ANTANAS BALAŠAITIS

Research interests: lexicography, language culture, terminology.

Angelė Vilutytė

DICTIONARY OF THE KALTANĖNAI DIALECT

Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas, 2008, 460 p.

ISBN 978-609-411-019-1

One of the ten Lithuanian dialect dictionaries published recently presents the vocabulary of the Kaltanėnai area. This, too, is an unplanned undertaking of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language. Dialect dictionaries were prepared in this way. Vytautas Vitkauskas (1937–2012) was the first to publish such a dictionary. After his Dictionary of the Northeastern Dūnininkai Dialects (1976), linguists from not only the Institute but also Vilnius University began compiling dictionaries of this kind.

As the author of the Dictionary of the Kaltanėnai Dialect under discussion, Angelė Vilutytė, writes in the preface, she began recording words from her own dialect as she was completing her studies at Vilnius University, around 1960. A. Vilutytė once told the author of this article that, when she was still a schoolgirl, an older relative, the Vilnius University Lithuanianist Adolfas Jatulis, had sparked her interest in the value of dialect speech and encouraged her to record it. While gathering material for his diploma thesis, he also recorded the vivid speech of Angelė’s mother and grandmother. Her appreciation of the value of living language grew and deepened while she studied Lithuanian studies and classical philology, when dialectology was taught by dialect researcher Zigmas Zinkevičius. Many years later, the Professor was delighted to learn from his former student that she was writing a dictionary of her native dialect.

For several decades, alongside her direct work on writing and editing the major Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language, A. Vilutytė also built up a card file for a dictionary of her own dialect. As she writes in the preface, she recorded words while on holiday and whenever she returned to her native region. She walked through dozens of villages and interviewed more than fifty Kaltanėnai residents of the oldest generation who spoke the traditional dialect. The author recorded most of her language examples from her mother, Eleonora Dailidytė-Vilutienė, who came from the village of Terpežis, and her grandmother, Eleonora Dailidienė (sentences in her dialect illustrate the Kaltanėnai dialect in the anthology Lithuanian Dialects, 1971, p. 346). Four aunts from the same village were also interviewed. Men were interviewed as well: material was recorded from her father, Edvardas, who lived in the village of Kūrinai; her grandfather, Juozas Dailidė; Adolfas and Zenonas Radziulis (from Pāgilūtė); and Alfonsas Šerėnas (from Berniūnai).

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The Kaltanėnai dialect is phonologically heterogeneous: its eastern part belongs to the Vilnius subdialect of Aukštaitian, while its western part belongs to the Utena subdialect¹. Thus, like most Eastern Aukštaitians, speakers of Kaltanėnai pronounce am, an, em, en as um (dungus), im (pìmpė), in (ži.ntas), im (tìmpė). Among the dialect’s phonetic features worth noting is the hardening of the sequences le, lė, re, rė, se, sė: here one hears sáula (saulė), lá.isk (leisk), lę̌ksu (lėksiu), rã.tas (retas). The consonants d, r, s: dãglas (deglas), rã.tas (retas), rę̌kæ (rėkia), sá.nas (senas), sė̌mãu (sėmiau) are also hardened. The dialect also exhibits the first feature of dzūkavimas: the sequences dj and tj are transformed into dz and c: one hears mé.zei (medžiai), á.uzæ (audžia), nakčù (nakčia), svečù. (svečių).

Although the Kaltanėnai dialect belongs to different subdialects, its vocabulary is shared by both: it was shaped and unified by parishioners’ interactions in town on feast days, at church festivals, and in the marketplaces. Examples for the dictionary were collected from speakers in both the western and eastern areas. As the dictionary’s author has said, opportunities to record speech examples arose both when people met at church festivals and at other gatherings in Kaltanėnai.

