Žemaičių kalbos dvasia Romualdo Granausko kūryboje

JUOZAS PABRĖŽA Vilnius University Šiauliai Academy Research areas: Lithuanian phonetics, dialectology, the Samogitian language, its dialects, subdialects, and vernaculars. DOI: doi.org/10.35321/all84-19 THE SPIRIT OF THE SAMOGITIAN LANGUAGE IN THE WORKS OF ROMUALDAS GRANAUSKAS 0. INTRODUCTION Quite a lot has indeed been written about the work of the talented Samogitian writer Romualdas Granauskas. And it is probably entirely understandable that, as a Samogitian, the works about my favorite writer’s oeuvre that I find most acceptable, comprehensible, and dear are those written by Samogitians such as Marcelijus Martinaitis, Elena Bukelienė, Viktorija Daujotytė, and Liudvikas Gadeikis. In 2017, Viktorija Daujotytė wrote and published what is perhaps the most comprehensive and most recent study of R. Gavanauskas’s life and work, “Granas: Cracking Reality.” Incidentally, all the Samogitians mentioned knew the writer very well and had communicated with him extensively, especially E. Bukelienė and V. Daujotytė. I greatly value and feel proud that I, too, have had a little chance to spend time conversing with Romualdas Granauskas. This, of course, happened first and foremost through my Great Teacher, the linguist Professor Aleksas Girdenis. A. Girdenis and R. Granauskas were very close “friends,” natives of the same Mažeikiai region, and they spent a great deal of time together while living in Vilnius. Our first meeting took place in the summer of 1975. I, a second-year student at Vilnius University, and our lecturer A. Girdenis were returning from a dialectological expedition in Žagarė and stopped in Mažeikiai. From there I had to continue traveling to my native Skuodas, while Girdenis had Daubariai, where his mother and his sister’s family lived, within easy reach. Already at the bus station, the two of us Samogitians wanted to say goodbye, but unexpectedly we saw a third Samogitian—the writer Romualdas Granauskas. On that hot summer day he was completely barefoot—I still do not understand why—wandering around the Mažeikiai bus station, and, of course, the two Mažeikiai friends rushed into each other’s arms with indescribable enthusiasm. I, too, was introduced to the writer. R. Granauskas’s famous book “Bread Eaters” had just been published. R. Granauskas announced this very excitedly, but immediately Articles / Articles 357 JUOZAS PABRĖŽA already somewhat sadly lamented that he no longer had a single book he would want to inscribe for us. But Granauskas would not be Granauskas if he had not immediately found a way out. He suddenly took us to the Mažeikiai Public Library and firmly ordered the librarian to give us two books already stamped by the library. And that seventeenth-page-stamped book, „Duonos valgytojai“, with the writer’s inscription and autograph, is especially dear and precious to me. Later we met several times in Vilnius, and once in Šiauliai. I was one of those Samogitians to whom Romualdas Granauskas, especially during the last years of his life, called by telephone from his apartment in Vilnius to Šiauliai more than once. Those calls were usually very late and, of course, we talked mostly about Samogitia, the Samogitian language, Samogitian writing, and other important aspects of Samogitian identity. And one deep night, the two of us sang Romualdas’s favorite Samogitian song over the phone, „Ir paaugo žali liepa“. And here is another unexpected coincidence involving our Samogitian trio. I said goodbye to Romualdas Granauskas on October 30, 2014, when, prepared for his final journey, he lay in Vilnius University’s Church of Sts. John. On that very same day, nearby, in the Donelaitis Reading Room of the Faculty of Philology of Vilnius University, an international scholarly conference was being held in memory of Professor Aleksas Girdenis, R. Granauskas’s comrade-in-arms. After the presentations, Professor Danguole Mikulėnienė and I stayed somewhere on Pilies Street to buy flowers and went to the Church of Sts. John to say goodbye to the writer. And in the coffin Romualdas Granauskas seemed to me like the hardest and eternally enduring, immovable kulis of Samogitia itself. While writing a book about the Samogitian language and orthography, I would often pause and ask myself where exactly lay the power of R. Granauskas’s works, from which the true, incomparable spirit of the Granauskian Samogitian language flows so naturally. Many who have written about R. Granauskas’s work notice and emphasize its distinctive Samogitianness. Elena Bukelienė, who knew the writer well and thoroughly studied his literary legacy, notes that R. Granauskas’s „kūrybą lyg kokia aura gaubia ypatingas žemaitiškumas. Gal jis ne visada akivaizdus, nes jį sudaro ne vien paviršutinis regioninis koloritas, vienas kitas žodelis su intonacija, o labai gilūs, nelengvai nusakomi dalykai – ir istoriniai, ir dvasiniai“ (Bukelienė 1999: 136). Viktorija Daujotytė, who devoted much of herself to R. Granauskas’s work, presents the writer as „Žemaitijos ir žemaitiškumo kūrėją“, summarizing very precisely and aptly: „Jei ne Granauskas, menkiau suvoktume žemaičius, jų prigimtį, savo genties jutimą“ (Daujotytė 2017: 18). Liudvikas Gadeikis, another Samogitian writer from the Mosedis region, where R. Granauskas lived for a long time and which he described so warmly, realistically, and lovingly, confesses so openly and sincerely: „Iki piktumo man artima Romualdo Granausko kūryba. Rodos, kiaurai pažįstama žemaičių žemė, ir aš taip jaučiu, tą patį regiu ir suvokiu. Tik pasakyti taip tiksliai ir aiškiai nemoku. Taip talentingai, 358 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Žemaičių kalbos dvasia Romualdo Granausko kūryboje that every word seems unique, irreplaceable. So meaningful and eloquent (perhaps only to Samogitians?) that one does not want to ask: why was it not said this way, and what does that other one mean? One need only read“ (Gadeikis 1989: 138). More than one researcher of R. Granauskas’s work has noted the vivid reflection in it of the writer’s native Northern Samogitian dialect. However, there are not many more extensive studies or articles on the language of R. Granauskas’s works, especially on that language’s pronounced Samogitianness. Preliminary hints about the distinctiveness and Samogitian character of the language of R. Granauskas’s works can already be found in the works of the aforementioned and other authors. Elena Bukelienė observes that the writer’s literary texts are in a sense „vertimai iš žemaičių į bendrinę kalbą – išlaikytos žemaičių šnekos intonacijos, pamatiniai žodžiai, sakinio sandara“ (Bukelienė 2000: 25). Marcelijus Martinaitis primarily associates the strength of the writer R. Granauskas’s authorship with „sugerta to krašto kalba, ilgaamže patirtimi, šventumo pasiilgimu“ (Martinaitis 2002: 207). The linguist Jonas Palionis, having described the