. 2 Žr. kn.: Norilsko vyčiai. V., 1992. P.48-50, 127, 155. 45 Before the Second World War, geologists, for example Dalinkevičius, called the quantity (volume) of a mineral deposit resources. In the postwar years, some geologists, apparently having forgotten or not knowing this term, translated the Russian term запас as reserves, or even used both words in a single sentence as synonyms: «...> freshwater resources, to explore more mineral-water reserves3. Furthermore, the quantity of poorly explored mineral resources came to be called resources. At present, only one term—resources—is used in documents of the Lithuanian Geological Survey, whereas geologists call stockpiles minerals and other materials that have been mined and piled in storage, say, for the winter season. In hydrogeology, the term filter has always been used. It is a device that supports the wall of a water-bearing horizon well so that rocks do not crumble from it and their particles do not enter the well, while allowing water to pass freely; that is, it serves as a strainer. Water passes through certain small holes and meshes in it, made of stainless metals, plastic, fiberglass, and other materials. However, this filter can be called a strainer only when hydrogeologists themselves decide to do so, since these terms are currently regarded differently. For example, the “Lithuanian Soviet Encyclopedia” describes a filter, but does not mention a strainer. In the “Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian” (V., 1972), filter and strainer are equivalent synonyms. In mining, these terms have different meanings: a strainer is for straining, whereas a filter is for settling, for example, dust from the air using an electric charge. Only the variety in the use of a few mining terms has been mentioned, and there are more. As the example of filter and strainer shows, the use of international terms when a Lithuanian word exists depends mainly on a decisive decision by linguists, its justification, and agreement among users. 3Geologų darbai Tarybų Lietuvoje. – V., 1977. P. 61. 46