The Dictionary of the Kaltanėnai Dialect belongs to the comprehensive type: it includes the entire traditional vocabulary of the old dialect (including borrowings), as well as words from contemporary standard language with meanings characteristic of this dialect. As in the major Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language (hereafter LKŽ), the vocabulary is presented in word nests. The Kaltanėnai vocabulary is arranged in 5,725 nests. While reading the dictionary, one is struck by the fairly large number of nests marked with the abbreviations sv. and hibr., meaning “foreign word” and “hybrid.” A count of the nests under the letters A, L, N, and V found 230 words and derivatives of non-Lithuanian origin among 1,178 nests. Thus, about one fifth of the dialect’s vocabulary comes from foreign languages. That may seem rather a lot, but, just as one cannot remove a word from a song, one cannot remove it from language. This is a legacy of the era of foreign rule. Some loanwords are verb formations with the prefixes da-, raz- (dapìlti, datìrti, razplėšti, raznešioti).

The words collected in the dictionary are most often used in the everyday lives of rural farmers. Most entries contain two or three sentences, but some are very extensive and rich in phraseology. Among these are akìs, dantỹs, darýti, dėti, dìrbti, dúoti, galvà, krafýti, krìsti, krutėti, léisti, lėkti, lìsti, lìpti, męšti, nęšti, penėti, pùlti, rankà, riñkti, sakýti, sėsti, statýti, šónas, taisýti, tráukti, trìnti, vaŕgti, varýti, vėrti, vęsti, žẽmė, žmogùs, žolė.

The Kaltanėnai dialect features the prepositions (and prefixes) až, ažù, still used by Eastern Aukštaitians, which correspond to standard Lithuanian už: Àž kalno namai i nesmato; Àž uogas daug ažrinko; Ažù metų kad grįš, tai gerai; Gyvena ažùkampėj, nei privažiuot in juos; Važiavo ažùlankom; Stokis čia: ažúovėja ažù pirkelės; Miške ažúovėja, o in lauko duoda vėjas; Ažùperniai tai buvo uogų miške; Man jau berniokas ažùmainas ‘a replacement’, – visa ką padaro.

¹ This was established by Adolfas Jatulis in his diploma thesis Phonetics and Morphology of the Kaltanėnai Dialect (1964), which is cited in Zigmas Zinkevičius’s Lithuanian Dialectology (1966: 523).

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Angelė Viltutytė

Kaltanėnų šnektos žodynas

None of these formations are found in the large LKŽ. A. Vilutytė also recorded more words not included in LKŽ:

atōšilas: The ice on the lake is cracking: atōšilas.

bobeliōtė ‘a puny woman’: Bobeliōtė is still young, a child.

dýrauti 1. ‘to snoop’: They snoop through the windows to steal something. 2. ‘to lie in wait’: They slaughtered the pig, so the cats are lying in wait.

gamùlžiš ‘a piece’: A gamùlžiš of bread has been thrown under the table.

gišýti ‘to extinguish’: I put out the fire early: I’m afraid someone might set it alight again.

gretėji ‘next to’: Their houses are next to each other.

knābinti ‘to save, to seize’: They pinched and saved all their lives, and left their property to strangers.

paklōščiai ‘bedding’: I bring moss for bedding.

papānis ‘thick hempen cloth’: They would weave some papānis and we would wear it, but what could you do.

parañkė ‘close at hand, within reach’: She stood nearby and stayed there—I’ll scald the pot some more as I lift it.

prāpjuvas ‘beginning-of-the-rye-harvest gathering’: There used to be a prāpjuvas for the rye harvest: they prepared food and brewed beer, cf. prapjuvos in LKŽ.

prieblindýs ‘dusk’: The sun is setting; it’s dusk, and we’re still out in the field.

prieblindžiais ‘at dusk’: I came at dusk.

retōja ‘sparse speech’: He was one of those who began speaking less.

skalėtyti ‘to gossip, to tattle’: He runs around the village street gossiping like the devil.

tylėtem ‘quietly’: I walk quietly through the forest: I’m afraid of little sweet things.

týnius ‘swelling’: The swelling has gone down, but I was swollen; my whole leg was red.

týpčioti ‘to tiptoe’: The cat is already tiptoeing around the chicks.

viržiūnė ‘heathland’: We graze the cattle across the heather in spring.