writer as a literary star of the Samogitians, notes that in R. Granauskas’s writings „žėrėte žėri jo gimtosios tarmės perl lukai, raiškūs ir vaizdingi žodžiai bei žodžių junginiai, galintys praturtinti mūsų bendrinę kalbą“ (Palionis 2014: 86). The works of Gražina Akelaitienė, Daina Žiliutė-Bartašienė, and Ina Pošk u vienė on the lexical dialectisms of R. Granauskas’s work deserve separate mention (Akelaitienė, Bartašienė 2011: 5–15; Pošk u vienė 2013: 2–11). Juozas Pabrėža has written somewhat about R. Granauskas’s Samogitian features and the significance of his native dialect for his work (2017: 164–166; 2018a: 133–135). Thus, the distinctive Samogitianness of R. Granauskas’s work, the language reflecting the writer’s native region, has been noticed and appreciated by more than one person. Yet for a long time I have been unable to shake the question of why, only when reading Granauskas, such a miracle occurs: without realizing it, you perceive and catch yourself feeling that, in the subconscious, the entire Granauskas text being read flows in the Samogitian language. I have heard more than one Samogitian describe experiencing a similar feeling. And yet the works are written in standard Lithuanian. This means that beneath the superficial phonetics and orthography of the standard language there lies, much more deeply, a powerful and exceptionally vital spirit of the Samogitian language. As V. Daujotytė has aptly observed, „Granausko kalba neturi pastovaus pavidalo, kiekvienu kūriniu ji iš naujo susidar i n ė ja patirties kalbai [...] įsiliejant į bendrinę, bet nesusiliejant“ (Daujotytė 2017: 285–286). Let us open up one or another layer of the Samogitian language of R. Granauskas’s work. This article will draw on examples from the following books by Romualdas Granauskas: „Duonos valgytojai“, 1975 (DV), „Baltas vainikas juodam garvežiui“, 1987 (BV), „Vakaras, paskui rytas, 1995 (VR), „Gyvulėlių dainavimas“, 1998 (GD), „Šunys danguje“, 2005 (ŠD), „Rūkas virš slėnių“, 2007 (RS), „Raudonas ant balto“, 2010 (RB), „Trys vienatvės“, 2012 (TV), „Išvarytieji“, Įžvalgos / Insights 359 JUOZAS PABRĖŽA 2013 (I), “Trečias gyvenimas”, 2014 (TG), “Šventųjų gyvenimai”, 2014 (ŠG). In the works of Juozas Pabrėža in recent years, an attempt has been made to substantiate that the most important and distinctive marker of Samogitian identity is the Samogitian language, which has all the essential levels and components necessary for every language: phonetics, morphology, syntax, and lexicon (see Pabrėža 2017: 43–113; 2018: 187–195; 2019: 141–152; 2020: 273–280). We also find vivid reflections of all these levels in the work of R. Granauskas. 1. PHONETIC SAMOGITIANISMS At first glance, it would seem difficult to imagine—and scarcely possible—to find phonetic features characteristic of a dialect in a literary text. After all, ordinarily all dialectal sounds are transposed into the standardized sounds of the standard language. Yet even in this area R. Granauskas manages to bring out Samogitianness. 1.1. Endings are quite often shortened in the Samogitian manner, e.g.: yr ‘is’, bėr ‘there is’, tėr ‘there is only’, teber ‘still is’, nėr ‘is not’, neber ‘is no longer’, pondievs ‘Lord God’, šūds ‘shit’, žvyds ‘starling’, nieks ‘nobody’, vel’s ‘devil’, pakišts ‘put underneath’, gyvs teber ‘is still alive’, reik ‘is needed’, užein ‘comes in’, meluo ‘lies’, nešio ‘carries’ (Kur tave velnias nešio! BV 82). 1.2. The short vowel e is omitted in prefixes, e.g.: tebturi ‘still has’, nebturiu ‘no longer have’, nebgaliu ‘can no longer’, nebišeina ‘does not come out anymore’, nebreikia ‘is no longer needed’, nebtaisau ‘no longer repair’, nebdera ‘no longer fits’, nebnorėjo ‘no longer wanted’, nebkišk ‘do not put in anymore’. 1.3. Consonants j, v, n are added or inserted, e.g.: jema ‘takes’ (Eisiu, prašysiuos valdžios, lai jema¹, lai veža į kokius senelių namus ar kur. VR 238), jem ‘takes’ (Šaltis jem atsakančiai. VR 231), jemi ‘take’, apsivobuluoja ‘becomes covered with apples’ (Mūsų popierinė (t. y. obelis) miestelyje pirmoji apsivobuluoja. I 29), kninga ‘book’, piningų ‘money’, piningus ‘money’, sodnas ‘garden’. 1.4. Vowels i, e are inserted, e.g. lopišy ‘cradle’ (accusative), palitą ‘coat’ (accusative), literius ‘liters’ (Tris literius smetonos buvau susitaisiusi. TV 94). 1.5. The following words characteristic of Samogitian are written with altered root vowels: lytai ‘rain’, lytaus ‘of rain’, lytotos ‘rainy’ (Ji labai nemėgo lytotų dienų. I 31), šilima ‘warmth’ (Man daug šilimos nereik. I 82), naujynos ‘news’, pagelba ‘help’, ragės ‘sleds’, kamulį ‘ball of yarn’ (Tu tik užsim esk ant viršaus savo centymetrą, žirkles, siūlų kamulį su pribadytomis adatomis... ŠG 15), liptas ¹ Examples are distinguished, i.e. set in bold, at the author’s discretion. 360 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Žemaičių kalbos dvasia Romualdo Granausko kūryboje ‘lieptas’ (Here it is not wide at all, so through it is thrown liptas – the two sides of the pattern cut lengthwise. ŠD 158). 1.6. Sometimes even the new consonants foreign to the old Samogitians are replaced f, h, ch and it is written: pigūra ‘figure’, purmonas ‘carter’, portigrapčikas ‘photographer’, portigrapuoti ‘to photograph’, pijalkos ‘wood anemones’, Pilimana ‘Filomena’, bugalteris ‘accountant’, jektarelius ‘hectare’, Jogana ‘Johanna’, karakteris ‘character’, zotetnikas ‘zootechnician’, Mikalina ‘Michalina’. 1.7. The sounds t, d are also sometimes pronounced and written in Samogitian instead of the affricates č, dž, for example: tretysis ‘third’, su rūgštu pienu ‘with sour milk’, rūgštos uogos ‘sour berries’, rūgštų kopūstų ‘sour cabbage’, meldamoji ‘the one being prayed to’. Conversely, instead of t, with the sound č characteristic of Samogitian, we find the word koplyčelė, ‘little chapel’, much loved and repeatedly used by Granauskas². 1.8. It may be that a sound characteristic of Samogitian, although not represented in writing, is heard when reading—perhaps subconsciously?—only in the Samogitian manner. For example, R. Granauskas’s favored word alksnynas and its other forms alksniai, alksniukai, juodalksniai are heard by Samogitians only with a hard-pronounced consonant l. 1.9. We find not only individual sounds written in Samogitian, but also entire phrases, for example: brongiausis brolėli ‘dearest little brother’, brongieji brolėli ‘dear little brother’ GD 47, neozmėršk vuotegą! ‘don’t forget the whip’ TG 39, vėsi – nomei! ‘everyone home’ TG 92, pěimenys – nomei! ‘herdsmen—home!’ TG 93. And the character Petrošius in the novel “The Fog over the Valleys” delivers an entire dialogue wholly in Samogitian, because, according to the writer, “he simply did not know how otherwise”: “Vakale mona!.. Aš daug metų sunke derbau Amerikuo, spaudiau pininga pri pininga, tonke pats griauždams vėn jouda plota. Negaliejau turiete diel tuo ni patiuos, ni savo vakū. Jūs vėsė esat kaip je ir mona vaka, jums aš i pastatiau šiuo muokykla. Jeigu pats būtųu turiejęs didiesni muoksla – aš i tuo pininga būtųu daugiau uždėrbęs, vo jūsu muokykla būtųom daba poikesne. Nu šiuos dēinuos muokykitės tuokiuo, kuoki yr. Netronkykėt soulu, nebraižykėt šeinu, nelaužykėt vuobilėliu, aš anas dėl jūsu patiū padėjiau. Nešuokiniekėt par tas ėgėles, kad nenulaužytomėt veršūnieliu, kitep anuos nebožaugs dėdėlės, neužstųs nu vėjė… Muokykitės, nu maža būkėt taupė, kad po savėi turietomėt kou i kėtėms palėktė…“ RS 16–17³. ² Viktorija Daujotytė identifies this word as an essential phonetic Samogitianism (Daujotytė 2017: 13–14). ³ In this text, Granauskas partly follows the standardized Samogitian orthography developed by A. Girdenis and J. Pabrėža, insofar as the printing-house possibilities of the time allowed (see Girdenis, Pabrėža 1998: 1–80). Įžvalgos / Insights 361 JUOZAS PABRĖŽA 2. MORPHOLOGICAL SAMOGITIANISMS Samogitian morphological forms—differences in certain cases, persons, and other forms of individual parts of speech, as well as in word formation—are found in many works by R. Granauskas. In general, morphological Samogitianisms are favored by the writer and constitute one of the more prominent signs of the reflection of the Samogitian language in his work. 2.1. A rather lively Samogitian dual lends striking authenticity and colorfulness. The dual of pronouns and verbs is especially frequent. Instead of the pronouns mudu, mudvi, we often find the older forms vedu, vedvi, for example: Vedu negaliav! Kaip tik išgėriav – už karto durni paliektav!!.. ‘We two cannot! As soon as we drink—we become fools at once!..’ TV 63; Vedvi ne ant tų popierių – vedvi ant savo smerčio pasirašev!.. ‘The two of us did not sign those papers—we signed our own death warrant!..’ I 138; Niekas vedvėms neginė­s! ‘No one would argue with the two of us!’ GD 72; Abudu žinov, už ką išgersiav! ‘The two of us know what we will drink to’ ŠG 126. The dual is characteristic of forms of various verb tenses and moods, for example: einav ‘we go’, galiv ‘we can’, augov ‘we grew’, nematėv ‘we did not see’, pasimelsiav ‘we will pray’, išsiverksiav ‘we will cry it out’, bepasimaty­siv ‘we will still meet’, galvokiav ‘let us think’, nebe­rkiav ‘let us no longer drink’; Išgerkiav, prisiminkiav savo meilę – ir lai velnias traukia viską. ‘Let us drink, let us remember our love—and let the devil take everything.’ RS 257. Less frequently, but still occasionally, the dual of nouns, adjectives, and even participles is used, for example: add du rubliu to me RV 257; two loaves of bread du kepalu VR 257; already dvi žiemi had been freezing VR 186; du baltu bokštu with transparent crosses GD 35; during those ten years jiedu had not been išsiskyrusiu for a single day I 72. 2.2. Samogitian forms of the past frequentative tense are common, in which an infinitive or the future tense is added to the present tense of the semantically empty auxiliary verb liuobėti, for example: liuobu nusukti ‘I would turn off’, liuobu pagalvoti ‘I would think’, liuobi palikti ‘you would leave’, liuobi apsivy­turti ‘you would wrap yourself’, liuob pasakoti ‘he/she would tell’; Do you remember how liuob gerti? ‘Do you remember how he/she used to drink?’ RV 213; liuob pasisakyti ‘he/she would speak up’, liuob parodys ‘he/she would show’, liuob tilps ‘he/she would fit’, liuob parveš ‘he/she would bring back’; And afterward, at meetings, he/she would call everyone laikys! ‘mad!’ GD 56. It is characteristic of Samogitian that in a longer text the past frequentative tense, without repeating the auxiliary verb liuob, can be replaced solely by future-tense forms. Here is an entire large paragraph of such a typical example from the novella “Bružas”: “Ateis Jonkus, carrying a bottle, ateis Galdikas, carrying two: as always, Galdikas teturės one in his pocket, while he paslėps the second one when coming through Bružas’s barley field, so that Bružienė would not scold him for bringing so much. Once all three bus išgėrę a bottle each, and Bružienė nebeduos them any more, she išvadins them drunkards and lieps them to disperse 362 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Žemaičių kalbos dvasia Romualdo Granausko kūryboje to their wives, Galdikas blinks, and begins fumbling for his cap. All three emerge into the dawning yard. Jonkus and Galdikas walk arm in arm in front, Bružas following them behind, until they reach those barley fields. Cursing, Galdikas wades along the entire edge, while Bružas and Jonkus do the same, without giving the slightest thought to how, the next morning, those barley fields trampled and crushed by the three men will look to Bružienė.” BV 17–18. 2.3. Imperative forms with the particle lai ‘let’ are favored, e.g.: Eisiu, prašysios valdžios, lai jema, lai veža į kokius senelių namus ar kur. ‘I will go and ask the authorities; let them take me, let them take me to some old people’s home or somewhere’ VR 238; lai kinko į rages arklį ‘let them harness the horse to the sleigh’ TG 39; Lai sau mano, lai sau laido liežuv̇ius. ‘Let them think what they like, let them wag their tongues’ RS 125; lai atsigauna širdis už visus tris mėnesius ‘let the heart recover for all three months’ VR 258. The expression lai būn ‘let it be’ occurs frequently. 2.4. There are also older athematic forms of the verb used by Samogitians, e.g.: miegta per dienas ‘sleeps all day’ GD 55; paliekta ‘leaves’; and those pastries perhaps pasiliektam rytui ‘and perhaps we will save those pastries for tomorrow’ I 137. 2.5. Various Samogitian reflexive forms of verbs are quite frequent. Instead of the infinitive reflexive form –tis, the form with –ties is used, e.g.: melsties ‘to pray’, kinkyties ‘to harness oneself’, prašyties ‘to ask for oneself’, skirstyties ‘to disperse’, rokuoties ‘to talk with one another’, reikės numirties kaip per karą ‘one will have to die as in wartime’ GD 49; esu nugalvojusi čia pat miestely laidoties ‘I have decided to be buried right here in the town’ GD 49. Other reflexive verb forms include: pavalgykis ‘eat’, gulsusys ‘you will lie down’, Parnešusys tuojau pargrižk! ‘Having brought it, come straight back!’ GD 71; nesulauksiuos ‘I will not wait’, [...] o kas mane atgal beparvės iš to Vilniaus, kai ten numirsiuos? ‘and who will bring me back from that Vilnius when I die there?’ GD 49; Tai kuomet aš tavęs sulauksiuos? ‘So when will I see you again?’ VR 257; [...] bet jūs, ubagai, su mano Juodžiu nevažinėsitės ‘but you beggars will not ride around with my Juodis’ RB 52; Parėjos su Kaziūne namie [...]. ‘We came home with Kaziūnė’ GD 77. 2.6. There are various forms of the Samogitian verb bengti ‘to finish’, e.g.: bengia ‘finishes’, bengsi ‘you will finish’, pabengsi ‘you will finish’, pabengęs ‘having finished’, pabengsiav ‘we will finish’, pabenkim ‘let us finish’, Amžių bengu ‘I am finishing’ nugyventi, o negirdėjau, kad žmogus gulėdamas galėtų ką norintais dirbti!.. TV 149. 