Lietuvių rašomosios kalbos ir tarmių santykis XVIII a. Rytų Prūsijoje

Jonas Palionis

Go to original

Preparing document pages…

1 short passage of this localized version is shown in the original language because it could not be localized reliably.

LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI XXXVIII (1997)

Jonas PALIONIS

THE RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN THE LITHUANIAN WRITTEN LANGUAGE AND DIALECTS IN EIGHTEENTH-CENTURY EAST PRUSSIA

1. Introductory remarks. The relationship between the written language and dialects is one of the most important and fundamental problems in the history of the written language of any period. Indeed, the dialect or dialects on which the written language is formed and develops have a great deal to do with both its structure and its development during a given historical period.

Linguistic analysis of the earlier, oldest period of the Lithuanian written language shows¹ that until the seventeenth century the relationship was rather complex. At first, the Prussian branch of the Lithuanian written language did not adhere strictly to any one dialect, but later (beginning with Jonas Rėza’s hymnal of 1625) the Prussian Western Aukštaitian dialect took hold there and was ultimately established in D. Kleinas’s grammars. After these grammars appeared, the authors of Lithuanian texts written in East Prussia (hereafter RP) in the eighteenth century generally did not depart from this Western Aukštaitian path.

The relationship between the Lithuanian written language and dialects was somewhat different up to the period under consideration in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania (hereafter LDK). Two branches of the written language stood out in this respect: the Central and the Eastern (more precisely, the Dzūkian and Eastern). The latter had the older traditions, but in the eighteenth century the Central branch, which correlated with it, gained a firmer position. This stronger position probably explains why, in the first half of the century, the Central branch displaced the Eastern-Dzūkian one, while in the second half the Samogitian dialect began to exert increasingly strong influence, especially at the levels of phonology and morphology. Central forms were established in the anonymous grammar Universitas Linguarum Litvaniae, printed in 1737, whereas the Samogitian forms had not yet received grammatical codification in that century.

Below, drawing on data from contemporary Lithuanian dialectology and dialectography and on a comparative analysis of the language of eighteenth-century texts, an attempt will be made to examine in greater detail the language of the more prominent RP authors of the period with regard to its dialectal basis. The discussion will be confined mainly to phonology and morphology, since dialectal differences are reflected most clearly at these levels.

¹ Palionis J. Lietuvių literatūrinė kalba XVI–XVII a., Vilnius: Mintis, 1967, 51–91.

§ 2. Normative forms in Danielius Kleinas’s grammars.

Although, as noted (§ 1), the eighteenth-century authors of Lithuanian texts in RP followed the guidelines set out in D. Kleinas’s grammars—that is, they used the Prussian Western Aukštaitian dialect as their basis—from the perspective of the history of the Lithuanian written language it is important to determine the extent to which that basis was followed at the time. Were the principal features of this dialect, recorded in D. Kleinas’s grammars, truly observed, or were narrow dialectal forms also admitted? If narrow dialectal forms were admitted, at which levels were they most prevalent, and how did writers of the time treat them? These are the questions that the following discussion will attempt to answer by examining the available data.

As is well known, the Prussian Western Aukštaitian dialect (like Western Aukštaitian generally) was not homogeneous. It was divided into three subdialects (northern, Veliuona, and southern), each of which in turn had its own local varieties and subvarieties. Given that D. Kleinas came from Tilžė, which lay within the northern Western Aukštaitian area, one might expect to find in his grammars many features characteristic of the Tilžė local variety: the merger of [uo] and [o], [ie] and [ė], the shortening of unstressed endings, the loss of mobile [a], and cases of monophthongization of the circumflex diphthongs [ái], [áu], [éi]. That, however, is not the case: D. Kleinas chose not the dialect of his native region, but the dialect that seemed to him “best of all” for establishing the laws and rules of Lithuanian grammar, namely, the dialect of the people of Kaunas: “Hanc Caunენijum Dialectum seવimურ in Ducatu Prufjiae, utpote omnium optimam et commodissimam” (GL XVI). Thus, the normative forms presented in D. Kleinas’s grammars belonged not to the northern Prussian Western Aukštaitian subdialect, but to its southern subdialect, which was close to the dialect of the “Kaunas region”; cf.: a) n. pl. f. dūbes GL 146, imper. 2 sg. Dūk ibid. 61, n. sg. m. Piemū..., praes. 1 sg. bėgu GL 83, praet. 3 Jėdėjo ibid. 5, inf. Jėti Comp. 5..., b) praet. 3 buwo GL 146, g. sg. Jawo, tawo ibid. 147, praes. 3 Jāko ibid. 112, žinno ibid. 115..., c) n. sg. m. gėras Comp. 107, gražumas GL 66, jūdas, jūkas ibid. 8, d) dūdāmas|| dūdams ibid. 119, regėdamas|| regėdams ibid. 110... e) n. sg. m. dáiktas GL 2, áukštas ibid. 24, inf. lėįti Comp. 55, conj. jėy ibid. 85...

A comparison of Kleinian phonetic and morphological forms with the corresponding forms in eighteenth-century RP texts shows that the latter by no means always adhered to the southern norms codified in D. Kleinas’s grammars. This is particularly true of Samuelis Bitneris’s 1701 “New Testament,” which, because its compilers deliberately sought to make the language of the translation acceptable to readers in both RP and LDK, contains more dialectal mixture than other texts from that region produced at the time.

§ 3. Attempts to harmonize dialects in S. Bitner’s Testament.

S. Bitneris (apie 1632–1710), kaip rodo jau pati pavardė, nebuvo

² Salys A. Writings 4. Lithuanian Dialects. Rome: Lithuanian Catholic Academy of Science, 1992, pp. 76 ff.

Lithuanian. He learned Lithuanian while serving as a Reformed (Calvinist) pastor in Biržai, Kėdainiai, and elsewhere³. Since earlier Lithuanian Calvinist publications (16th–17th centuries) were based on the Central Aukštaitian dialect (primarily the speech of the Kėdainiai area)⁴, he too, when translating the Testament from the Greek original, adhered to the main features of this dialect. This is shown, on the one hand, by the frequently written i before the vowels [e], [ė], and, on the other, by the regular use of forms with tautosyllabic [am], [an], [em], [en] and nasal [ą], [ę]: a) praet. 3 ißaukbejo Pov. 1. Tim. 5, 10, ißbeide Ap. d. 4, 23, g. pl. fantů Ap. d. 27, 44, n. sg. iétas Jok. 1. 1, 9, pabaijtuwę I Pov. 1. rym. 7, 3, jaute Jon. apr. 6, 12, g. pl. ū̇aktů t. p. 21, 17..., b) inf. famdit Mat. 20, 1, n. sg. wamzdis I Pov. 1. kor. 14, 7, praep. ant Mat. 7, 26, n. sg. pajkandintas Mork. 16, 16, a. sg. f. kempinė Mat. 27, 48, imper. 2 sg. perženk Mat. 5, 27..., c) a. sg. ga[w]ą Mat. 13, 20, mießtą Ap. d. 21, 5, drobę didę t. p. 10, 11, tulijbę Mork. 9, 14...

However, it should not be forgotten that Jonas Božimovskis the Younger (who lived in Kėdainiai, Vilnius, and elsewhere)⁵ and Frydrichas Šusteris (a pastor in RP who worked in Būdvietis)⁶ also assisted S. Bitner in his translation work. These assistants undoubtedly left their mark on the language of the translation as well, especially the latter. Vaclovas Biržiška writes that “Bitner himself did most of the translation, with some help from Jonas Božimovskis the Younger, and adapting it for Lithuania Minor was entrusted to P. Z. Šusteris”⁷. For the time being, nothing definite can be said about how much and in what way J. Božimovskis contributed to the translation and editing of the 1701 “New Testament.” But something can already be inferred about the linguistic editing by F. Šusteris, whom Liudvikas Rėza called a “revizorium” (Revizor)⁸, from the Lithuanian preface of his own that was added to the translation. There he wrote: “And since Lithuanians of Greater Lithuania express certain things in such words as Lithuanians in the Kingdom of Prussia do not use in that sense, we therefore made changes and marked the words of the Lithuanians in the Kingdom of Prussia with such signs () as, for example: Lithuanians of Greater Lithuania say: Giria ſtow ore; but Lithuanians of the Kingdom of Prussia say: Puſčia ſtow laukė”⁹.

This quotation makes it clear that F. Šusteris, wishing to make the language of the translation more accessible to the people of RP, added more familiar equivalents for that region in parentheses alongside certain words in the translation, e.g.: g. sg. aliiwos (oil) Luk. 10, 34, part. cont. elgdamasis (begging) Mork. 9, 46, praes. 3

³ B i r ž i š k a V. Aleksandrynas 1, Chicago: JAV LB Cultural Foundation, 1960, 356.

