Acta Linguistica Lithuanica

LIX (2008), 141 – 142

Remarks

Remarks

Trifle 16

A dead thing wants to become a living thing. From bakūžės, which seemed to him to be a derivative of bak- and the suffix -ūžės, Antanas Juška, a self-taught enthusiast who avidly collected dialect words, coined bakà. This neologism was published in Volume I of Juška’s dictionary. In 1939–1941, the group of scholars assisting the editors of LKŽ I (E. Fraenkelis, J. Gerullis, J. Otrębskis, A. Salys, P. Skardžius) did not allow such a coined word to be introduced anew—the word was not included in LKŽ I (1941), but silently omitted.

Unfortunately, B. Tolutienė’s warning about the artificial origin of bakos was also forgotten (Literatūra ir kalba 5, 1961, p. 153). In the Encyclopedia of the Lithuanian Language (Vilnius, 1999, p. 45; repeated in the second edition), this word reappeared as an authentic linguistic fact. Similarly, bakà also appeared in Smoczyński’s book Słownik etymologiczny języka litewskiego (2007, p. 42). This does science no good. Juška coined more such neologisms: kumė ← kumelė, sama ← samana, šãža (šáiža) ← atšãža, atšáiža, and others (cf. the words cited in the author’s book Lietuvių kalbos žodyno taisymai (2006), which were not heard during dialect fieldwork).

Trifle 17

The renowned Baltist Wojciech Smoczyński of the University of Kraków continues to work on etymologizing the Lithuanian lexicon—he has newly published supplements to his book Słownik etymologiczny języka litewskiego, as well as corrections and other material (see “Uzupełnienia do Słownika etymolognego języka litewskiego”, Acta Linguistica Lithuanica 58, 53–151).

Everything in that study is very interesting and valuable, though one thing particularly caught the eye and drew the attention of a former editor. In Volume I of LKŽ, Juozas Balčikonis, the originator and great pioneer of LKŽ, wrote that “... there were also collectors who could not distinguish real words from creations of their own imagination” (LKŽ I, “Prakalbos,” p. V). Such words were also coined by an imaginative woman from Tauragnai, and for that reason the items she supplied from Tauragnai and other places were checked (see also the thoughts of lexicologist and ethnographer Birutė Jasiūnaitė in Baltistica XLII (3), 2007, p. 446, and those of the author of these lines, an LKŽ editor

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Pastabos

knygą Lietuvių kalbos žodyno taisymai, 2006). Toks pasirodė ir Tauragnų žodis sūduvā „purvynas‘, etimologo Broniaus Savukyno palaikytas patikimu. Jis buvo spiriamas paneigti tai, nes tikrinant vietoje visi sakė tokio žodžio nežinantys, net a. a. dr Kazimieras Gaivenis tik šypsosi.

Now this has been repeated by Prof. W. Smoczyński (ibid., pp. 126–127) and cited as an erroneous entry in LKŽ. No, it was carefully verified and not included in LKŽ. Such things should have been discarded, like that collector’s bātnyko, the “Dzūkija forest beekeeper” relocated to Tauragnus, the pagan goddess Indrajos, invented and propagated by fervent easterners, residents of Utena, and others. Let that sūduvā remain a matter of a self-taught female linguist’s faith in the work of her imagination and its results. Prof. Juozas Balčikonis knew this very well and foresaw far into the future. The late Bronius Savukynas did not foresee that he would publish this, because a campaign to dismiss him from his job began at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language over his socializing with tourists from the Federal Republic of Germany. And so it has happened...

Vytautas Antanas Vitkauskas

Institute of the Lithuanian Language

5 P. Vileišio St., LT-10308 Vilnius, Lithuania

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