2.7. Instead of the pronouns jis, ji, the forms ans, uns, ana are used particularly frequently. Incidentally, such a stem may be retained in the forms of all cases, e.g.: ans ‘he’, ano ‘his’, anam ‘to him’, ana ‘she’, anos ‘her’, anai ‘to her’, aną ‘her’, anie ‘they’, anų ‘their’, aniems ‘to them’. 2.8. The demonstrative pronouns tas, ta in Samogitian often perform the function of the definite article and are considered artroids⁴. This gives the sentence a distinctive liveliness and additional expressiveness. Such sentences abound in R. Granauskas’s works, e.g.: ⁴ Apie tai žr. Rosinas 2009: 84–93; Vaskelienė 2016: 210. Įžvalgos / Insights 363 JUOZAS PABRĖŽA And that garden, and those potatoes had to keep all three of us alive through the coming winter. RB 29; You fool!.. that tall one, that Vaclovas, burst out. BV 105; That fluttering, that goodness, and that which you cannot describe to anyone. BV 112; Lieutenant, comrade, we caught that Beržonskis liaison woman. ŠG 18; Many times I have dreamed of you in that Siberia. GD 49; Even mathematically speaking, the two of them could not possibly have met in that Vilnius. ŠG 94; I will no longer ride your bicycle downhill over potholes! RS 103; Milda!.. Will you weed those potatoes, or will you stand there until evening after solving it? RS 107; More than once he wanted to photograph that mist above the valleys. RS 198. 2.9. A fairly common use characteristic of Samogitian is the pronouns katras, katra (instead of the standard-language kuris, kuri), e.g.: Katras norit sėdėti prie lango? RB 32; Two little boys were pulling an old bast shoe of their father’s katras toward themselves. GD 39; Now katra only younger, katra only prettier—all of them are that kind of flirt. ŠG 82; And at the end of katro will you hang it? BV 15; The town organist tried, explained that one should blow into the end of katrą. RB 75; Well, choose which katroje you would like to lie in! GD 93; Only in that one, katroje can deep feelings hide. RS 94; One Gedrimas sobered up and turned in all directions, trying to make out katrie are singing here now?.. GD 76. 2.10. Instead of the pronoun kur, most often in interrogative sentences, the pronoun kame is found, e.g.: Kame brolis yr? GD 211; Kame reikėjo taip nušalti? RB 79; O kame dabar tas anos vaikas? RS 223; Tai kame taip ilgai buvai? VR 74; O kame tu gauni? VR 236; Kame anie tau taip ir nusitepa? ŠG 54; Štai kame tu betupįs. TV 177; Kažkame stribokai šaudo. ŠG 80. 2.11. The pronoun kada is sometimes replaced by the pronoun kuomet, e.g.: And kuomet nebuvo? TG 100; Mother, and kuomet aš galėsiu Mildai pasirodyti? RS 45; Dear son-in-law, dear son-in-law, and kuomet dar beateisi prie kokio darbelio? RS 100; So kuomet aš tavęs sulauksiuos? RV 257. 2.12. Attributive forms of pronouns and adjectives are favored, e.g.: Retasis vyras teišveria taip kasti. I 89; If I do not understand—kitasis nė tiek. GD 54; Only kitieji have become completely gentle. GD 61; Among the Russians there are people a hundred times better than mūsuosius. GD 54; She alone is worth jūsąsias two. BV 72; I ran for savąjį, not for tavąjį. GD 69; I will bring a sack of mediniųų from the forest (i.e., apples). VR 192. 2.13. In Samogitian, noun declensions IV and V have considerably declined, with most of their cases having shifted to declensions I and III. Here are forms used by R. Granausko: All three Beržonskis sūnai ‘sons’ were still unmarried. ŠG 8; with both sūnais ‘with both sons’, with sūnu ‘with a son’, with medu ‘with honey’, I cannot complain much, but even my medais ‘with honey’ is not smeared. VR 238; I wanted to live as with a žmogų ‘human being’. VR 213; Pietai ‘lunch’ is already on the table! TV 68; šunies ‘dog’s’, akmenio ‘stone’s’, seseries ‘sister’s’. Instead of the standard-language word žmogus ‘person’, the plural form žmonės ‘people’ has the form žmonys, e.g.: Have you heard how žmonys speak? I 120; Man nedaug 364 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Žemaičių kalbos dvasia Romualdo Granausko kūryboje I need little and somehow manage to feed the children; žmonys give [it]. ŠG 52; Well, žmonys! They did not even let me put my things down! ŠG 89. 2.14. The transition of adjectives from the second declension to the first is shown by the following examples from R. Granauskas: small clouds ‘small clouds’ TV 89; deep feelings ‘deep feelings’ RS 94; are they very sweet? ‘are they very sweet?’ I 137; young, fierce men ‘young, fierce men’ ŠG 10; from terrible drunkenness ‘from terrible drunkenness’ RS 233; clean water ‘clean water’ ŠD 175. 2.15. The neuter gender of adjectives is sometimes replaced by adverbs, e.g.: Is it sunkiai to die? ‘Is it difficult to die?’ RS 195; But is it sunkiai for you to say... ‘But is it difficult for you to say...’ ŠG 34; Let the devil take it, how bjauriai it is! ‘Let the devil take it, how vile it is!’ ŠG 131; Was it very baisiai? ‘Was it very frightening?’ RS 48. 2.16. Some Samogitian adverbs, unlike those of the standard language, have the formants –uo, –ie, e.g.: viduo ‘inside’, tolie ‘far’, You got frightened and went through the forest tamsie ‘in the dark’ and came back. ŠG 15; [...] yesterday the electricity merely flashed twice for us!—and we were left tamsie ‘in the dark’... RS 93–94; He snaps because of savie ‘himself’ having taken it. RS 203; Everyone has grown accustomed to living savie ‘for oneself, for one’s own sake’. ŠG 129; Go, Šimkau, numie ‘home’. ŠG 132; Just dash namie ‘home’! RS 251. 2.17. Among word-formation features, noteworthy is the suffix –alis, –alė, characteristic of Samogitian and found in R. Granausko’s works, e.g.: krėšlalis, mamalė, būdalė; Come here, vakali! RS 23. With this suffix we find the following place names: Montekalės apluoka, Dvaralis (village), Upalis (river). The suffix –alė is typical of Samogitian maiden surnames, e.g.: Šopalė ‘Šopaitė’, Bertašalė ‘Bertašiūtė’. 2.18. The suffix –sen–, denoting an action, is also characteristic and favored, e.g.: And I myself waited for bliausena ‘crying’ to be heard in the room. TG 26; [...] meluosena is more than Birutė can stand! VR 249; When your sprogsena comes, you will call for me in a dog’s voice! RS 251. 2.19. In R. Granausko’s works we also find prefix-like particles pa, pra, par, iš, už used instead of a prefixed verb or preposition iš, pas, su, in response to a question and repeating that particle or preposition to intensify a particular action, e.g.: Did you take your passport?—Pa. I 39; Do you already know the clock?—Pa. I 153; Have you eaten?—Pa. RS 151; Is the window open?—Pra. DV 170; Did you bring it?—Par. ŠG 120; Did he leave?—Iš. BV 77; Has that tail healed yet?—It has už. I 153; Are you from the militia?—Iš. TV 105; Are you at Plesnys’ place?—Pas. ŠG 75; Your father, while he was alive, worked with horses, didn’t he?