⁴ P a l i o n i s J. Ibid., 71–79.

⁵ B i r ž i š k a V. Ibid., 1, 357.

⁶ B i r ž i š k a V. Aleksandrynas 2, Chicago: JAV LB Cultural Foundation, 1963, 15.

⁷ Ibid., 1, 357.

⁸ R h e s a L. Geschichte der littauischen Bibel, Königsberg, 1816, 30.

⁹ Novum Testamentum lithvanicum. Naujasis testamentas Lietuwiβkas..., Karalaucuje, 1701, pratarmė.

iBdergia (does not wash) Matt. 15, 11, lingūdami gálwomis (shaking their heads) Mark 27, 39, nutranke jam (struck him) ibid. 27, 44, gen. sg. piłwo ([kiłwio) Pov. 1 Tim. 5, 13, falparos (cornerstone) Mark 12, 10. These examples alone already show that F. Šusteris did not limit himself to lexical equivalents: sometimes, alongside inserting individual words, he was compelled to change the syntactic construction as well, and to write a synonymous (more characteristic of RP) word combination instead of a single word. There is also reason to think that, in adapting the language of the translation to Prussian usage, F. Šusteris may have changed some phonological and morphological forms, especially since in many cases the orthography of the 1701 Testament was also adapted to Prussian usage. However, without the manuscript, it is impossible to determine how many and what kinds of changes he may have made at these levels, and thereby contributed to the emergence of a certain diversity of phonological and morphological forms in the language of the Testament. One can only note the existence of such diversity and speculate hypothetically about its causes.

§ 4. Variation in phonological and morphological forms in Bitner’s Testament.

The following facts demonstrate variation in phonological and morphological forms in the 1701 Testament:

a) occasional alternation between [uo] and [o], especially in word roots and stem-final positions; cf. pret. 3 laidūjo Acts 8, 2, adv. namūp Mark 5, 19, pres. 3 putūja ibid. 9, 18, Luke 19, 29, acc. pl. m. raudūjančius Mark 5, 38... and: pres. 3 baltoja John 4, 35, cont. part. iBwažiōdamas Matt. 25, 14, dat. sg. m. toßam Mark 9, 43, neut. sg. wienolika Matt. 28, 16...;

b) comparatively rarer alternation between [ie] and [ē]: acc. sg. m. miebłą Luke 14, 35 || instr. sg. m. mēßłu ibid. 13, 8, dat. pl. f. padangiems ibid. 17, 24 || giminėms Matt. 24, 14...;

c) comparatively rare alternation between [o] and [a] in an unstressed word ending: pret. 3 āugo Acts 19, 20, buwo Mark 6, 44, pres. 3 kłaufo Luke 8, 8...¹⁰ and: pres. 3 dáża Matt. 26, 23, kába ibid. 22, 40, not žina Mark 13, 32...;

d) fairly frequent alternation between shortened forms (with short ending -e, -i omitted) and corresponding unshortened forms; cf.: iness. sg. f. antroį dienoį Mark 11, 12 wiłłoį ßłoweį Luke 12, 27... and: girioje Matt. 3, 1, taiweje ibid. 4, 21; imper. 2 pl. dūkit Matt. 10, 8, eikit ibid. 10, 6... and apłakjikite ibid. 10, 7, giįdikite ibid. 10, 8...; inf. dūt ibid. 10, 34, rugot (to smoke) ibid. 11, 20... and elgetáuti (ubagáuti) Luke 16, 3, tuįkėnti Acts 12, 16;

e) occasional alternation between forms with and without “mobile” [a]: nom. sg. m. wienas Matt. 20, 21 || ne wiens ibid. 10, 29, kalbėdamas ibid. 26, 42, mokįdamas ibid. 26, 55, norėdamas ibid. 1, 19 || kalbėdams Matt. 26, 48, Luke 9, 38; 22, 9...

¹⁰ In preterite forms, -o. is regularly written.

Such (and other) variation in phonological and morphological forms can be explained quite readily. First of all, by the aforementioned desire to reconcile two branches of the written language (based on somewhat different dialectal foundations). In reconciling them, certain phonological and morphological forms may have remained unstandardized. Second, some of these variants may have been inherited from earlier writings (as noted, they also occurred in D. Klein’s grammars).

Finally, third, some variants may also have arisen from translators’ or editors’ individual views of particular forms, printing-house errors, and other causes. But, broadly speaking, in terms of its dialectal basis, the language of the 1701 Testament differed little from the written language of Prussian Lithuania in the eighteenth century. This was due not only to the affinity between the West Aukštaitian dialects of the central and western regions, but also to deliberate efforts to reconcile them.

§ 5. Return to Klein’s norms in the 1727 Testament.

Understandably, an even closer continuation of the earlier Prussian written-language tradition, which since J. Rėza’s time had relied exclusively on the West Aukštaitian dialects of Prussian Lithuania, was the “New Testament” of 1727, prepared on the initiative of Jonas Kvantas (Quandt, 1686–1772). It abandoned the idea of reconciling dialects and returned to Klein’s norms, because the 1701 edition did not satisfy Prussian Lithuanian speakers linguistically and was called “Kėdainiai-like”¹¹.

The 1727 edition was initially prepared by the pastor of Tilsit, Reinhold Rosenberg, and the pastor of Gumbinnen, Kristupas Rebentišas; after they died (in 1724), it was taken up by the pastor of Ragainė, Hiob Naunynas, and the pastor of Valtarkiemis, Pilypas Ruigys¹². All of them, except the latter, were not Lithuanians, but had apparently learned Lithuanian fairly well, since they had been entrusted with such a task. Undoubtedly, Pil. Ruigys knew Lithuanian best; it was his native language and, it is thought, he contributed most to editing the 1727 edition¹³.

As early as 1930, Vac. Biržiška noted that these men merely corrected the 1701 translation, chiefly striving to bring it closer to the German translation, and for this purpose making some use of J. Bretkūnas’s manuscript and J. Rėza’s 1625 Psalter¹⁴. He repeated the same assertion in 1953¹⁵. Indeed, a comparison of the two editions of the “New Testament” supports V. Biržiška’s assertion that the editors of the 1727 edition did not translate it anew, but merely corrected Bitneris’s translation. The two editions contain many passages that correspond exactly, although various

¹¹ R h e s a L. Geschichte der littauischen Bibel, 28.

¹²Ibid., 33.

¹³ B i r ž i š k a V. Aleksandrynas 2, 21.

¹⁴ B i r ž i š k a V. Lietuviškų knygų istorijos bruožai, Kaunas: Spaudos fondas, 1929–1930, 70.

¹⁵ B i r ž i š k a V. History of the Old Writings 1, Chicago, 1953, 151.

There are also plenty of linguistic differences in them.

Without going into a more detailed analysis of these differences, only those reflecting the dialectal basis of the emendations will be highlighted here, along with the editors’ efforts in the 1727 edition to westernize the Central Lithuanian forms of the 1701 edition.

At the phonetic level, such efforts are perhaps most clearly demonstrated by the replacement of Central Lithuanian forms with hard [ł] before [e], [ė] by Western Lithuanian forms without that hard consonant; cf. part. cont. gailėdams BT Mat. 27, 3 and praet. 3 galėjos KNT ibid., adv. Kotay BT Jon. 9, 5 and Koley KNT ibid., iki Biolak BT Jon. 5, 17 and ikBioley KNT ibid., praet. 3 pūle BT Jon. 11, 32 and pūle KNT ibid., G. pl. turkelú BT Luk. 2, 24 and Kurkelú KNT ibid. Overall, the grapheme ł is rare in the 1727 edition, indicating its editors’ desire to distance themselves from Bitner’s Testament not only phonologically but also graphically (the occasional ł may have appeared through oversight or a printing error, e.g. Karalytłe KNT Jon. 3, 5).

Another, likewise readily noticeable phonetic change is the shortening of forms with “mobile” [a], cf.: n. sg. m. gywas BT Jon. 4, 51 > gyw’s KNT ibid., part. cont. mokịdamas BT Mat. 26, 55 > mokidam’s KNT ibid., n. sg. m. famdininkas Jon. 10, 13 > Samdinink’s KNT ibid., fwietas BT Jon. 3, 17 > Swiet’s KNT ibid., wienas BT Jon. 6, 71 > Wien’s KNT ibid.... As can be seen, the omission of “mobile” [a] in the 1727 Testament is regularly marked graphically by an apostrophe, which had already been used especially frequently for the same purpose in J. Rikovius’s 1685 hymnbook. It is now difficult to say whether the pronunciation of the so-called “striukiškės” RP dialects was taken into account in all instances of this change, or whether the earlier hymnbook tradition of this region was relied on more heavily.

