Sveikiname Algirdą Sabaliauską

ACTA LINGUISTICA LITHUANICA LIII (2005) 133–138 PERSONALIA WE CONGRATULATE ALGIRDAS SABALIAUSKAS In the troubled and difficult year of 1948, after graduating from the Rygiškių Jonas Gymnasium in Marijampolė, a nineteen-year-old young man “from the plains of Suvalkija,” Algirdas Sabaliauskas (born July 26, 1929), came to Vilnius University to study Lithuanian language and literature. None of his classmates then had any inkling of the path this young man’s life would take, especially since he stood out in no way from his other prematurely matured peers. Each of them knew all too well how tragically fate could turn if one carelessly uttered an ambiguous phrase or recited a verse from a poem by one or another poet who had fled west, learned from a school textbook in independent Lithuania. And there was no shortage of examples. At that time, at Vilnius University’s Faculty of History and Philology, it was not the intellectual lecturers Vincas Mykolaitis-Putinas, Juozas Balčikonis, Jurgis Lebedys, Zigmas Zinkevičius, and others who “called the tune,” but rather lecturers sent from Russia to “mend their ways” after greater or lesser transgressions against Marxism, along with the university’s party and Komsomol activists. Yet even in such a stifling atmosphere, amusing incidents occurred that considerably brightened the gloomy everyday routine. The best confirmation of this is the vivid story Algirdas Sabaliauskas himself tells about how, with his poor command of Russian, he took a pedagogy exam with one of the dispatched professors, who did not know Lithuanian. But, to paraphrase the title of a book by the writer Petronėlė Orintaitė, who also came from Suvalkija, the fates had decreed a favorable lot for Algirdas Sabaliauskas. In 1953, before he had even received his university diploma, Algirdas Sabaliauskas began working as an editor at the Institute of Lithuanian Language and Literature. A few months later, after graduating from the university, the young specialist remained at the Institute and, having enrolled in postgraduate studies, 134 | PERSONALIA began working in the Department of the History of Language and Dialectology: first as a junior research fellow, then as a senior research fellow, and ultimately as a principal research fellow. From 1997 to 2000, he was director of the re-established Institute of the Lithuanian Language. While working as a junior research fellow in the Department of Language and Dialectology, Algirdas Sabaliauskas published his first substantial work, which remains scientifically valuable to this day. It was a study based on his diploma thesis, “Atematic Lithuanian Verbs” (pp. 77–114), published in the 1957 collection Some Questions of Lithuanian Grammar. That same year, the first three publications from the doctoral dissertation (then a candidate of philological sciences degree) being prepared for defense appeared in the Academy of Sciences’ proceedings and the Institute of Lithuanian Language and Literature’s serial publication Literature and Language. The dissertation was entitled The Origin of Agricultural Plant Names in the Baltic Languages (“On the Name for Hemp” and “On the Name for Buckwheat,” in Proceedings of the Lithuanian SSR Academy of Sciences, Series A, 1957, vol. 2(3), pp. 199–210; 211–218; “On the Origin of the Name for Pea,” in Literature and Language, 1957, vol. 2, pp. 346–355). Algirdas Sabaliauskas defended his dissertation in 1958. These first publications by the young scholar already revealed another “gift from God” bestowed on him (though not everyone is equally endowed): the ability to explain complex and very convoluted phenomena in the history of our language’s words in simple terms everyone can understand. After defending his dissertation and publishing almost all of it as separate articles in linguistic periodicals, Algirdas Sabaliauskas remained faithful to historical research into the Lithuanian lexicon. The findings and results of this research were published not only in linguistic articles; soon, studies in the historical lexicology of Lithuanian appeared that synthesized this work: “The Development of the Lithuanian Lexicon” (LKK, 1966, vol. 8, pp. 5–141); “Names of Domestic Animals in the Baltic Languages” (LKK, 1968, vol. 10, pp. 101–190); and “From the History of Animal-Husbandry Terminology in the Baltic Languages” (LKK, 1970, vol. 12, pp. 7–81). In 1975, these studies, under the collective title Studies in the Lexicon of the Baltic Languages, were accepted as a habilitation thesis. Those studies did not mark the end of Algirdas Sabaliauskas’s research into the Lithuanian lexicon. Algirdas Sabaliauskas continued to “walk” the winding, intricate paths and byways of the origins of Lithuanian words and their semantic development. The jubilarian brought together all the Lithuanian lexical data gathered on these “journeys” in his 1990 monograph The Lithuanian Lexicon. In this book, which significantly enriched etymological and historical research into the Lithuanian lexicon, the author provided a comprehensive account of the composition of the Lithuanian vocabulary, distinguishing its main strata, reviewing words borrowed from other languages, and examining the creation of new words in modern times. Like Algirdas Sabaliauskas’s earlier studies on this subject, this book became an indispensable reference for every lexicologist and etymologist. It is impossible to imagine the history of Lithuanian linguistics and the study of the Lithuanian language without Algirdas Sabaliauskas. It can be stated without hesitation that the jubilarian is a pioneer of research in this field—no one else has registered the data on the history of Lithuanian-language research and the biographical facts of Lithuanian scholars so systematically and meticulously. It goes without saying that, having such a vast body of material, to use today’s terminology, PERSONALIA 135 Having created a database of information in this field, the jubilarian could not keep it to himself. Therefore, after systematizing and summarizing the available facts about Lithuanian linguistics and the history of research into the Lithuanian language, he decided to present them for the consideration of Lithuanian-language researchers and the public. This gave rise to two more books: The History of Research into the Lithuanian Language. Up to 1940 (1979) and The History of Research into the Lithuanian Language: 1940–1980 (1982). They chronologically survey the process of research into the Lithuanian language not only in Lithuania but also in other countries. In 1984, Algirdas Sabaliauskas was awarded the Lithuanian State Prize for these books. Admittedly, a more critical reader today, having read these words, might object that many matters are treated only fragmentarily in the books