—Su. RS 151. Įžvalgos / Insights 365 JUOZAS PABRĖŽA 3. SAMOGITIAN SYNTACTIC FEATURES It is necessary to note that, in general, the syntax of dialects is the least researched area. Perhaps this is because it is much more difficult to penetrate that syntax and grasp it more concretely than phonetics, morphology, or lexicon. Nevertheless, more than one person has noticed that R. Granauskas’s sentence is somehow different, distinctive and special in some way, sharply cut, imbued with a peculiar Samogitian force and immovable like that Samogitian kūlis (i.e. stone). R. Granauskas himself has also written: “Grammars say that word order in a Lithuanian sentence is free. For a good prose writer—it is not free [...], and whoever has free word order may not be a good prose writer” (See Granauskas 2014: 126). According to V. Daujotytė, “for Granauskas, too, Lithuanian syntax is not free; he needs to create a sentence whose immovable order would already unfold what could also be associated with Lithuanian thinking” (Daujotytė 2017: 157). In a conversation with Romualdas Granauskas, in response to Dainora Žiliūtė’s question, “How does the selection of words take place, or does the word come by itself?” the writer answered in Samogitian as follows: “Mona galvuoju juoki atronka nevīkst. Aš nespieju rašītė. Neb algo viena sakinį, jau pėnkė trėnas. Ne žuodis [atėn], sakinē, sakinē, pastraipas... Nespieju užrašīnietė. Dã pėrms sakinīs neparašīts, vuo iš pėnkta sakinē kažkas šmėkštelė” (Žiliūtė 2011: 13). 3.1. In R. Granauskas’s sentences, the meaning of the action and its situation and time are specified more precisely through the actively used intermediate verb aspect, which is usually formed by adding adverbs of faded meaning, reinforcing particles žemėn, šalin, lauk, for example: Nukrisi žemėn kaip krupis, paskui atsakyk už tave. RB 23; Sena besu, serganti, eina nuo manęs šalin ir mano gyvenimas, ir mano sveikata. GD 47; Tėvas po kelių dienų pavarė šalin tokį kasėją. GD 58; Rudenį, nuo kurių žmonių ėmė šalin, ėmė ir pašarą. GD 60; Apvilktas antrą kartą tais jau atlenktais drabužiais, aš kažkodėl nevaikščiojau grožėdamasis savim kaip kalakutas, o tuojau ėmiau vilktis šalin. RB 30; [...] buvau jau betraukiąs lauk iš kišenės [...]. TV 78. 3.2. The use of some prepositions also differs from that of the standard language. The prepositions už, lig are used with the dative (e.g.: Už upei gyvena. ŠG 66; Šiandien bėgo per kaimą lig pusei plikas ir su šalmu ant galvos. TG 90), while the preposition ant is used with the instrumental, e.g.: Juk ant grindimis girtas begulėjo, į lovą negalėjau beįsileisti. VR 215. The preposition pas is unusually used with the accusative, e.g.: Paskui Juzis, nusivilkęs marškinius, ilgai prausėsi pas šulinį. BV 20; Jurgutienės mėlinė šakė taip pat stovėjo atremta pas duris. I 123; Bet vakare, temstant, ilgai sėdėjo vienas ant to akmens pas vartus. BV 84; Tyloje ji nedrąsiai trypčiojo pas duris. RS 125. 366 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Žemaičių kalbos dvasia Romualdo Granausko kūryboje Instead of the preposition apie, the preposition aplink is found, e.g.: Taip nieko ir nebežinau aplink tėvą. RS 206; Juk aš nieko nežinau! Nei aplink Pauliną, nei aplink Beržonskius!.. ŠG 91. Tu taip aplink Staliną?! GD 59. 3.3. It is customary to make sentences more concrete with the copula of the predicate, which is rarely omitted and is most often found at the end of the sentence, e.g.: Gal ana durniausia moteriška yra? GD 54; Aš jau nežinau, ar toks darbas per sunkus yra? VR 240; Išvirk užkandai šutynės su dešra, dar du rauginti agurkai yr... RS 257; Kame ta mano kaltė yr? GD 65; Uns negerięs yr!.. TG 80. 3.4. The highlighting of surnames is highly characteristic of R. Granauskas’s texts. In general, in Samogitia it is very customary to call even very close people by their surnames; often, beyond the family circle or within the same family, a husband and wife address or describe each other by their surnames, e.g.: Atkočiūnai, Gadeiki, Derkinti! DV 76, 81; Tylėk, Kontrimienėle, tylėk!.. GD 71; Ateik čia, Kairienėle!.. VR 233; Klausykis, Bružai!.. BV 47. R. Granauskas sometimes seems to explain this distinctiveness of the surname himself in his works. In the novel “Fog over the Valleys” it is written: – I will call you my Vyniautu! He had heard how the village women, coming to their mother for some reason, spoke about their husbands: “My Rimkus came home on all fours again yesterday,” or: “My Zabitis went to Klaipėda to buy electric bulbs” (see RS 93). In the novella “With a Butterfly on His Lips,” this highlighting of the surname is explained through the character’s own words: “– That’s all, Vaitkau, – he said [...]. He always addressed himself as ‘Vaitkau,’ because he thought such an address was self-ironic, and, in his view, self-irony is the best thing in difficult situations in life” (see GD 78). This highlighting and emphasizing of the surname is also indicated by the fact that in sentences the surname almost always comes first and only afterward the given name, e.g.: Beniušis Kazimieras, Vulužis Untons, Eidiejaus Petris, Kazlauskis Jons, Stonkaus Debora, Arlauskio Kaze, su Valantiejau Stasiu, Bertašalė Nastė, Šopalė Anicė, Anužienės Teresė5. Samogitian surnames ending in –is (rather than –as, as is usual in the standard language) should also be noted, e.g.: Granauskis, Gontauskis, Arlauskis, Beržinskis, Brazauskis, Pargaliauskis, Prialgauskis, Lekerauskis, Laureckis, Rušinskis. 3.5. Samogitian forms of some given names, e.g.: Kazė ‘Kazimieras’, Stapė ‘Steponas’, Jozė, Juzis, Jūzups, ‘Juozas, Juozapas’, Bronis ‘Bronius’, Kastis ‘Kostas, Konstantinas’, Vacis ‘Vaclovas’, Palis ‘Apolinaras’, Ontė ‘Antanas’, Antosė ‘Antanina’, Alpionas ‘Alfonsas’, Jenė ‘Janina’, Jedzė ‘Jadvyga’, Jogana ‘Joana’, Pilimana ‘Filomena’, Mikalina ‘Michalina’, Verė ‘Veronika’, Eldionė ‘Aldona’, Kaziūnė ‘Kazimiera’, Stapūnė ‘Stefanija’. 5 In Europe, such an order (the given name after the surname) is characteristic of Hungarian (see also Girdenienė 1977: 80–83). Įžvalgos / Insights 367 JUOZAS PABRĖŽA 3.6. R. Granausko’s sentences are particularly enlivened and intensified by the abundant use of participial forms of completed tenses, e.g.: Šimkus besąs užmigęs. ŠG 131; Jonas jau besąs užšokęs ant kėdės, dabar taisėsi šokti aukščiau. I 136; Gurauskiui gi bus dar blogiau: jis jau seniai bus numiręs. GD 37; Ten ji jau seniai būtų besanti numirusi. VR 191; Nepersivedė kitos, nors ne viena dar būtų leidusis parvedama. I 92; Kai šiek tiek atsitokėjau – vis dėlto besąs kažkaip nušliužęs. TG 13; Vis tiek besąs užsnūdęs. I 81; Ryto metą Liaugaudas besąs miręs. ŠG 80; Kentedama dėl savo vienatvės ji buvo galvojusi parsinešti iš gyvenvietės kačiuką. VR 186; Juk vis tiek užeisi atėjusi! VR 210; Užeinu į paštą – anūkienė besanti paėmusi. VR 236; No, Kale Ole, a da nenusprogusi tebesanti?! TV 179. 