At the morphological level, westernizing efforts may be reflected in the replacement of first-person conditional forms in -čia with forms in -čiau (cf. gérčia BT Mat. 26, 53 > gérčiau KNT ibid., iBpilďičia BT Jon. 4, 34 > iBpilďičiau KNT ibid., trokBčia BT Jon. 4, 15 > trokBčiau KNT ibid.... However, it should be added that this change is not an indisputable indicator of westernization. This is primarily because forms in -čia were used in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries not only by the Central Lithuanian branch (the Kėdainiai dialect), but also by RP authors (alongside -čio and relatively rarer forms in -čiau). In D. Kleinas’s grammatical paradigms, they were even listed first (regécia || regéciau GL 109, žinnóčia || čiau ibid. 115...). Hypothetically classifying -čia > -čiau as instances of westernization, the point is that forms in -čiau were used especially consistently in the writings of authors originating in the southern part of the Prussian West Aukštaitian area (“baltsermėgiai”) (for example, only forms in -čiau have been observed in K. Donelaitis’s writings).

At the syntactic level, an example of westernization may be the fairly regular replacement of the illative by the prepositional “into + accusative” construction, cf.: kurio[na tikay namū[na BT Luk. 9, 4 > kur į kokius Nammus KNT ibid., karoblin Bt Luk. 17, 27 > į Akruta KNT ibid., ranko[na BT Jon. 3, 35 > į Rankas KNT ibid. In D. Kleinas’s GL, the illative and the “into + accusative” construction were described as certain alternatives, and preference was even given to the illative as a “more elegant”

means of expression¹⁶. However, this preference is not specifically justified in the grammar. It is possible that stylistic considerations carried considerable weight here: for D. Kleinas, a celebrated translator and composer of religious hymns of his time, the illative may have seemed not only a shorter but also a more sonorous means of expressing direction. There is no solid basis for assuming that preference for the illative was dictated by its greater prevalence in the West Aukštaitian dialect of RP (especially among southerners); among other things, this is contradicted by the tendency, observable from the late seventeenth century onward, for the “into + accusative” construction to become generally established in RP writings (this construction was also predominant in K. Donelaitis’s writings).

Cases of westernization are perhaps easiest to identify at the lexical level, because, as noted, the text of the 1701 Testament contained numerous Western Lithuanian words (more precisely, words more characteristic of the Prussian branch of the written language) inserted in parentheses, most of which were also transferred to the 1727 edition, where their “Kėdainiai” equivalents were dropped. Examples of lexical westernization in this edition include such transferred (parenthesis-free) words as drugys [a. sg. f. karštinė (drugi) BT Mat. 8, 14: i. sg. m. Druggiu KNT ibid.], puščia [in. sg. f. girioje (pubčioje) BT Mat. 3, 1: Pubčioje KNT ibid.], skaitytinė [g. sg. f. literos (įskaitij-tines) BT II Pov. 1. kor. 3, 6: n. sg. f. Skaitytine KNT ibid.], skūnė [a. pl. kūnus (kunes) BT Luk. 12, 18: Skunes KNT ibid.], ubagauti [inf. elgetáuti (ubagáuti) BT Luk. 16, 3: ubbagauti KNT ibid.], vartai [broma (wartai) BT Mat. 7, 13: Wartai KNT ibid.], and so on.

However, lexical westernization was not limited to transferring words inserted in parentheses into the 1727 edition: many words that were otherwise unusual among West Aukštaitians were replaced there with words more familiar to speakers of this dialect, and especially with words more widely used in the Prussian written-language usage of the period. For example, gerdas, used in the 1701 Testament at Mork. 13, 7, was replaced in the 1727 edition by šauksmą, gydytojas at Luk. 5, 31 by liekorį, įdant at Jon. 11, 57 by jėib, iškala “school” at Ap. d. 6, 9 by šūlę, palaikis at Mork. 2, 21 by seną, veizdėti at Ap. D. 3, 5 by žiūrėti, žūklavimas at Luk. 5, 4 by valksmas.

Thus, westernization is observable at every linguistic level of the 1727 “New Testament.” This demonstrates the editors’ efforts to make its language more comprehensible to RP readers and closer to the earlier Kleinian tradition. Occasional departures from that tradition may be explained both by the editors’ individual views on particular linguistic phenomena and by their wish to respect the changes that had occurred in the use of RP written Lithuanian in the post-Kleinian period.

Cases of confusion between [o] and [uo], and [ė] and [ie], are also fairly frequent in the 1727 Testament; cf.: a) inf. dūwanoti II Petr. 1. 1, 4, žvėjuoti Jon. 21, 3 and lingoti Pov.

¹⁶ See Pirmoji lietuvių kalbos gramatika, Vilnius: Valstybinė politinės ir mokslinės literatūros leidykla, 1957, 257.

1. Eph. 4, 14; g. sg. m. Gūdo “of greed” Pov. 1. Cor. 1, 29 and a. pl. m. Loƀus “the lame” Matt. 15, 30; in. pl. wiłłufe Daiktofe I Pov. 1 Thess. 5, 18 and wiłłufe Wietułfa I Pov.. Tim. 2, 8...; b) n. sg. m. Snegas John, prologue 1, 14 and g. sg. f. Giedos Jude 1, 1, 22; a. pl. f. Jawėnas “the wounds” I Pov. 1 Cor. 3, 12 and n. pl. m. Mieneƒej John 4, 35. Such mergers are undoubtedly already a direct reflection of the northern dialect of Prussian Samogitian.

§ 6. Linguistic features of the 1735 “New Testament.” The language of the 1735 “New Testament” differs little from that of the 1727 edition. This is understandable: the former was prepared by H. Naunyn and Pil. Ruigys, who had contributed substantially to editing the 1727 edition. The differences between these two editions are mostly limited to spelling and phonetics, although occasional changes in morphology, syntax, and vocabulary also occur. For example, in the 1727 edition common nouns are more often capitalized; it also contains more allatives and adessives, which in the 1735 edition are often replaced by prepositional constructions, as well as more archaic sentence patterns.

§ 7. The effort to adhere to the “pure” dialect in the 1735 Bible. In 1735 a translation of the Old Testament was also published, which, together with the “New Testament,” comprised the entire Bible (“Biblia, tai efti Wiłłas Szwentas Raßtas Seno ir Naujo Teßtamento...”). As can be seen from the German preface by Jonas Kvantas, appended to this first edition of the complete Bible, in addition to H. Naunyn and Fil. Ruigys, the Old Testament was also translated by Kristupas Štimeris, Abraomas Liuneburgas, Fabijonas Kalau, Adomas Pilgrimas, Kristupas Šperberis, and two Adomas Šimelpenigiai (the elder and the younger), while the entire translation effort was supervised by Jonas Berentas and Petras Milkus (the latter two also proofread it).

A translation manuscript prepared by such a large group of people could not have been entirely uniform linguistically, especially since the translators came from various places that differed to a greater or lesser degree in dialect (e.g., H. Naunyn was born in Ragainė, P. Milkus in Tilžė, K. Štimeris in Įsrutis, A. Liuneburgas in Gumbinė, but worked for a long time in Klaipėda)¹⁷. Nevertheless, the 1735 edition shows no substantial linguistic differences, either between the separate parts of the Old Testament or between the Old and New Testaments. This was undoubtedly due above all to the efforts of those who prepared the edition, especially its editors (first and foremost J. Berentas of Įsrutis), to adhere to the earlier Klein tradition, from which S. Bitner’s Testament had departed, and to standardize the language of the edition on the basis of that tradition.

That the editors of the 1735 edition did not in fact ignore earlier traditions (not only the Klein tradition but also the pre-Klein tradition) can be inferred both from the aforementioned preface by J. Kvantas, which discusses the Bibles of J. Bretkūnas and S. Chilinskis, and from

¹⁷ Biržiška V. Aleksandrynas 2, 10 et seq.

timus, tiek ypač iš jo 1730. I. 3 pranešimo RP valdžiai apie naujojo leidimo rengimo eigą. Tame pranešime nurodyta, kad naujajam leidimui naudotasi ir J. Bretkūno bibljos vertimu (iš jo buvę perimti vėjų pavadinimai), tačiau daug naudos iš to neturėta. Neturėta dėl to, kad J. Bretkūnas savo vertime rėmėsi Labguvos tarme, kuri „giminiems“ Įsruties, Ragainės ir Tilžės apskričių lietuviams buvusi ir nesuprantama, ir nepriimtina: „Sie [t.y. J. Bretkūno vertimas, – J. P.] ist aber nach der Labiauschen Mundart, so mit der Curischen Sprache verbunden ist, geschrieben; dahero sie auch von den reinern Littauern in der Insterburg-Ragnit-und Tilsitschen Aemtern, die doch die weitläufigsten sind, weder verstanden noch angenommen werden kann und einer durchgängigen Verbesserung von Wort zu Wort bedarf.“¹⁸

§ 8. The southernizing tendency in the 1755 Bible edition and in the translations of A. Pilgrimas, K. Lovynas, and V. Rėgė.

