LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI XXXIX (1998)

Juozas KARACIEJUS

Institute of the Lithuanian Language, Vilnius

ON THE LANGUAGE OF EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY WRITINGS

The eighteenth century is the most complex and contentious period in Lithuanian history, since for almost the entire century the united Lithuanian-Polish state was in its death throes, accompanied by continual wars and conflicts among rival factions. It is self-evident that cultural life also declined considerably in such circumstances. But it is not easy to discuss this yet, since this period has been studied least by philologists, historians, and cultural historians alike.¹ Admittedly, in recent times historians and researchers of early Lithuanian literature have devoted more attention to this period, while linguists continue to adhere to the view that apparently emerged in the first decades of the twentieth century in our philological literature: that the language of eighteenth-century Lithuanian writings had degenerated, that Lithuanian texts of the period were written in a kind of Lithuanian-Polish jargon (cf. Zinkevičius 1990: 15), and that most Catholic priests, authors of Lithuanian writings, who had „become estranged from the people and yielded to the ‘genteel’ culture of the Polish nobility, abandoned the fine traditions of Daukša and Sirvydas and did not concern themselves with the further development of the Lithuanian written language“ (Palionis 1995: 112).

In fact, the language (specifically, the vocabulary) of Lithuanian writings that appeared in the territory of Lithuania in the eighteenth century differed considerably from that of sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writings, since eighteenth-century texts used many more loanwords (especially Polonisms) than earlier writings did. It is precisely for this reason that eighteenth-century Catholic writings continue to bear a kind of „curse“, which became particularly pronounced during the Soviet years, when it was used to emphasize the negative role of the Catholic Church in Lithuanian culture.

Moreover, two terms are now used in our philological literature to designate the language of eighteenth-century Catholic writings: traditional written language (Z. Zinkevičius) and ecclesiastical koine (J. Palionis). This is not a good thing. Such inconsistency in terminology creates considerable confusion. We would suggest that the first term is better and more convenient, because the second, among other shortcomings, seems to have a negative connotation. Admittedly, in defending the second term, J. Palionis argues for its use in „The History of the Lithuanian Written Language“ as follows: „In many other religious writings of the eighteenth century, too, translations were—

¹ This is most clearly demonstrated by J. Jurginis and I. Lukšaitė’s „Outline of the History of Lithuanian Culture“, subtitled „The Feudal Era. Up to the Eighteenth Century“, although I. Lukšaitė, discussing the art of the Baroque era here, notes that it continued until the third decade of the eighteenth century (see Jurginis, Lukšaitė 1981: 330-331).

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… with a certain mixture of dialectal features, a certain koiné, whose basis consisted of the phonological and morphological forms of Central Aukštaitian dialects, more or less diluted with Samogitian or Eastern Lithuanian features” (Palionis 1995: 120). But J. Palionis has presented many more arguments for the suitability of this term in his review of the fourth volume of Z. Zinkevičius’s “History of the Lithuanian Language,” “The Lithuanian Language in the 18th–19th Centuries,” noting that Z. Zinkevičius’s “proposed traditional written-language term is too general to serve the functions of a special term (terminus specificus),” since “any earlier written language can be called traditional…” and therefore “the term traditional written language […] is neither ‘more precise’ nor, in general, better than the term ecclesiastical koiné” (Palionis 1994: 97). Incidentally, in the same place J. Palionis says that perhaps “a better term than these two would be Central Lithuanian written koiné, since semantically it would bring out the dialectal basis of the written language that emerged in the 18th century and was more generalized at the levels of phonology and morphology, but it is longer than the term ecclesiastical koiné and therefore less convenient.” Thus, the latter observation would suggest that J. Palionis is inclined to refine the term ecclesiastical koiné. And the refinement proposed here is acceptable, because the term Central Lithuanian written koiné, although longer, would, we believe, also emphasize continuity with tradition².