3.7. The entire sentence or phrase may be replaced by the very short particle te, which in Samogitia is said when giving something and means “here, take it,” e.g.: Te! Pour the water alongside the garden, and hang that one on the wire. I 97; Te, there is some left over from the snack. ŠG 29; Te, light it, Kazimieras. VR 82; Tė the little mirror, look at yourself. ŠG 59; Drink up, te, drink up—maybe you will not be so foolish? RS 256. 3.8. R. Granausko’s sentences abound in beautiful, most beautiful metaphors, phraseologisms, comparisons, and Samogitian-style direct, hard, earthy, vivid, witty, rare expressions. All this makes the sentences and the entire text exceptionally authentic, distinctive, expressive, lively, and appealing. Here is a handful of such sentences: With difficulty we got up, with difficulty we lay down, and in that difficulty we lay. GD 51; After all, you are no longer a youngster either—you passed your thirtieth milestone last December. GD 52; Outside the window a neither-here-nor-there day is grumbling. I 15; The old woman slowly shuffled across the settlement... VR 217; I lived, struggled, ran stumbling to work, stumbling from work; there was no time to think, one had to live, but now at night, from the very beginning, I have thought through my entire self. GD 50; That is why you cannot bring yourself to go, you do not want to cross the roads of sorrow all over again. GD 55; His gait is different again: he walks with his knees somewhat bent. I 26; Since the devil snatched the pipe, let him snatch the tobacco too. I 120; [...] I am small and shriveled like a dried toad, in two years I have not grown properly even by a finger’s breadth [...] RB 35; Oh my!.. I have turned completely into a cold bone! I 124; Jesus Mary!... I crammed seven prayers up my backside! I 85; He could have simply stabbed Pilimana in the breasts, such a weakling was she. ŠG 27; Get up!.. Are you going to sit here like something shat?.. RB 32; She will be a fertile woman. Damn you!.. Already now the crotch is grabbing at the skirt!.. TG 96; Bring your trousers!.. Don’t stand here with your little prick sticking out! BV 31; I can drink milk at the farm until I piss myself. BV 65; You know nothing about a mare’s shit. BV 20; You devil’s beggar! Drinking someone else’s, you still poke another person’s eyes!.. BV 52. 368 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Žemaičių kalbos dvasia Romualdo Granausko kūryboje 4. LEXICAL SAMOGITIANISMS The distinctive, characteristic, exceptional local color of Samogitia is reflected in typical words that are essentially characteristic only of this region. As A. Sabaliauskas aptly observed, vocabulary is “a true mirror of the external and internal world of language use” (Sabaliauskas 1966:114). Here are examples of Samogitian words used by R. Granauskas, divided into several thematic groups. 4.1. The person and parts of the human body: kramė ‘head’, šakumas ‘crotch’, uostai ‘moustache’, uosteliai ‘little moustache’. In Samogitia, a married male head of household is often called by the word žmogus, e.g.: She looked her žmogui in the face. BV 24; Next winter it will be exactly thirty years since her žmogus has lain beneath the earth. VR 191; My žmogus would never do that, don’t you know?! VR 194; That autumn her husband began drinking heavily. VR 202. A married female head of household is called by the words pati, boba, e.g.: Pati rushed closer and accidentally shot her in the calf. GD 58; Then let’s go to my place! pati will bake some dumplings... TV 87; But there is no bobos, she is lying in the hospital. VR 43; Later my boba will tear my balls off! RS 185; [...] boba is in the hospital; how can she, looking as if she had not even been washed, tend the other animals? DV 208. Instead of the word “woman,” the Samogitian forms moteriška, motriška are especially common, e.g.: There is no other way—you have taken a moterišką, you simply do not want to write. GD 53; Perhaps she is the most decent moteriška there is? GD 54; I see men, motriškas, children, bundles, sacks, but neither myself nor Elzė is in any of the carts. GD 51; However many of us motriškų had gathered, all of us except Urkauskienė sang—while I live, I will never hear singing like that again! GD 76; Do I not see what kind of happiness that town’s motriškų is? I 25. The determinate form motriškosios is also encountered, e.g.: Motriškosios dispersed, while Kazė led ours into the cowshed, having already watered Raudys. ŠD 176–177; Motriškosios!.. Hurry and bring a larger linen cloth!.. ŠD 168. We also find the word senolis, already forgotten by many, which in Samogitia means ‘grandfather’s father’, e.g.: Senolis, Daukintis repeats. Does he really no longer know what a senolis is? The grandfather’s father. DV 203. R. Granausko’s word vaikis means ‘young man, hired hand’, while merga means ‘girl, female hired hand’, e.g.: Lord, when I think about it—Bronius has already turned thirty, and even that young vaikis is no longer young. GD 53; A young merga sat on the fence rail, holding something small wrapped in newspaper in her hand. VR 217; That very week she was hired as a mergą by the Martinkus family. ŠG 24. 4.2. Food and dishes: košena ‘head cheese’, putra ‘soup’, kankolienė ‘milk soup with dumplings’, miltynė, lapynė, bulvynė, rugštynynė, cibulynė ‘a liquid dish made from toasted herring heads and onions’, šutynė ‘stewed sliced potatoes’, Įžvalgos / Insights 369 JUOZAS PABRĖŽA egg dish ‘scrambled eggs’, half-variegated porridge, half porridge ‘porridge made from grated potatoes with flour or groats’, makalas ‘sauce’, papentis ‘the end of a loaf of bread, a crust’, krekena ‘the milk of a cow that has calved or is about to calve’. 4.3. Things, phenomena, surroundings: tekinis ‘ratas’ (itin dažnas Granausko žodis)⁶, atvarslai ‘vadžios’, brigzilas ‘apynasris’, kupstis ‘sukrauta džiovinto šieno kruva’, krežis ‘krepšys’, nertinis ‘megztinis’, skreitas ‘prijuostės, sijono priešakinė dalis, suimta kam įdėti, sterblė’, kritė ‘kelnių sėdimoji dalis’ (... ilgiausia smilga su žalsvai sidabrine galvute buvo prilipusi prie kelnių kritės. BV 6), ‘užpakalis’ (Atsikėlė sumišęs, daužė plaštaką per kritę, valydamas šapus. BV 46), gembė ‘kablys sienoje’, troba ‘gyvenamasis namas’, geroji troba ‘didysis kambarys’, alkierius ‘kambarys paprastai skirtas svečiams’, kūtė ‘tvartas’, mūrelis ‘krosnis’, užduralis ‘kiemas prastoje namo pusėje’, blezdinga ‘kregždė’, blezdinginė ‘gyvenvietė’ (Tai kam sukeldavo į tokias blezdingines, ar kad dar neramiau visiems tenai būtų?.. VR 197), notrinė ‘dilgelė’, budynė ‘budėjimas prie numirėlio’, kriukis ‘ram­entas’, spagas ‘lašas’ (... jau trys dienos kiaulės nėra gavusios nė spago. RB 40), nikis ‘užgaida’ (Vėl jam nikis į subinę įlindo. TG 64). 