In terms of its dialectal basis, the new complete Bible edition prepared by Adomas Šimelpenigis the Younger (1699–1763) and printed in 1755 differs essentially not at all from the 1735 edition. This is understandable: in practice, this edition was merely a somewhat revised version of the earlier one. Nevertheless, it displays a tendency toward greater southernization of the language during editing. For example, in a few places, non-affricated forms found in the 1735 edition are replaced here by affricated ones (cf.: adv. apſtey^B¹ I Moz. 3, 10 > apßczey^B²; part. act. n. sg. f. pagimdųfi t. p. > pagimdƶufi; pamatufį t. p. > pamacƶufi; praes. 3 uſſigeid IV Moz. 14, 26 uſſigeidž^³), “striukiškosios” third-person present-tense verb forms being replaced by “non-striukiškosios” forms (cf.: banda^B¹ Job. 4, 2 bando^B²; barſta Ps 15, 7 barſto; klaufa Mork. 4, 9 klaufo; walga t. p. 14, 18 walgo). The replacement of some words in the 1735 edition may also indicate a southernizing tendency (e.g.: adv. apſukai Sal. pam. 9, 14 > aplink, ißkiey John 11, 14 > áißkiey, fut. 1 sg. pabengſu Rūt. 3, 2 > pabaigſu, g. sg. m. pakalo Iz. 30, 6 > nugarós, g. pl. pawerſmû Job. 8, 2 > ßaltinnû). Judging by the localization of these words given in the extensive Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language (LKŽ), and by the writings of K. Donelaitis (DR), the replacements in the 1755 edition must have been more characteristic of the southern western Aukštaitian dialects.

Western southern forms also predominate in the explanations of biblical stories by J. Hübner translated by Adomas Pilgrimas, a pastor in Įsrutis “Ißkirſtyti [...] Nuſſida-wimai ß Sėno bey Naujo Teſtamento...” (1742). Full endings are used in most cases here, except that the nominative ending -as is often shortened by the apostrophic method characteristic of Prussian Lithuanian writings: n. sg. Adom’s 15, 20, Pon’s Diew’s 57, 5, wert’s Daikt’s III, 15, wiens nelab’s 15, 21... (though forms such as Diewas 77, 2, Welinas 12, 18, Wyras 48, 18... also occur). The translation also contains some uo /o,

¹⁸ Falkenhahn V. Der Übersetzer der litauischen Bibel Johannes Bretke und seine Helfer, Königsberg und Berlin: Ost-Europa-Verlag, 1941, 238.

ie/ė cases of mixing, cf.: adv. Namų 66, 2; 122, 8, in. pl. Nammūje 193, 9, g. pl. Ūbkū 48, 10, praet. 3 liepe 70, 5, d. sg. mielam 103, 30... and in. pl. Pellenoje 182, 15, n. sg. Obka 191, 15, inf. Blubboti 48, 21, n. sg. bėdna 158, 2, praet. 3 kwėte 161, 11, kwėjalino 187, 2, a. sg. Karalęnę 145, 5; 160, 3...

Some (e.g., A. Harnoch) also attribute the translation of Chr. Langhausen’s book “Trumpas ir prątas Išguldimas wįjjū [...] Ewangelijų” (1750) to A. Pilgrim. However, Vac. Biržiška, relying on J. Bertoleičius and the preface to Pil. Ruigys’s dictionary, believed that Pilgrim had merely revised the translation, or perhaps finished translating it¹⁹. In any case, the explanations of the Gospels presented in question-and-answer form in the translation do not differ significantly in linguistic terms from the “Nusidavimai,” while the Gospel texts almost entirely coincide with the texts of the 1735 Bible (only in some places the conjunction ir in the latter is replaced by o, or some other minor linguistic or orthographic detail is adjusted; for example, nouns written with a lowercase initial in the Bible are often written with a capital in the “Išguldymuose”).

Kiek skiriasi nuo A. Pilgrimo vertimų Kristijono Lovyno (1721–1783) vertimo „Ewangelįßkas Malonės = Dawadas“, išleisto 1768 m., kalba. Skiriasi daugiausia tuo, kad jame dažniau vartojama „striukiškų“ lyčių. Ypač dažnai čia išmetamas „judrusis“ [a], kartais ir [i] vardažodžių bei įvardžių galūnėse (paprastai tas išmetimas žymimas apostrofu): n. sg. m. Daikt’s IV, 22, ger’s 23, 25, kur’s IX, 13, kalt’s 24, 13, man’s 135, 2, piln’s 70, 30, Stal’s 46, 32, Bok’s ir tok’s XII, 10–11, Wyr’s 21, 29, warging’s 64, 23... Neretai numetami taip pat trumpieji galūniniai [a], [e] veiksmažodžių esam. laiko 3 a. lytyse: gaun’ 44, 34, my’ X, 23, ne nor V, 4, pavyd’ 71, 18, reyk XI, 26, ne futar 63, 12, tikk’ 22, 10, bet ir: jaucza 41, 22, faka t. p., alkta ir trokßta 51, 10. Rodos daugiau K. Lovyno vertime pasitaiko ir [uo]/[o], [ie]/[ė] maišymo atvejų, plg.: praes. 1 sg. atbūju 121, 34, in. pl. f. dwafibkūja Bėdūja 57, 37, n. sg. Gūdas 129, 17, Ūda 52, 13, Ūras 91, 21, inf. wartūti 50, 4... ir inf. dejoti 116, 5, didžotis 114, 9, n. sg. m. Lobas 60, 2, a. pl. m. raupjotus 24, 35...; g. pl. Griekų 59, 2, g. sg. nieko 20, 4, tießos 38, 14, n. sg. praliets 40, 4... ir n. sg. bėdnas 44, 12, Bėfas 35, 26, Sžen’s „šienas“ 27, 26, a. sg. Kėtumma 36, 20, [u Prifėga 70, 18...

Thus, the phonetics of K. Lovynas’s translation is somewhat more northern than A. Pilgrim’s. This may perhaps have been influenced by his work in the Klaipėda region (Katyčiai, Plaškiai, Klaipėda, Kretingalė), although, generally speaking, one cannot say that the language of his translation is based on the northern Western Aukštaitian dialect (monophthongization of diphthongs is almost entirely absent: I have noted only g. sg. Awinačio 144, 17, i. pl. Jaunikaczeis 124, 10–11, and Waikaczeis 124, 10).

In terms of terminology, the writings of A. Pilgrim and K. Lovynas are not fundamentally different from the two booklets translated by Wilhelm Rėgė (Regge) that appeared in 1788: “Mokslas Pamokinimo ant gero wartojimo Laukininkams...” and “Skaitimo Knygėlės ant

¹⁹ B i r ž i š k a V. Aleksandrynas 2, 64.

use for farmers...”. In them, the “mobile” [a] is more frequently omitted at the ending -as of nouns and pronouns, and short vowels are dropped from various unstressed verb endings, e.g.: a) n. sg. Darb’s RM 5, 18, Burs “būr” RS 41, 12, kalts RM 23, 15, Sens ibid. 21, 28, Sǵwents RaBts ibid. 27, 19–20, kur’s ibid. 6, 28, Jauns papraḟts, sens atrafts RS 56, 9 (the title of the 20th narrative), budams RM 15, 25, mylim’s ibid. 2, 31..., b) praes. 3 atlie k RM 18, 8, grauden’ ibid. 18, 17, yr’ ibid. 1, 3, meld’ RS 27, 26, werk ibid. 22, 25..., gal RM 2, 22, gird’ ibid. 23, 28, pen ibid. 35, 26, reg RS 23, 3, ftow’ RM 17, 14..., inf. but’ RM 2, 21, miſlyt’ ibid. 1, 5... However, no greater consistency in the shortening of endings is evident: the same form is often used consecutively with both a shortened and an unshortened ending, cf.: n. sg. Diew’s RM 7, 13 and Diewas ibid. 7, 18, jauns or jennas ibid. 161, 18, gyws ibid. 9, 20 and gywas ibid. 11, 28, praes. 3 myl ibid. 29, 9 and myli ibid. 29, 4.