But, concluding his „terminological discussion“ with Z. Zinkevičius, J. Palionis adds: „One could also dispute whether that Central Aukštaitian written koine was a continuation of Zinkevičius’s so-called ‘middle written-language variant’ or a new creation. But that is another, more important problem, connected both with the linguistic transformation of the 1705 Gospel text and, more generally, with the subsequent dialectal direction of religious and nonreligious writings, and it calls for further specialized historical and linguistic research“ (Palionis 1994: 97). This statement not only explains why Palionis is disinclined to accept the term traditional written language, but at the same time raises the most doubts, since I see no basis for treating the language of eighteenth-century Catholic writings as some new phenomenon unrelated to the traditional written language, for two reasons.

First, after the Eastern written-language variant had declined, all authors of the first half of the eighteenth century began orienting themselves toward the middle written-language variant, which, as we know, had been used in the Samogitian Diocese since the late sixteenth century. For this reason, J. Jaknavičius’s Gospels, written in the Eastern variant, were brought into line with the Central Aukštaitian variant in 1705. The second reason why the language of eighteenth-century writings cannot be regarded as a new creation is that forms of the middle written-language variant were, in a sense, codified in the anonymous 1737 grammar entitled „The Whole of the Languages of Lithuania, Described and Prepared According to the Laws of the Main Dialects of This Duchy“ (K. Eigminas’s translation). It

²J. Lebedys also emphasized that this tradition had not been broken in fragments from his planned monograph on the use of the Lithuanian language in public life in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries (Lebedys 1976: 20).

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An unknown author begins as follows: “The title of this modest work shows that this dialect (as far as is known) is accepted by everyone throughout Lithuania. Although speech varies somewhat in places because of regional differences, it does so only slightly, so that everywhere people will understand and gladly listen to one who speaks thus (as written here) about the great works of God. Therefore, there would be no need to discuss other dialects here” (Universitas 1981: 61). Although the author of the aforementioned grammar does not specify which dialect it is, its researcher K. Eigminas established that “the basis of the Universitas dialect is the area of Lithuania where the features of the northern Šiauliškiai subdialects of Western Aukštaitian and the southern Panevėžiškiai subdialects of Eastern Aukštaitian begin to intermingle” (Eigminas 1981: 38), and that it contains no Samogitian forms (see Jonikas 1952: 111). Thus, the forms presented in this grammar belong to the middle variant of the written language and, in P. Jonikas’s words, “were merely certain guidelines indicating the general dialectal direction, first and foremost for the language of religious writings of that century” (Jonikas 1987: 128). But a separate question is how speakers of other dialects managed to adhere to the forms presented here, especially since most authors of eighteenth-century religious writings came from Samogitia. Understandably, it was difficult for them to avoid the features of their native dialect, although in the first half of the eighteenth century they, too, strove to orient themselves toward the middle variant of the written language, which already had a century-long tradition. It is precisely for this reason, it seems to me, that the language of eighteenth-century writings can be called the traditional language of written works.

It was mentioned at the outset that the most striking feature of the language of eighteenth-century writings is the increase in Slavicisms (especially Polonisms), most often explained by the polonization of the nobility and Catholic clergy. It is also claimed that “at the time, the Polish language lacked more capable writers who knew Lithuanian well and could have contributed to raising the culture of the Lithuanian language and advancing it” (Jonikas 1987: 126). It seems that such claims can be accepted only in part. Of course, if the language of eighteenth-century writings is judged solely by the criteria of correctness and purity, it will indeed appear poor. But the abundance of lexical borrowings does not in itself show that eighteenth-century authors had largely forgotten Lithuanian. If they had forgotten or poorly known their native language, we would have to notice this immediately in morphology. Unfortunately, there are no obvious signs of such forgetfulness or poor command of the language at this level. Moreover, until we have careful studies of the syntax of old writings, we cannot claim (much less believe) that a considerable number of non-Lithuanian innovative syntactic constructions also appeared in seventeenth-century writings (cf. Palionis 1995: 164), since only by examining the non-Lithuanian constructions used in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century writings and comparing them with the non-Lithuanian constructions in eighteenth-century writings could we determine whether, and by how much, their number increased. Perhaps, in the absence of such studies and in avoiding a priori claims, P. Jonikas is more cautious. Discussing the increase in Polonisms in eighteenth-century writings, he writes: “Most Polonisms are lexical, both in religious books and, especially, in the aforementioned journalistic and political writings, where, since Lithuanian had not yet been adapted to express various specialized abstract concepts of cultural and political life as Polish had by then, quite a few Polish words found their way in to denote such concepts. For the lexical stratum of a language is much more easily influenced by foreign languages than its grammatical structure” (Jonikas 1987: 127).