4.4. Žodžiai įvairioms veiksmo sąvokoms ir ypatybėms reikšti: kruišti ‘grūsti’, vaksyti ‘barti’, kušinti ‘liesti, judinti’ (Ir nekušink nė vieno kero. ŠG 29), kušėti ‘krutėti, judėti, knibždėti’ (Visas krantas kušėjo nuo vaikų. RS 214), gentintis ‘giminiuotis’ (Dabar su Antosės motina jai gentintis priklauso, bet senoji jokių genty­sčių nepalaiko. VR 221), lygmalas ‘pilnas’ (Šeimininkas, nešinas lygmalu kibiru, pareina. VR 9), slinkas ‘tingus’, nepaslinkti ‘tingėti’ (... dabar jau nebepaslenku aniems tus kailius lupti. RB 27), bukštu ‘baugų’, veikiai ‘greitai’, tankiai ‘dažnai’, mitriai ‘greitai’, dideliai ‘labai’ (Dide­liai juodi debesys... GD 64), apent ‘vėl’ (Atkrisi apent! ŠG 66), musintais ‘turbūt’, rasintais ‘galbūt’, norintais ‘nors’, nebentais ‘nebent’, šalip ‘šalia’, led ‘vos’ (O sunkus yr palikęs, led atkeliamas. I 123). One of the most frequent Samogitian words used to express an action in R. Granauskas is veizėti ‘to look’. In many works we find a great variety of forms of this word: veiziui, veizi, veiz, veižėjo, pasiveižėjo, veizas, veižedamas, veizint, veižės, veižėkit, paveižėk, prisiveižėt. 4.5. There are words that are familiar not only to Samogitians but have different meanings. For Samogitians, the word Kálnai means ‘prayers with hymns’, e.g.: His arms were long, his hair reddish, and he himself was a “pravadninkas”—during the wake he would sing Kalnus. TG 27–28; And the šaukliškiai had been sitting together for a long time and were getting ready to sing Kalnus. TG 41. The Samogitian expressions išgersim po burną, išmesim po burnelę mean that we will each have a shot, a small glass, e.g.: Perhaps someone will take pity and burnelę, perhaps some kind of clumsy fellow ⁶ Apie šį žodį dar žr. (Daujotytė 2000: 83). 370 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Žemaičių kalbos dvasia Romualdo Granausko kūryboje will drive away!.. BV 47; While drinking, someone told me that the same thing had happened to another man too. VR 42; This year you will also be able to throw away the little mouth. BV 21. The writer himself tends to explain the different meaning of some words. The word gyvenimas ‘farmstead, homestead’ is frequently encountered, for example: All the other people’s gyvenimai disappeared from the face of the earth. VR 204; The cottages are gone, the gyvenimai are gone, the trees, paths, and wells are gone, but the sweat remains, now absorbed into the earth [...]. VR 209; Juzis sat and looked around: at the trees of Jonkus’s and Galdikas’s gyvenimai, rising high above that mist [...]. BV 84; Sutkus’s cottage... Rimkus’s gyvenimas... Počius’s gyvenimas... That recurring word “gyvenimas,” “gyvenimas,” by which Samogitians call a person’s homestead⁷. VR 283. R. Granauskas also explains the Samogitian meaning of the word sėti: When it is time to sėti potatoes (Samogitians sow potatoes rather than plant them) – hurry up, you can’t get a horse from the collective farm!.. TV 88. 4.6. Sometimes words that enliven a sentence are chosen according to the sound resonance of neighboring words, for example: Melioration, drainage ditches, arse ditches... GD 27; It seems someone is driving? – Shitting... – the wife replied and pushed the plate aside. BV 7; Baltiejus said that one should not think about the tsarist times, but about what we will sow and eat! GD 57–58; For three days I will sit and for three days I will eat! I 131. 4.7. There are also completely unexpected Samogitian neologisms, perhaps even coined by the writer himself, e.g.: Plates, jars, spoons, tin boxes with groats—in a word, trifles. To the right of the door—still niekiau... TV 107; [...] only a gravel road cuts across it not through the very middle, but somewhat šoniau. ŠG 5; Kysla Masla soon rattled into the store’s yard on his yellow šakūmtrau­kio ‘moped’. BV 79; He sat down on the ground, atsikolė and leaned his back against the trunk. ŠG 89; You see, you don’t know what it means not to talk with a person ilgybėmis. VR 237; Ilgybėmis you won’t set foot in the store! VR 236; Damn you, when will you leave for Riga, you such besmukčiai ‘insatiable ones’? TG 28. In the essay “A Caress of the Word,” R. Granauskas admits that he himself invented the word “liežuvmalis,” which could be used to describe more than one official or politician who speaks emptily and foolishly (Granauskas 2014: 168). 4.8. It should be noted that borrowings make up part of the vocabulary in all dialects, that is, words that today are treated and assessed in standard Lithuanian as undesirable foreignisms. It would be impossible to imagine a situation in which we suddenly eliminated all of them and discarded them from the various dialectal everyday narratives and recollections. R. Granauskas, too, does not avoid such foreignisms in moderation, clearly pursuing one goal—to convey the environment being described as authentically and vividly as possible and to characterize the characters. The overwhelming majority of such borrowings consists of words that entered the language from Slavic languages at various times, e.g.: budinkas ‘building’, grabas ‘coffin’, pečius ‘stove’, liktarna ‘lantern’, dušia ‘soul’, smertis ‘death’, veselė ‘wedding’, ⁷ Apie šį žodį dar žr. Sprindytė 2000: 35. Įžvalgos / Insights 371 JUOZAS PABRĖŽA gaspadorius ‘master of the household’, susiedas ‘neighbor’, kūmai ‘godparents’, baba, babūnė ‘grandmother’, ciocė ‘aunt’, durnius, durnė ‘fool, female fool’, kavoti ‘to hide, look after children’, rokuoties ‘to talk, converse’, vaksyti ‘to scold’. There are far fewer Germanisms, for example: rinkis ‘bow’, į rinkį ‘around, round’, šnapse ‘vodka’, švakas ‘weak, feeble’, biški, biškielį ‘a little, a tiny bit’. 4.9. Place names lend R. Granauskas’s text much warm, authentic vitality. The names of places in his native area and in the Mosėdis surroundings, where the writer lived for a considerable time, are described with particular distinction and affection: the rivers and streams Aiškūnas, Bartuva, Erla, Salantas, Notė, Šata, Nerpuolė; the villages of Šaukliai, Šaučikai, Nevočiai, Krakės, Sodas, Šatraminiai, Tėveliū; the mountains Lekstutis, Valančius, Gaubai; Tarpaliai (old gravel pits), Mosteikinė, Juodeikinė, Anužinė (bathing places), Montekalės apluoka, Šauklinė Forest, Naujokai Factory, Davatkos, Kapai, Šatiai Streets, Kataržis House, Skrubis’s cottage, Andriekienė’s farm, the stribokynas, and others. According to E. Bukelienė, the names of native places, as well as Curonian and Samogitian place names, sound to the author like the most beautiful music, like a line of good poetry (Bukelienė, Juknaitė 2004: 96). 