The more frequent shortening of endings probably arose under the influence of the Tilsit dialect, since V. Rėgė was a pastor in Tilsit for the last 23 years of his life (he died in 1791)²⁰. The influence of this dialect may also explain the fairly frequent instances of mixing uo/o and ie/ė; cf.: praes. 3 melloj’ RM 25, 2, inf. melloti ibid. 44, 3 and praet. 3 wartūjo ibid. 173, 13, inf. wartūti ibid. 129, 13, in. pl. wiſſūne dalykoſe ibid. 82, 23, wiſſūſe mokſloſe RS 20, 21–22, Bittōſe Kudikioſe ibid. 65, 17, užauguf(oſe) Metoſe ibid. 58, 60..., n. sg. bėdnas RS 46, 13 and in. sg. Giedoje ibid. 38, 3, n. sg. Tėws RM 12, 4 and Diew’s ibid. 7, 13, in. sg. žede “in a ring, in bloom” ibid. 33, 16 and g. sg. žiemos ibid. 18, 5²¹. However, there is no firm basis for saying that this kind of mixing arose only through the influence of the Tilsit dialect. Another cause, perhaps the main one behind the mixing of uo/o and ie/ė, is that Lithuanian was not V. Rėgė’s native language, and he did not clearly distinguish not only the phonemes /uo/, /o/ and /ie/, /ė/, but also grammatical genders. Thus, in combinations such as Bittōſe Kudikioſe, pirmūſe dienūſe, he may have treated the noun kūdikis ‘child’ as feminine and dieną ‘day’ as masculine. Cases of confusion over grammatical gender occur fairly often in his aforementioned booklets (e.g.: wienoje Rytoje “one morning” RM 14, 2–3, tą grabu gieſme ibid. 23, 22–23, i. pl. abaŕais žerrejo ibid. 124, 32, tikrrus Seſſerus ibid. 125, 24, g. sg. ſunkios prakaitos RS 44, 5).

Sporadically, one or another form with a instead of ai also appears in V. Rėgė’s booklets: a. pl. daktus RS 18, 1; 28, 18, n. sg. Mergate ibid. 47, 21, v. sg. mammate 48, 4; 11 (the authenticity of the latter is beyond doubt, since it is used in dialogue). However, monophthongization of the diphthong [ai] is not more clearly reflected in the poor language, replete with non-Lithuanian words and especially syntactic constructions, of the translations in V. Rėgė’s booklets.

²⁰ Biržiška V. Aleksandrynas 2, 99.

²¹ The grapheme e is rarely used by V. Rėgė, so it is difficult to say whether the e found in its place denotes a broadened vowel or is merely a matter of orthography.

§ 9. Continuation of the Klein tradition in hymnals.

In discussing the relationship between the written language and dialects in RP, hymns must not be overlooked, although this ecclesiastical genre of poetry has specific features that make the relationship less pronounced than in prose texts. Owing to the rhythm and intonation characteristic of the hymn genre, dialectal features in hymn texts are generally more leveled, and hymn texts also more often employ innovative means of linguistic expression.

In the 18th century, quite a number of hymnals appeared in RP, since, as is well known, the singing of hymns is an integral part of Reformed religious services, and Reformed clergy took great care to ensure that there was no shortage of either Lithuanian biblical texts or hymnals.

As early as 1705, the pastor of Budviečiai, Frydrichas Šusteris, published a somewhat revised and expanded version of Jono Rikovi jaus’s hymnal, D. Kleino’s “Naujos... pagerintos Giesmju Knygos (1685). However, no major linguistic changes are evident in the hymns reprinted from Klein. Here and there, Šusteris slightly re-edited one line or another (cf.: Jog mane iš malones RG 170, 2 and Manę jog iš malones ŠG 170, 2), or word forms differ in their spelling, especially in diacritical marks (cf. RG: g. sg. f. kitrawõnes 170, 4, g. sg. m. Dekawõjimo 358, 2, n. sg. m. Bėgunas 317, 15, grãžūs 326, 15, praes. 1 pl. gárbinam 336, 9, n. sg. f. iBardita 356, 3... and ŠG: kijtrawones 170, 4, Dekawojimo 398, 2 Begunas 356, 24, grãžūs 366, 5, garbinam 375, 19, iBardijta 396, 3...). Thus, in dialectal terms, F. Šusteris’s hymnal departed less from Klein’s norms.

Following F. Šusteris, a new edition of the hymnal was prepared and printed in 1732 by the pastor of Įsrutis, Jonas Berentas; it was reprinted in 1735, 1738, 1740, 1745, and 1748. Since the first three of these are known only from bibliographical sources, nothing can at present be said about their linguistic features. A comparison of the two later extant editions shows that they do not differ linguistically: both apparently draw on earlier editions published after F. Šusteris’s, and are associated with the Klein tradition.

Besides F. Šusteris and J. Berentas, Lithuanian hymnals in the first half of the 18th century were also prepared by the pastor of Didlaukai, Fabijonas Glazeris. His 1736 and 1738 hymnals are known from bibliographical sources. The “Kittos naujos Gies[m]es,” which appeared in 1748, unquestionably also belong to him; the cryptonym F. U. G. P. D. identifies their compiler (= Fabijonas Ulrichas Glazeris Pastorius Dovydėlių), and they had already been published in 1745. Although these latter editions, i.e. those of 1745 and 1748, differ both in the numbering of the hymns and in their order of presentation (for example, the first hymn in the 1745 edition is “Ein Weter steiget auf,” whereas in the 1748 edition it is “Gott sey Danck...”), the texts themselves are identical apart from certain minor spelling differences. In terms of dialectal basis, they too follow the Klein tradition, that is, the southwestern Prussian High Lithuanian dialect forms predominate in them. For example, the length of nasal vowels at word ends (which by then had already acquired weak nasal resonance) is retained, as are the lengths of unstressed vowels in the endings -o, -os, -ė, -ės: g. sg. m. Karwėlo BG 127, 14, Wėlno ibid. 77, 20, praet. 3 atėjo ibid. 127, 14, mano ibid. 46, 40, jawot ibid. 129,

24..., n. pl. f. gillos Ronos BG 53, 6, Kojos ibid. 155, 33, Rankos ibid. 56, 21..., n. sg. f. Gerybe BG 217, 27, Malone ibid. 137, 29, Meilė ibid. 180, 34, Zemė GG² 51, 5, praet. 3 Padāre GG² 111, 7..., n. pl. f. Gieſmės BG 188, 1, Gerybės GG² 43,31, Lepfnėlės ibid. 83,16... It is true that in the endings -ė, -ės, as the examples given here also show, the narrow [e] inherited from the Klein tradition was not marked with a dot; this does not necessarily reflect a shortened or reduced vowel, however: this is probably a matter of spelling rather than dialect (the hymnals occasionally also contain forms with a dot, e.g.: n. sg. f. Zolė GG² 83, 32).

In both Berentas’s and Glazeris’s hymnals, instances of diphthongs [uo], [ie] merging with [o], [ė], characteristic of the Tilžė dialect, occur only sporadically. The “striukiškas” monophthongization of the falling diphthongs [áu], [ái], [éi] is likewise not characteristic of the language of these hymnals. However, dropping short word-final vowels and marking their omission with an apostrophe is very common in the hymnals of both compilers. This is not because the hymnal compilers followed the Striukiai dialect: in preparing their hymnals they drew more heavily on the editions of their predecessors and, moreover, sometimes artificially shortened words for rhythmic reasons. Consequently, the shortened form often occurs alongside the unshortened form in Berentas’s and Glazeris’s hymnals, e.g.: Mano Jėzus gyw’s yra, gywas taipojau ab buſu BG 70, 40, praet. 3 ſpaūdӡ ibid. 92, 7 // ſpaudӡia ibid. 104, 19, n. sg. m. Diew’s ibid. 127, 8 // Diewas ibid. 119, 9, Kun’s ibid. 53, 12 // Kunas ibid. 53, 21, Krauj’s ibid. 53, 13 // Kraujas ibid. 163, 32, Wéln’s 53, 15 // Wélnas ibid. 132, 4, piln’s ibid. 79, 12 // pilnas ibid. 57, 10, inf. paſlēpt’ ibid. 140, 8 // padēti ibid. 58, 8 part. cont. turredam’s GG² 9,36 // ſakydamas ibid. 9, 37... The following should be classified as artificially shortened forms: a. sg. Dien’ and Nakt’ GG² 48, 6, tukſtant’ likewise BG 55, 2, 18, adv. amӡ’nay ibid. 55, 39, tūlyd’ “gradually” ibid. 137, 15, n. sg. d’winta “ninth” ibid. 60, 28, and so on.