LKŽ contains words recorded by A. Vilutytė from her own dialect:

sagrąžai adv. ‘when weaving by moving back over the treadles’: Sagrąžai—you weave to one side over the treadles, then step back.

saugulìngas ‘requiring very careful protection’. That white kerchief needs a great deal of looking after.

samanykščia ‘a place overgrown with moss’: The mossy place smells of marsh rosemary.

savýsu adv. ‘among one’s own’: Among our own, everything is better, more peaceful.

sugraużinys ‘distress, worry’: I’m very distressed—the onions have rotted.

sukirtinýs ‘the foundation of a stove’: I made the stove’s foundation.

šūrastis ‘pickling’: There’s no pickling salt, so the mushrooms won’t keep preserved.

In the article, nusliūgti there is the sentence “In old age, the eyes grow dim,” that is, they weaken, whereas LKŽ does not give this meaning.

Perhaps the most striking feature of the Kaltanėnai Dialect Dictionary is its frequent use of diminutive nouns. This is an embellishment of the speech of the old villagers, recorded by the dictionary’s author. Words with diminutive suffixes express the speakers’ tenderness, respect, love, and sympathy toward the things or people being discussed. A common diminutive suffix is Kaltanėnų šnektos žodyno utis, -utė. The grandmothers of Kaltanėnai rejoice in vilnoniūtė skarelė, that dukrėlė mano dažnai atva-

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…walks. Child, how good that you came to me. Here people remark that the little windrow is very narrow, what a tiny little house—the windows are small, it is low; What will that little man do here? A strong man is needed; The little heifer’s horns are just like little pins; people console themselves: I’ll nibble a little crust and sit; the tiny entrance hall—I have nowhere to put things; The child is chilled, his little lips are trembling; The little well is small, but there’s enough water. A little star on her forehead, and the whole cow is dappled.

The gentleness of Kaltanėnai speech is enhanced even further by the fairly frequent use of formations with double diminutive suffixes: The little lamp is just blinking: there wasn’t even any kerosene; My daughter-in-law brought a little kerchief as a gift; I wore a little woollen kerchief all winter; it’s good for the head; The little path is only just visible, overgrown with bushes; The little slice smells so good, you could eat it even though it’s dry bread; It’s dawning, little light, it’s time to hit the road; I’m going to the barn to tend the animals; The cow is like a little pin, yet gives milk; She put the money away in the little chest; The little house has collapsed completely, and it was so tiny to begin with; The little cheese came out utterly tiny, though there had been so much curd; The little dress is very short; she has put on a short coat and a very thin little kerchief; The little stream near us is extremely narrow; Father died, and we were left barefoot, with nothing. Her little nose is turned up, her hair is long—what a pretty girl.

Contrary to the derogatory attitude, the suffix -ynas, -yna is used in the dialect: They had some sort of goat, without milk, and sold it; they got themselves a cow; The garden fences were all rotten, and the pig overturned them; The largest sow is lying in the mud; Their thickest stake won’t fit through the door; She got involved with some boy and is going around with him; Some sort of boy is hanging around here so that he won’t steal anything.

Among suffixal formations, words with the rare suffix -atė should be mentioned; they have the meaning of a verbal abstract noun: We ourselves reap the grain; we’re looking for machines; We spent the winter threshing and grinding; we weren’t idle; We’ve been weeding this all summer, in the garden all summer long; He’s already been taken by weakness; There’s the greatest nuisance with these mushrooms before you can get them dried; alongside With these meals it’s nothing but a nuisance—you have to dig up the potatoes. These formations also have a concrete meaning: Give the cow some fodder; The dog doesn’t pay attention to your bit of bread—I’ll toss it some bread or meat; I have no threshing to do this year—I didn’t sow any grain. Alongside pilnatis, pilnatė is also used. They also say sveikėtė, but more often sveikatà. The words recorded by A. Vilutytė expand the geographical range of such words known from LKŽ.