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Thus, without dismissing the influence of Polish, it seems to me we may ask whether other causes, too, could have encouraged such an influx of Polonisms. Scholars of old Lithuanian literature have noted that macaronic writing became very popular in Poland in the seventeenth century and the early eighteenth century, that it “continued to exist in the early Enlightenment” (Patiejūnienė 1992: 217), and that the first attempts at this kind of writing had already appeared in the sixteenth century. Thus, the popularity of macaronic writing in Poland coincides chronologically with the “degradation” of the language of Lithuanian writings, all the more so since the intensive penetration of Polonisms into Lithuanian probably began as early as the second half of the seventeenth century. So many of them could not have appeared over the course of just two or three decades of the eighteenth century. Therefore, it seems that the macaronic writing that became popular during this period could be considered one of the causes that encouraged the influx of Polonisms into the Lithuanian writings of the time. Of course, eighteenth-century religious literature differed considerably from the macaronic writing of the period, but, as recent studies of old Lithuanian literature show, eighteenth-century Lithuanian religious writings were influenced, to a greater or lesser degree, by the “literary fashions” of the time (cf. Radzevičius 1997: 319–327; Tereškinas 1992: 104-163). Moreover, one further fact may also support this view. In the largest surviving eighteenth-century manuscript collections of Lithuanian sermons, “Contiones litvanicae” (about 1720) and K. Lukauskas’s “Pamoksle isz Prisakimu Diewa” (1797), which were intended for ordinary believers, peasants, we find Latin quotations from the Bible, patristic writings, and the works of prominent theologians. It goes without saying that ordinary listeners could not understand them. The preacher was therefore compelled either to translate them or to convey their meaning briefly. This is what is done in the collections mentioned. But in this respect there is a very marked difference between the two sources. The unknown author of “Contiones litvanicae” uses Latin quotations several times more often than K. Lukauskas. There are relatively few of them in the latter’s sermons, written at the end of the eighteenth century. It may therefore be suspected that, as Latin lost the position it had formerly held, Polish, then more popular and familiar, took its place in Lithuanian writings to some extent, especially at the lexical level, under the influence of macaronic writing. This is partly borne out by M. Alšauskas (Olševskis)’s “Broma atverta ing viečnastį,” in which we find not only Latin quotations but also, occasionally, a Lithuanian equivalent used alongside a borrowing. Whether this supposition is justified, however, will become clear only after more extensive research in philology and cultural history.

Returning once again to the influence of the Polish language—or, more precisely, of the variety used in Lithuania, “polszczyzna litewska” (for more on it, see Zinkevičius 1988: 115–127)—on eighteenth-century Lithuanian writings, it should be noted that by then it had become a prestigious language: everyone tried to learn at least some of it. The requirements of “high” and “low” styles may therefore be connected with this status of Polish as a prestigious language. It is entirely possible that the authors of eighteenth-century Lithuanian writings may have thought that writing about spiritual matters in the way ordinary people spoke

It is entirely possible that the authors of eighteenth-century Lithuanian writings may have thought that writing about spiritual matters in the way ordinary people spoke

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The peasants were unsuitable, because they spoke the despised “peasant language,” which belonged to the “low” style. In seeking to create a “high”-style variant of Lithuanian writings, eighteenth-century authors could deliberately pepper them with words from the prestigious Polish language. But these, too, are matters that merit investigation.