As is well known, the pastor of Papelki, Adomas Frydrichas Šimelpenigis (the younger), combined Berentas’s and Glazeris’s hymnals into one large collection of hymns, which he also supplemented with new hymns, and published it in a revised form in 1750.²² Soon afterward, in 1752, a second edition of this hymnal appeared, containing 612 pages (including the unnumbered list of hymns). A comparison of the latter with Berentas’s 1748 hymnal (462 pp.) shows that the hymn texts up to p. 406 are almost entirely identical in both—

...ißeinanti iß Diewo 20, 20 Po tawo dük Akkim’... 21, 13

...iß Diewo einanti 438, 11 Tawęſp man eiti dük... 43, 840

Sӡio Swieto Gerybes daugiaus ab mylu, ne Dawėjo [p. 37, 16–17]

Ab myliu Daiktus cӡėſibkus daugiaus ne kaip Dawėją [p. 457, 20–21]

22 For more detail: Lietuvos TSR bibliografija [hereafter – LTB] 1, Vilnius: Mintis,1969, 386.

Christ made everything very well; he had not yet created us and our bodies were not yet created then; for the world did not yet exist. But Christ already intended to give us eternal life and health in Heaven [p. 109, 32–37]

The Lord made everything very well, before he, through Grace, established us to live in the world’s dwelling; our salvation is merited, and before he saw the great hosts of the stars, he distinguished them for his own [p. 554, 4–9]

when they coincide (apart from certain minor linguistic and graphic differences; for example, instead of Berentas’s a. pl. Grieknikus BG 57, 18, Šimelpenigis uses Grieknin-kus 57, 18; instead of Berentas’s Garbe buk 39, 4, Garbe t’eſt 39, 4; among the graphic differences, a different notation of nasal [ą], [ę] in Šimelpenigis’s hymnal should be mentioned: the present-day form “nasal marks” instead of Berentas’s tilted dashes). From the page mentioned above onward, still more differences of various kinds can be observed in Šimelpenigis’s hymnal. It includes hymns translated by the editor himself, as well as some hymns translated by Glazer and others, which were revised.

In Šimelpenigis’s 1752 hymnal, individual hymns were revised to a greater or lesser extent not only textually but also linguistically; compare:

The comparison shows that, while editing, Šimelpenigis changed the forms of some words and their order, and in certain cases (in the last example) translated the entire text in his own way. However, no evidence was found that he deliberately changed the dialect forms of earlier hymn translators or avoided them in the hymns he revised (in the last example, the narrow dialectal form and archaism bit ‘was’, used around Išdagai, was apparently published by him because the text variant differed). Thus, with regard to its dialectal basis, Šimelpenigis likewise did not depart from the Kleinian, western, southern written-language tradition.

A. F. Šimelpenigis (the younger)’s 1752 hymnal was later reissued several times. Bibliographical sources mention editions from 1763 and 1766, while editions from 1776 and 1791 have survived in libraries. Comparison of the surviving editions clearly shows that the later ones were identical reprints of the earlier ones, in which only an occasional spelling difference can be found (usually one caused by the printing house); compare: in. sg. mannij⁵⁷ ŠiG 439, 21 // manij⁷⁶ ŠiG likewise // m[a]nnij⁹¹ ŠiG likewise; part. n. sg. m. marinnams⁵⁷ ŠiG 454, 4–5 // marinams⁷⁶ ŠiG likewise // marrinams⁹¹ ŠiG likewise; praes. 1 sg. pawarrau⁵⁷ ŠiG 457, 10 // paw arau⁷⁶ ŠiG likewise // pawarrau⁹¹ ŠiG likewise; a. pl. m. Dayktus⁵⁷ ŠiG 457, 20–21 // Daiktus⁷⁶ ŠiG likewise // Daiktus⁹¹ ŠiG; a. sg. mannę⁵⁷ ŠiG 472, 35 // manę⁷⁶ ŠiG likewise // mannę⁹¹ ŠiG likewise.

Thus, Šimelpenigis’s hymnal was the most popular Lithuanian hymnal in eighteenth-century RP. Other hymnals of that period in the region were also prepared on its basis (e.g., G. Ostermejeris’s 1781 hymnal). Since the language of its later editions was not changed, they contain no new dialectal features. For this reason, those hymnals preserved the earlier (predominantly Kleinian) tradition of ecclesiastical poetic language, which remained in RP in later periods as well.

§ 10. A few words about the dialectal basis of the prayer books.

Following the Klein tradition, in the 18th century prayer books were published alongside larger hymnals (bound into a single volume, but usually with separate pagination). Their title was “Naujos labay priwalingos ir Duboms naudingos Maldū=Knygėlos“. In 1705, what was probably the first such 18th-century prayer book was printed in Königsberg (the date 1704 given on its title page is questionable)²³. It differed little from the second edition of Klein’s prayer book, prepared by Jonas Rikovijus and printed in 1685. The only differences were a somewhat different arrangement of prayers, smaller type, and punctuation (in the 1705 edition, probably prepared by that year’s hymnal editor, Šusteris, the multifunctional punctuation mark—the slanted slash /—is used less often; it is occasionally replaced by the modern exclamation mark or semicolon). The texts of later known editions of the prayer book (published in 1731, 1745, 1748, 1757, 1776, and 1791) likewise differ little from one another: their differences are also mostly limited to the graphic level; compare the prayer for the Easter feast:

1731

1745

1748

Almighty, eternal, and merciful God, you, Father of our Savior Jesus Christ! We humbly thank you that you gave your only-begotten Son over to death for our sins... [p. 24]

Almighty, eternal, and merciful God, you, Father of our Savior Jesus Christ! We humbly thank you that you gave your only-begotten Son over to death for our sins... [pp. 18–19]

1757

1776

1791

Almighty, eternal, and merciful God, you, Father of our Savior Jesus Christ! We humbly thank you that you gave your only-begotten Son over to death for our sins... [p. 19]

Almighty, eternal, and merciful God, you, Father of our Savior Jesus Christ! We humbly thank you that you gave your only-begotten Son over to death for our sins... [p. 634]

Almighty, eternal, and merciful God, you, Father of our Savior Jesus Christ! We humbly thank you that you gave your only-begotten Son over to death for our sins... [pp. 18–19]

²³ See LTB 1, 201.

Since prayer books, as mentioned, were published together with hymnals and, moreover, were usually prepared for publication by the same authors, their dialectal basis could not differ greatly from that of the latter. Some variation in the language of the hymnals (e.g., more frequent shortening of endings) may have arisen from the demands of versification. But this requires special investigation, which we shall not undertake here.

In terms of genre, agendas—that is, books describing prayers and church rites—are also close to prayer books. Probably the first book of this kind to appear in RP was Jonas Berentas’s “Dawadnas Pamokinnimas kaipo wiffj Lietuwoje [...] Kunnigai kaip Diewo Tarnai tur elgtis [...] Karaláuczuje Mete MDCCXXX”.

Since Berentas was a native of Ragainė (born there and serving as a pastor in Įsrutis for a long time), his writings, too, could not stray far from the dialect of his native region, especially since it had been established in the written tradition of RP from the time of D. Kleinas. Thus, in his “Dawádne Pamokinnime...,” as in biblical and hymn texts, he largely adhered to the dialectal basis of the western Aukštaitian southern subdialect (he used forms with unshortened nominal endings -(i)o, -(i)os, -ė, -ės, sometimes also with the “mobile” stem-final vowel in the ending -as). However, probably because the area around Įsrutis belonged to the so-called “striukiai” subdialect, Berentas did not avoid shortening endings in his agenda either: he omitted the “mobile” [a] (budam’s 2, 16, gyw’s 11, 36, Kúnig’s “priest” 2, 23, Pon’s 11, 16, Salmon’s “Solomon” 12, 17... // Klebonas 9, 20, Pówilas 11, 6, Ponas Diewas 11, 27...), dropped -e from the singular instrumental ending of nouns (Bedoj’ 2, 2, Jßminitj’ 31, 8, Laiwėlj’ 3, 25, Malónej’ 31, 9, tykoj’ Petnyčioj’ 38, 2... // Danguje 4, 12, Pakajuje 3, 26, žodije 11, 9...), dropped -e, -i from verb endings (inf. liept’ 10, 12 // tarti 10, 13, pres. 3 nór 13, 4, pen’ “feeds” 11, 16, jed’ “sits” 516 // gauna 12, 18, randa ibid., imper. 2 pl. imkit 7, 7, walgikit 7, 8... // augkite 14, 22, dekawokite 6, 26...). It should also be noted that cases of [uo]/[o] and [ie]/[ė] merger occur in the agenda, cf.: instr. pl. pirmúf’a Knygof’a, wiffúf’a Szaļij’a 10, 20, 21, 31, adv. niekados 39, 5 // nėkados 27, 11, dat. pl. Bėdnėms 8, 12, inf. pakwėfti 9, 11... This is a feature characteristic of Tilžė residents, also reflected in some other RP writings of the period.