The Kaltanėnai dialect uses the compound past frequentative tense: I used to carry hay from the meadows for my family on my back; He would light a smudge fire and go out in the evening to catch crayfish; I used to put a little chirping insect into the porridge, and it would be like honey; When you wanted to mend some garment, you used to blacken yourself all over in the forest, in summer and in winter; We used to go out barefoot in winter and didn’t get sick; I used to sew clothes for the children out of scraps and dress them—I had no money to buy any.

In the Vilnius dialect of Eastern Aukštaitian, the imperative without –k has survived and is still used relatively often, including by Kaltanėnai speakers, alongside the standard-language form: Take the clothes out into the sun and air them; You should show me the children sometime; Sit down beside me—there’ll be enough room; If you’re asking, let’s sit down and eat; Why are you hurrying? Sit down, since you’ve arrived; Why are you standing here? Sit down; You chop the potatoes; there are still big ones to plant; Come closer, you’ll see better; Hold on to me, it’s slippery—you’ll fall; Give me some money too; Pour a little glassful; Roll up your trousers or you’ll get completely wet walking across the meadow; Roll them up and cross the river—it’s shallow; Watch

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Lock it up—you’ll see, the Roma will carry everything off; Come on, boys, let’s fool around. Push the little barn door shut so the hens don’t get out; Stop shouting at those children of yours—it’s a disgrace before the world; Perhaps you’ve got hungry while mowing; carry some water over so you can have a drink; Read what’s written here—Father used to write it down; Boil the geese; they’re getting into the garden; Pick some beet greens and throw them to the pig.

In narrative speech, Kaltanėnai speakers often use passive participles: They came wearing little felt boots and didn’t get wet; It was mixed and mixed until the money was left behind and stolen; Her hair was combed straight up—Baliokas is courting terribly; The whole strainer was wiped clean and thrown aside into the rye; The whole surrounding area is sown with rye; I broke off a stump, carried it home, and it turned out ants had got into it.

One feature of the dialect worth mentioning is its distinctive naming of young men and girls. As among many Eastern Aukštaitians, unmarried men here have a surname with the suffix -ōkas: Vilučiōkas (Vilutis), Šaraniōkas (Šėrenas); the suffix is also added to a given name: Baliōkas (Balys), Juziōkas (Juozas); Kaziōkas (Kazys), Vinciōkas (Vincas). The suffix -ōtė is added to girls’ names: Uliōtė (Julija), Anciōtė (Ona); Anciōtė is still unmarried—why are you letting her waste away? Girls’ surnames have the suffix -yčia: Vilutyčia (Vilutytė), Gaidyčia (Gaidytė), Vasiliūnyčia (Vasiliūnaitė).

In the introduction, the dictionary’s author also notes one or two rarer features of the dialect. The first-person singular conditional ends in -čia: nešča (I would carry), šōkča (I would dance), gėrča (I would drink). The plural forms neštūtė, dirbtūtė; Eītumbe raōet, ale lyja; Eītūt namo, – ko čia stuōit are worth noting. A. Vilutytė recorded the short form of the permissive mood alongside the longer one: Let the pine tree stand, I’ll gather kindling; Let the milk stand warm so it can sour.