mentioned, while some are excessively glorified. And, of course, that reader would be partly right. But the fault lies not with Algirdas Sabaliauskas, but with the Soviet standards of the time. They forced the author to leave out a great deal. At the time, the length of scholarly monographs was strictly regulated. Thus, in order to present as many facts as possible about the history of research into the Lithuanian language, Algirdas Sabaliauskas had to comply with the established standards. It can be stated in advance that these “shortcomings” will certainly no longer be present in the third part of The History of Research into the Lithuanian Language, now being prepared by the jubilarian, which will review research into the Lithuanian language conducted after 1980. No Lithuanian linguist can match or surpass Algirdas Sabaliauskas in popularizing knowledge of linguistics among young people and the public at large. Seeking to inspire as many people of all ages as possible to love their native language and take an interest in its mysteries, and knowing—as noted above—how to explain complex matters of linguistics simply and vividly, Algirdas Sabaliauskas has, since 1962, been regaling readers of all ages, like a Lithuanian Hans Christian Andersen, with intriguing tales not of princesses and fairies, but of the origins of Lithuanian words and their journeys through time. It is therefore no surprise that his books for the general public were so warmly received and acclaimed both in Lithuania and in some other countries, and that several of them were reprinted: Words Travel (1962, 21993), Words Tell Stories (1965), Words Come to Life (1967, 21980, 32000), and A Hundred Riddles of Language (1970, 22001). Of all the books in this series, the third—Words Come to Life—was perhaps the most “celebrated.” The distinguished American Baltist William R. Schmalstieg, together with Ruth Armentraut, translated it into English and published it a few years later in Chicago (Noted Scholars of Lithuanian Language, Chicago, 1973). The Japanese linguist and promoter and translator of Lithuanian literature, Ikuo Murata, published individual chapters of the book in Japanese. Also belonging to this field of popular science are Algirdas Sabaliauskas’s accessible books on the history of research into the Lithuanian language: How the Lithuanian Language Was Studied (1984), Research into the Baltic Languages (1986), We Are Balts (1986, 22002; in English, We, the Balts, Vilnius, 1993), and the book East Slavic Linguists in the Field of Lithuanian Studies (1990), written together with Professor Jonas Palionis. Closely related to these books are Algirdas Sabaliauskas’s articles, published in scholarly periodicals and encyclopedic works in Lithuania and other countries, about researchers of the Lithuanian language, institutions and organizations conducting research relevant to Lithuanian, and publications important to Lithuanian and Baltic studies. If we gathered all these articles in one place, they too would make up more than one substantial book. 136 | PERSONALIA Algirdas Sabaliauskas is not only a linguist who sits at his desk, but also a cheerful, unassuming, and sensitive person who enjoys spending time with young people. He is a frequent guest at schools in his native Marijampolė and elsewhere. The jubilarian dedicated to students the book Where Do They Come From?, published in 1994, which could also be called a distinctive popular dictionary of Lithuanian etymology. Since Algirdas Sabaliauskas always speaks very warmly and respectfully of his former teachers and classmates, he dedicated this book to his “teachers and those who graduated, or should have graduated, from Marijampolė Rygiškių Jonas Gymnasium in 1948” (p. 4). In the book’s “Preface,” the author, recalling once again the tragic postwar years, says that while writing it he “constantly remembered his school days and classmates. At times he even imagined (and may he be forgiven for his naivety!) that not only he, but also his friends, would have gladly read such a book when they were taught the wisdom of language at Marijampolė Rygiškių Jonas Gymnasium by Jonas Kabelka and Jonas Kvederaitis. Therefore, this book is dedicated to the memory of the teachers and classmates, especially those who left the class early and never returned to it” (pp. 5–6). It seems that educators today, their leaders, and those responsible for them ought to listen carefully to these words of Algirdas Sabaliauskas and consider how, under such difficult circumstances, the teachers of that time managed to instill in their pupils not only a sense of friendship and duty, but also love for their native country and its culture—a quality, alas, that today’s Lithuanian school, unable to emerge from the mire of reforms, cannot boast of. To the scientific work of Algirdas Sabaliauskas already mentioned, we must add the jubilarian’s contribution to training specialists in Lithuanian studies. For nearly three decades, the jubilarian chaired the state examination commission for Lithuanian studies at Vilnius Pedagogical University and lectured there. Algirdas Sabaliauskas recounts how uncomfortable he felt when, in a lecture hall or at the examination table, he met more than one of his former teachers, now of advanced age, who, owing to the circumstances of the time, had been unable to obtain a university degree earlier. In recognition of his teaching, Vilnius Pedagogical University awarded Algirdas Sabaliauskas the title of professor in 1997. As we congratulate Professor Algirdas Sabaliauskas, a corresponding member of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences and a foreign member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, on his splendid 75th birthday, we must add that our contemporary linguistics is simply unimaginable without the jubilarian’s many-sided work—not least because Algirdas Sabaliauskas has been and remains a member of the editorial boards and scholarly councils of many linguistic publications. This broad and diverse work has been recognized with two Orders of the Grand Duke of Lithuania Gediminas (1997, 2002). And we—the staff of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language’s Department of Language History and Dialectology—wishing our senior colleague good health and many creative years, say: Highly esteemed Professor, we need you very, very much. We are always grateful for your sincere advice and your encouraging smile in difficult moments, and, together with all readers interested in the Lithuanian language, we strive, in your words, to know much more “about the words spoken every day <…> than about the most distant planets, the depths of the earth, computer operations, or even horoscope predictions”—and to hear new stories about the origins of Lithuanian words. Juozas Karaciejus