In terms of dialectal basis, Gotfrydas Ostermejeris’s “Agenda” (1775), published nearly half a century after Berentas’s agenda, is essentially no different. In his 1791 grammar, he wrote that the Ragainė, Įsrutis, and Gumbinė dialects, which are quite close to one another, were considered the purest Lithuanian dialects (“Der Ragnitsche, Jnsterburgische und Gumbinische Dialect stimmt ziemlich, und wird für den reinsten gehalten”, p. 130). And indeed, in his “Agendoje,” published in 1775, western southern forms with endings -(i)o, -(i)os, -ė, -ės, -ys predominate (gen. sg. Adomo 3, 18, amžino 4, 6, mano 43, 3, tawo 2, 16, fawo 3, 2, Mėdžio 34, 10, didžio 6, 10, didžios 51, 19...; nom. sg. Garbė 8, 6, Gie/me 74, 12, gen. sg. Garbės 3, 10, Meilės 4, 20...; nom. pl. Aufys 61, 11, Sßirdys 39, 9...) with the “mobile” [a] (nom. sg. ámžinas 42, 14, aprūpinimas 2, 26, Birdingas 15, 26, Bwentas 10, 8, Bittas 20, 3 (but also kitts 32, 2), meldžiamas 42, 11, pagarbintas 4, 2...), and the suffix -i- (imper. 2 sg. Aprūpik 58, 4, atnaujik 68, 15, gaiwik 67, 9,

Padrutik 17, 4, platik 58, 8, cond. 3 ƒtippritu 28, 7.... but also: imper. 2 sg. ƒtipprink 29, 21, cond. 3 padruttintu 7, 13–14, pagárbintu 25, 4 ƒtipprintu 5, 10...) and so on.

Here and there, “Agendoje” also contains forms such as gen. sg. m. waddota 1, 7, nom. sg. m. pralėtas 30, 9, acc. sg. f. Wetą “place” 32, 22, acc. pl. m. Žėdus “flowers” 31, 22, pret. 2 sg. lėpei 50, 12, acc. sg. m. ūrą 60, 11; 66, 23, which can be associated with the speech of Tilžė residents, if they do not reflect the author’s pronunciation or amount simply to printing errors. It is regrettable that Ostermejeris’s 1781 hymnal has not survived, as it would help establish the reasons for the occurrence of such forms.

§ 11. Dominance of Kleinian Norms in Catechisms. XVIII

a. In RP, not only biblical texts, hymnals, and prayer books were frequently published, but also catechisms (both as separate booklets at the beginning of the century and appended to prayer books in the middle and latter half of the century). Interestingly, a four-language catechism—in German, Latin, Polish, and Lithuanian—began to be published here as early as the seventeenth century, apparently with the region’s multiethnic population in mind: “D. Martini Lutheri Catechismus minor, Germanico-Polonico-Lithvanico-Latinus” (the languages are listed in this title in the order indicated). Bibliographers mention editions of this anonymous catechism from 1670, 1683, 1696, 1700, 1709, 1720, and 1751 (the date of the last edition’s appearance is disputed)²⁴.

A comparison of the 1709 and 1720 microfilms held at the Library of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences immediately shows that they differ in neither content nor language (apart from a few minor spelling details), so the later one is a reprint of the earlier edition. In many cases, the Lithuanian translation in these two editions is closer to the Polish version, giving reason to believe that the translator followed the latter more closely; compare:

1709 edition (1720 edition in square brackets)

German text

Latin text

Polish text

Lithuanian text

1. Give us this day our daily bread. [p.20, 9–11]

Give us this day our daily bread. [p.20, 8–11]

Our daily bread give us today. [p.21, 8–10]

Give us our daily bread. [p.21, 10–12] [Give us our daily bread, ib.]

²⁴ For more detail, see LTB 1, 228–229; “Supplements” to this volume, 1990, 44.

2. You shall have no other gods. Have no other gods. Do not have other gods beside me. [p.30, 13–15] [p.31, 14–16] [Do not have other gods beside me, ib.]

German text

Latin text

Polish text

Lithuanian text

3. You shall not bear false witness against your neighbor. [p.38, 20–23]

You shall not speak false testimony against your neighbor [p.38, 21–23]

Do not give false testimony against your neighbor. [p.39, 26–29]

Do not give false testimony against your neighbor. [p.39, 23–25] [Do not give false testimony against your neighbor, ib.]

The forms in the Lithuanian section of the four-language catechism (1709 and 1720), generally speaking, are western southern forms, agreeing in many cases with those codified in D. Klein’s grammars, namely: a) with unshortened -(i)o, -ė, -os, -ės endings (present tense, third person laiko K 45, 18, gen. sg. Diewo 7, 5, lobio 75, 12, mano 27, 10, ſawo 57, 17 || ſawa 27, 3..., nom. sg. Nablė 129, 11, gen. sg. amžinos gywatõs 83, 19, Tevißkos Deiwißkos gerybes 51, 11–12...), b) with the “mobile” [a] retained (nom. sg. Deßimtas 11, 7, Diewas 11, 16, gywas 9, 8–9, gyvenimas 99, 3, kunas ir kraujas 87, 8–9...), c) with unshortened imperative endings (2 pl. Eikite 23, 13, Imkite ir gerkite 27, 18–19, mokinkite 23, 14–15, walgykite 27, 5...), d) with frequently unshortened singular and plural inessive endings (masc. sg. dūnoje 87, 11, maldoje 69, 2, naktijė 25, 13, ßlowėje 35, 28, teiſybėje 85, 9..., but also: Danguj 63, 11, wienoj’ tikroj wieroj’ 59 6–7...²⁵.

On the other hand, however, having already departed from the norms set out in D. Klein’s paradigms, the four-language catechism often uses present-tense forms with endings omitted: third person gaubin “increases” 67, 2, gywen 129, 16, lauš “breaks” 67, 2, myl 13, 14, mokin 63, 12; 113, 14, perwerg 117, 23–24...; first person plural atleidžiam 71, 5, gywenam 65, 9, tikkin 65, 8...

Apparently, the four-language catechism did not meet the needs of the RP church authorities, so plans were made to prepare a new, bilingual (German-Lithuanian) catechism—especially one that would be standard for the Lithuanian community of that region. H. Lysius, who for a time served as inspector of RP schools and churches, undertook to prepare such a catechism-

²⁵ Since the 1720 edition matches the 1709 edition in pagination, only the page and line of the latter are indicated here.

the duties of pastor ²⁶. However, the 1719 translation manuscript prepared collectively through his efforts was not printed, and in 1722 G. Engel’s revised edition of this manuscript appeared.

G. Engel’s revised “Small Catechism” contains quite a few differences in both text and language. Certain parts of the text are omitted in some places and expanded in others; in addition, there are numerous (a) phonetic, (b) lexical, and (c) syntactic corrections, cf.: a) praes. 3 fáko LK 12, 8 and faka EK 6, 8; praes. 1 sg. ėjmi LK 12, 9 and ęlmi EK 6, 9; praes. 3 patenk’ LK 36, 5 and patenka EK 56, 12; a. sg. f. Ewangeliją LK 37, 13 and Wangelýa EK 58, 27, imper. 1 pl. Klauſykim’ LK 54, 18 and Klauſykem’ EK 83, 13..., b) atſankas Piktenybę LK 12, 11 and atſankas Griekus EK 6, 13–14; AB bednas griėbnas žmogus LK 29, 11 and AB bėdnas wargingas žmogus EK 40, 4; adv. kodel LK 33, 1 and kam EK 51, 3...; c)... Bitoje Naktij’ kurroje buwo ibdūtas LK 27, 12–13 and... Bitoje Naktije kuroje turėjo but ibdūtas EK 11, 5–7; Kláuſimai, ant kurių wiſſi krikſcʒonis [...] atſakyti tur. LK 30, 7–8 and Kiti Kláuſimai / kurius wiſſi Krikſcʒonis [...] atſakyti tur. EK 48, 1–6; Argi trys Diewai yra? LK 30, 13 and Ar trys yra Diewai? EK 48, 16... As can be seen from the examples given here, G. Engel also made some corrections to the spelling of Lyzijus’s manuscript (in some places not doubling consonant letters, especially r, and also changing accent marks, etc.). However, no more substantial terminological differences from LK and the four-language catechism (apart from one or another northern form) are apparent in EK.