5. INSTEAD OF CONCLUSIONS The numerous Samogitian features of the phonetics, morphology, syntax, and lexicon of Romualdas Granauskas’s works presented above partly answer the question raised at the beginning of the article: where is that genuine Granauskian spirit of the Samogitian language? Yet the writer himself answers this question even more clearly, having spoken and written more than once about his native Northern Samogitian dialect, the distinctive place and special significance of his native language in his life and work. Here is how compellingly, exaltedly, and warmly this is expressed in the essay “A Caress of the Word”: “We spoke, chattered, and whispered in dialect. At school, the only thing we did not need to learn was the dialect; it was always with us like a part of the body: lips, mouth, tongue... When speaking it, we never stumbled or furrowed our brows while searching for a more suitable word. Every word appeared on the tip of the tongue at that very instant, as soon as it was needed. A dialect is like underwear clinging to the body—we do not even feel it. The standard language is something else entirely. It is trousers and a jacket, which one must put on when going to answer questions.” No one forbade us to speak in dialect; it was as natural and understandable as breathing. In the dialect we were free and happy—and we never wondered why that was so. We never learned it; we all knew it perfectly well <…>. We knew that we had to learn the Lithuanian language. And we knew why—but all the while something seemed to bristle in our hearts. As though someone wanted to take something away from us, while we could not give it up, could not do so under any circumstances. No one told us that the dialect was 372 Acta Linguistica Lituanica LXXXIV Žemaičių kalbos dvasia Romualdo Granausko kūryboje our wealth. We also learned about other dialects, various rotininkai, žalininkai, žadininkai, but we were not particularly concerned with them. We learned them—and forgot them, whereas in our own dialect we lived, existed, grew—where else could we have been? (Granauskas 2014: 140–142)⁸. And it is entirely understandable that, for the very ending, nothing could be more fitting than Romualdas Granauskas’s own words, spoken in Žemaitian, in one of the conversations: „Žemaitiška pasaulėjauta, pasaulėvaizda, tava kalba, tava žemaitiška tarmie esi tu pats. Vėsa tarmie susigniauž į tavi, i tu paskou rašydams anou pletė“. And when asked whether a dialect or the standard language is more important to a person, R. Granauskas replies: „Tarmie, dėl tuo, ka tarmie žmogus gimst, tarmišką uns muokuos reikštė mintis, tarmiškā vīstuoš anou pruots. Tarmie ī kalbuos pagrindu pagrinds. Gebiejėms žuodės reikštė pasaulį atein iš tarmies. Tarmie iein į pasažuonį, į kraujį. Be tarmies nier kalbuos“ (Žiliūtė 2011: 14). It is precisely this exceptionally strong sensibility toward the native language, undoubtedly together with the writer’s exceptional talent and absolute musical ear, that enables Romualdas Granauskas to infuse his work with so much Žemaitian character that, while reading, you yourself seem to walk, swim, and fly across Žemaitija, while in your subconscious the most vivid Žemaitian language resounds. SOURCES AND LITERATURE Akelaitienė Gražina, Žiliūtė-Batavičienė Dainora 2011: The lexical dialectisms of Romualdas Granauskas’s works. – Žmogus ir žodis 13, 5–12. Bukelienė Elena 1999: Romualdas Granauskas’s pen. – Prozos keliai keleliai, Šiauliai: Šiauliai Regional Publishing House of the Lithuanian Cultural Foundation „Saulės delta“, 132–136. Bukelienė Elena 2000: The Žemaitian writer. – Kūrybos studijos ir interpretacijos: Romualdas Granauskas, Vilnius: Baltos lankos, 25–29. Bukelienė Nijolė Elena, Juknaitė Vanda 2004: Saulėlydžio senis, Vilnius: Alma littera. Daujotytė Viktorija 2000: Romualdas Granauskas’s old woman with the black kerchief. – Kūrybos studijos ir interpretacijos: Romualdas Granauskas, Vilnius: Baltos lankos, 81–83. Daujotytė Viktorija 2017: Granas: the reality that is cracking, Vilnius: Odilė. Gadeikis Liudvikas 1989: Let us not speak in the past tense. – Pergalė 4, 138–141. ⁸ For more on the Žemaitian language, dialectal speech, and its discussion in literary texts, see also Župerka 2012: 306–310. Įžvalgos / Insights 373 JUOZAS PABRĖŽA Girdienienė Danutė 1997: The mutual order of first name and surname (based on data from the Northern Samogitian dialect). – Linguistics 28, 80–83. Girdenis Aleksas, Pabrėža Juozas 1998: Žemaičių rašyba, Vilnius, Šiauliai: Žemaičių kultūros draugijos redakcija. Granauskas Romualdas 1975: Duonos valgytojai, Vilnius: Vaga. Granauskas Romualdas 1987: Baltas vainikas juodam garvežiui, Vilnius: Vaga. Granauskas Romualdas 1995: Vakaras, paskui rytas, Vilnius: Leidybos centras. Granauskas Romualdas 1998: Gyvulėlių dainavimas, Vilnius: Presvika. Granauskas Romualdas 2005: Šunys danguje, Vilnius: Lietuvos rašytojų sąjungos leidykla. Granauskas Romualdas 2007: Rūkas virš slėnių, Vilnius: Lietuvos rašytojų sąjungos leidykla. Granauskas Romualdas 2010: Raudonas ant balto, Vilnius: Lietuvos rašytojų sąjungos leidykla. Granauskas Romualdas 2012: Trys vienatvės, Vilnius: Lietuvos rašytojų sąjungos leidykla. Granauskas Romualdas 2013: Išvarytieji, Vilnius: Lietuvos rašytojų sąjungos leidykla. Granauskas Romualdas 2014: Trečias gyvenimas, Vilnius: Lietuvos rašytojų sąjungos leidykla. Granauskas Romualdas 2014a: Šventųjų gyvenimai, Vilnius: Lietuvos rašytojų sąjungos leidykla. Martinaitis Marcelijus 2002: Laiškai Sabos karalienei, Vilnius: Tyto alba. Pabrėža Juozas 2017: Žemaičių kalba ir rašyba, Šiauliai: Šiaulių universiteto bibliotekos Leidybos skyrius. Pabrėža Juozas 2018: Signs of Samogitian language identity. – Acta humanitarica universitatis Saulensis 25, 187–195. Pabrėža Juozas 2018a: Origins and traditions of Samogitian writing. – Problems of the History of Language and Dialectology 5, ed. R. Bakšienė, N. Morozova, Vilnius: Institute of the Lithuanian Language, 119–139. Pabrėža Juozas 2019: The past and pressent of Samogitian language. – Baltu filologija 28(1), 141–152. 374 Acta Linguistica Lithuanica LXXXIV Žemaičių kalbos dvasia Romualdo Granausko kūryboje Pabrėža Juozas 2020: Samogitian language or Samogitian dialect?, Samogitian Language or Samogitian Dialect? – Samogitia. Samogitia, ed. A. Butrimas, M. Iršėnas, Vilnius: Vilnius Academy of Arts Press, 273–280. Palionis Jonas 2014: A Caresser of the Lithuanian Word. – Metai 12, 86–91. Poškuvienė Inga 2013: Lexical features of Romualdas Granauskas’s novel “Fog over the Valleys.” – Gimtasis žodis 1, 2–11. Rosinas Albertas 2009: The Semantic and Morphological Structure of Baltic Pronouns. Synchrony and Diachrony, Vilnius: Institute of Science and Encyclopaedia Publishing. Sabaliauskas Algirdas 1966: The development of Lithuanian lexical vocabulary. – Issues in Lithuanian Linguistics 8, 5–141. Sprindytė Jūratė 2000: Romualdas Granauskas’s novella. – Studies and Interpretations of Creative Works: Romualdas Granauskas, Vilnius: Baltos lankos, 30–41. Vaskelienė Jolanta 2016: Romualdas Granauskas’s “St. Paulina”: Text and Context. – Acta humanitaria universitatis Saulensis 22, 207–224. Žiliūtė Dainora 2011: A Conversation with Romualdas Granauskas. – Žmogus ir žodis 1, 13–15. Župerka Kazimieras 2012: Metalinguistics. Linguistics for Non-Linguists, Šiauliai: Šiauliai University Press, Public Institution. Received on February 16, 2021. JUOZAS PABRĖŽA Vilniaus universiteto Šiaulių akademija Povilo Višinskio g. 38, Šiauliai LT–77160, Lietuva [email protected] Įžvalgos / Insights 375