A great strength of the dictionary lies in its illustrative sentences, especially those containing idioms. Over the years, A. Vilutytė has recorded a truly fine selection of them. To convey the beauty of the Kaltanėnai dialect, the peasants’ outlook, and their lived experiences, we quote a dozen or so (they are easier to understand in simplified spelling): A basketful of berries, as full as an eye (heaped full); You could haul this year’s mushrooms and berries away by the cartload (a great many); He gives it with his back turned (reluctantly)—don’t take it; When I burned everything, I was left on the stones, poor; Life flew by like a little stone into the river; What a terrible thing, such a downpour (very heavy); You couldn’t find money on her now even with a torch (she has none at all); What they used to pay there for a day’s work—pennies (very little); It’s nothing here (it doesn’t matter)—she left him, let him go his own way; you’ll find someone else; Whoever takes things off the table and gobbles them up has a cheek (is shameless); If she could, she’d tear your eyes right out of your head (she’d take everything); We used to walk to school barefoot through the snow and grew up barefoot; They used to put ferns in bread when there was famine; I’ve known this song since I was little; When I go out among people, everything looks brighter; You have to love an animal as you love a person, and then it will be good to you too; The daughter is like lightning—she’s everywhere at once; With a good husband, you’re as safe as behind a wall (at peace); Her head is cracked (she badly wants) to dance; They carried off the cucumbers with their fingernails (they sold out quickly) at the market: I didn’t manage to put them on the stall; He picked a fight with someone for no reason (without cause); Outsiders don’t come mushroom-picking here (strangers) —the locals pick them all; The child’s eyes bulge at the pie (wants it very badly)—cut off a little piece; You can’t buy love with a hundred; Shout until you burst—you won’t call anyone back from the grave; It’s steamy as in a pot (very stuffy); One end is burning, the other isn’t even smoking (dressing up unsuccessfully); I’m walking at a slow pace, while she’s already sniffing the ground (close

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(death); An old person’s step is precious; Ana drinks the wind for her son (is very eager); You wear out your tongue for nothing (talk a lot), – her son won’t take her; A whole life gone to the dogs (to no purpose) has passed; What kind of person will come of him: he lives day to day (without saving), the children wander hungry; You can’t fill a pot with pretty eyes—you need bacon; Cake spoils the mouth; Better to wear out a gray braid for someone (remain unmarried); A girl is like a fox (affectionate); I know it like my prayers; You’ll have time enough under the earth—look after your health.

Finally, a few observed inaccuracies and suggestions. The dictionary’s introduction states that the consonants d, r, s are hardened in the dialect, and gives the example dãglas instead of the standard-language form deglas, while the dictionary has the sentence: One piglet is dãglas, the others are white. The headword of the entry is daglas, alongside daglōja. Apparently, the source was LKŽ, where dãglas is cross-referenced to dẽglas. LKŽ also has two entries, darmai and dėrmai. Since it is a loanword, hardening may not apply here: dãrmai is given as the headword. It is possible that the hardening of d in this dialect is still open to debate, since LKŽ cites dãglas from the dictionaries of Konstantinas Sirvydas, Pilypas Ruigys, and Friedrich Kurschat, and from the writings of Kristijonas Donelaitis. The facts of the Gervėčiai dialect also support this doubt. Jadvyga Kardelytė, a researcher of this dialect, considers the hardening of d here to be sporadic².

Although, as the dictionary’s author says, the dialect has no dùkros, only diminutive forms dukrėlė, dukrytė, these should not have been added under the duktė entry. In the sentences under several entries (áusti, mìlas, raištis, žmogus), the use of incorrect punctuation to divide them (|| should be /) makes it look as though the headword is missing.

The number of dictionary entries would be greater if every word in a sentence were listed and explained in a separate entry. Sometimes that seems necessary. For example, in the clay entry, it is unclear what móliabrastis. Perhaps it is a proper noun? In the landslide entry, kaldúobinas has not been listed from the sentence; in the release entry, pasitrasýti. has not been listed from the sentence. From the sėlė entry, in the sentence “These threads you sewed are thin, sėlė, I put two,” pašuvà. should have been listed and explained. The sentences from eastern dialects given in LKŽ show that these are threads with which the warp is woven.

The sentence under the Pilvas entry, “Pilvų apsraižgius mergà” (“a pregnant girl”), resembles an idiom, but the dictionary contains neither raizgýtis nor apsiraižgýti. The idiom su tà dienà, meaning “without saving,” appears under two entries, but is listed differently: su túo dienà gyvėna, su túo dienù.

A few critical remarks do not diminish the dictionary author’s many years of work or the rich dialectal treasure published in it.

Received on 20 March 2014.

ANTANAS BALAŠAITIS

Didlaukio 27-64, LT-08320 Vilnius, Lietuva

² Kardelytė Jadvyga. Gervėčių tarmė. Vilnius: Mintis, 1975, 30.

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