In conclusion, it is worth saying that these remarks had a single aim: to draw researchers’ attention to eighteenth-century Catholic writings and to try to soften the negative opinion of them that has become entrenched in our literature. After all, eighteenth-century writings are also part of our culture, and they cannot be excluded from the development of Lithuanian writing. Eighteenth-century Catholic writings should be evaluated not from the standpoint of present-day language culture, but from the perspective of language history; rather than merely noting the abundance of borrowings in them, we should first try to identify all the causes that determined their emergence.

Received 1998 03 17

LITERATŪRA

E i g m i n a s K. 1981: Kalbos šaltiniai ir terminis pamatas. – Universitas Lingvarum Litvaniae. Vilnius: Mokslas, 1981. 23–38.

J o n i k a s P. 1952: Lietuvių kalbos istorija, Chicago.

J o n i k a s P. 1987: Lietuvių kalba ir tauta amžių būvyje, Chicago: Lituanistikos instituto leidykla.

J u r g i n i s J., L u k š a i t ė I. 1981: Lietuvos kultūros istorijos bruožai: Feodalizmo epocha. Iki aštuonioliktojo amžiaus, Vilnius: Mokslas.

L e b e d y s J. 1976: Lietuvių kalba XVII–XVIII a. viešajame gyvenime, Vilnius: Mokslas.

P a l i o n i s J. 1994: [Rec.] Z i g m a s Z i n k e v i č i u s. Lietuvių kalbos istorija IV. Lietuvių kalba XVIII–XIX a. – Baltistica 27(2), Vilnius, 96–100.

P a l i o n i s J. 1995: Lietuvių rašomosios kalbos istorija, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla.

P a t i e j ū n i e n ė E. 1992: P. Roizijaus makaronikas „Apie kelionę per Lietuvą“. – Senoji Lietuvos literatūra 1. Senosios literatūros žanrai, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla, 216–222.

R a d z e v i č i u s A. 1997: Senosios lietuvių literatūros ir kultūros akiračiai, Kaunas: Aesti.

T e r e š k i n a s A. 1992: Stiliaus ir žanro problemos M. Alšausko ir K. Luka u s ko pamoksluose. – Senoji Lietuvos literatūra 1. Senosios literatūros žanrai, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla, 104–163.

U n i v e r s i t a s 1981: Universitas Lingvarum Litvaniae, Vilnius: Mokslas.

Z i n k e v i č i u s Z. 1988: Lietuvių kalbos istorija 3. Senųjų raštų kalba, Vilnius: Mokslas.

Z i n k e v i č i u s Z. 1990: Lietuvių kalbos istorija 4. Lietuvių kalba XVIII–XIX a., Vilnius: Mokslas.

ÜBER DIE SCHRIFTSPRACHE DES 18. JAHRHUNDERTS

Zusammenfassung

Im vorliegenden Beitrag werden zwei Probleme erörtert. Zuerst wird darauf hingewiesen, daß für die Bezeichnung der Schriftsprache des 18. Jahrhunderts gegenwärtig zwei Termini verwendet werden: die „Kirchenkoine“/ „bažnytinė koinė“ (J. Palionis) und „die traditionelle Schriftsprache“/ „tradicinė raštų kalba“ (Z. Zinkevičius). Dabei vertreten wir den Standpunkt,

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daß der Terminus „traditionelle Schriftsprache“ vorzuziehen sei, da er dem Wesen dieser Sprache eher entspreche. Weiterhin versuchen wir zu begründen, daß das Vorliegen der vielen Polonismen in der litauischen Schriftsprache des 18. Jahrhunderts nicht durch die ungenügenden litauischen Sprachkenntnisse der Autoren zu erklären sei sondern durch das Prestige des Polnischen als Modesprache der Literatur.

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