The second edition of G. Engel’s catechism is thought²⁷ to have appeared around 1726. It is difficult to say whether it differed in any way from the first, since it has not yet been found. But the third edition, published in 1730, has survived and contains various differences from the first, cf.: Kláuſimai Luteraus Pirmkarčiams ant Gero Judawaditi / Ju Atſakymais EK 42, 6–10 and Kláuſimai Luteraus / prie Diewo Stalo einantiems / Ju jų Atſakymais MLK 43, 9–12; Ar nuſimanaiſi ir žinaiſi Griekìninku eſąs? EK 42, 11–13 and Ar tikki Griebnas eſas? MLK 43, 13. This may indicate that the 1730 edition was prepared not by G. Engel but by someone else, especially since it also contains numerous textual differences (for example, at the end, after the catechism and the sections “Naßlėms” and “Wiſſiems iß weno,” several of David’s psalms have been added, which are absent from the 1722 edition). However, no substantial differences are apparent between the 1722 and 1730 editions in terms of their terminological basis either.

Bibliografijose minimi dar 1750, 1751, 1780 m. „Mažo Katgismo“ leidimai, bet jie težinomi tik iš rašytinių šaltinių, todėl apie jų terminį pagrindą ir apskritai kalba nieko negalima spręsti. Kas kita – katekizmai, leistieji kaip priedai prie maldaknygių („Maldų knygelių“). G. Ostermejerio liudijimu²⁸, pirmasis toks

²⁷ LTB 1, 96.

²⁸ O s t e r m e y e r G. Erste littauische Liedergeschichte, Königsberg, 1793, 144.

²⁶ For more on it, see H e i n r i c h J o h a n n L y s i u s. Mažasis Katekizmas... (prepared by Pietro U. Dini), Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla, 1993, 8–11.

The supplement was printed in 1740 together with J. Berentas’s prayer book. A comparison of such catechisms from 1744, 1748, and 1753 shows that their dialectal basis is the same as that of the prayer books to which they were appended. This is understandable: the catechisms were translated by the same people who prepared the prayer books for printing.

In terms of both dialectal basis and language more generally, special mention should be made of the “Christian Catholic Catechism” published in 1770 by Jonas Joskaudas (Jaskowd), a Jesuit preacher who worked in Tilžė and Königsberg. Since the author of this catechism was, it is conjectured, from the vicinity of Palanga and studied in Kražiai²⁹, one might expect his writings to contain a greater or lesser Samogitian stratum. This is not the case, however: apparently, in order to attract the Lithuanians of the Tilžė region and Königsberg to Catholicism, he had to conform to the norms of the written language of RP, based on the Prussian Western Aukštaitian dialect and codified in D. Klein’s grammars.

And indeed, Joskaudas’s catechism is dominated by western phonetic and morphological forms characteristic of many other eighteenth-century writings, e.g.: a) g. sg. amžino gyvenimo 13, 11, kraujo 40, 16, liežuwjo 56, 26, dūnōs 56, 4, Junkōs liggōs 58, 12, praes. 3 daro 51, 15, jako 4, 3, praet. 3 buwo 7, 8, kentejo 6, 22, nuėjo 7, 4..., b) n. sg. meile 21, 2, Moteryftė 35, 24, wale 15, 25, praet. 3 ėmė 42, 15, padarė 19, 10, g. sg. Gentyftės 41, 9, Kumyftės 41, 10, malonės 16, 12, žėmės 9, 21..., c) n. sg. griekas 37, 7, prabimas 15, 9, wienas daiktas 5, 18, part. cont. atfimindamas 13, 9, budamas 10, 10, mirdamas 49, 5..., d) in. sg. antroje pufjeje 19, 19, wienoje regimoje Daleleje 59, 2, wjetoje 41, 25, danguje 9, 11, in. pl. kurrūje daiktūje 14, 5, RaBtūje 11 9, Tėftamentūje 3, 9..., e) praes. 3 atlėidžia 63, 13, reikia 43, 2, werkia 83, 4, cond. 1 sg. būciau 53, 10, etc.

On the other hand, however, in certain features, especially the “Striukiai-like” shortening of endings, Joskaudas’s catechism is linked to the northern varieties of the Prussian Western Aukštaitian dialect, cf. the frequent loss of the “mobile” [a]: n. sg. gers 49, 4 // géras 13, 13, niėks 40, 25, Pirms 15, 9, wiens 4, 4, vyrs 41, 3, part. cont. liepdamus 70, 2, werkdams 71, 25... and the fairly frequent dropping of the endings -a, -e, -i in the present tense: imm 3 5, 7, nenufimin “does not despair” 13, 8, wadinn 36, 19, pra-Bom 15, 13, negal 12, 12... It is now, of course, difficult to say how much influence his native Samogitian dialect, the Tilžė speech, or the earlier Prussian written tradition may have had here. It can only be added that such instances of shortening also occur in his booklet “Praftas Pamokflas...” published in 1770, which may in part also be called a catechism, since various catechetical matters are explained in it in question-and-answer form, with the addition of a few prayers, cf.: n. sg. Wiens 3, 12, neuter will 5, 2, praes. 3 aptur 18, 13, gal 8, 25, gird 11, 19, mirBt 11, 22 // mirBta 11, 26 (more frequently), ne futtar 10, 15, imperative 2 sg. laupin

²⁹ For more on his life, see B i r ž i š k a V. Aleksandrynas 2, 154.

23, 17. Many such shortened forms were also carried over into later editions of this booklet (1772, 1797). But in the most extensively revised 1797 edition, the endings of shortened forms are often marked with an apostrophe, cf.: a. neutr. wiff PrP⁷⁰ 5, 2 and wiff PrP⁷⁹ 9, 12, praes. 3 mirßt PrP⁷⁰ 11, 22, mirßt PrP⁷² 16, 6 and mirßt’ PrP⁷⁹ 22, 18, g. sg. f. moters PrP⁷⁰ 17, 17 and moter’s PrP⁷⁹ 39, 12. It should also be noted that some shortened forms found in earlier editions were replaced by unshortened forms in the 1797 edition, cf.: n. sg. m. Ražums PrP⁷² 53, 21 and Ražumas PrP⁷⁹ 105, 7, in. sg. m. Dang[u]i PrP⁷², 21, 12 and Danguje PrP⁷⁹ 37, 8, praes. 3 yr PrP⁷² 7, 6 and yra PrP⁷⁹ 8, 25.

Overall, the 1779 edition of “Praf to Pamokßfo...” is not only substantially expanded (new versified prayers were added, the question-and-answer section was enlarged, etc.), but also extensively revised in terms of language and spelling (in some places Polonisms were replaced with Lithuanian equivalents, long [i] was marked with a y more regularly than in earlier editions, etc.). Compared with some other religious writings from late eighteenth-century RP (e.g. the translated books by the aforementioned Vilhelmas Rėge), the language of Joskaud’s “Praf to Pamokßfo...”, like that of his “Krikßčioniko Katalikißko Katekizmo”, is quite pure. Apparently, S. Daukantas noticed this as well: in a letter to M. Valančius dated April 5, 1846, he wrote that Father Barauskas had found in the St. Petersburg library a Lithuanian catechism by a Jesuit, printed in Königsberg in 1770, whose language was the purest (“język naiczystszy Litewski”)³⁰. Of course, it would not now be accurate to say that Joskaud’s language is “the purest” (it also contains borrowings characteristic of the period, such as asaba, pekla, sūdyti, viera, and so on), but it is indeed purer, especially syntactically, than the language of more than a few other authors or translators of religious writings from that period.

§ 12. The Dialectal Basis of Kristijonas Donelaitis.

The dialectal basis of Donelaitis’s writings is decidedly western and southern. This was largely determined by the writer’s birthplace and place of work: as is known, he was born in the village of Lazdynėliai, near Gumbinė, and spent most of his working life in Tolminkiemis, that is, within the area of the southern subdialect of Western Aukštaitian (the so-called baltsermegiai). In addition, the earlier written tradition may have had considerable influence on him here, especially the language of the 1755 Bible, which its editors had brought closer to the speech of the southern dialect area.

The southern basis of the language of Donelaitis’s writings is indicated by: a) the regular use of forms with unstressed endings -(i)o, -(i)os, -ė, -ės, -ys, and -ūs (e.g.: praet. 3 bėgo DRr 23, 23, buwo ibid. 3, 11; audė ibid. 3, 23, lopė ibid. 4, 18, g. sg. diddelio Pulko ibid. 3, 27, [zalto Pá]žalio ibid. 3, 13, n. pl. Káfos irgi

30 See Daukantas’s letters / published by A. Janulaitis. – Mūsų senovė 1, nos. 4/5, Kaunas, 1922, 787. The printed text of the letter in question contains a typographical error: 1740 is printed instead of 1770. According to Vac. Biržiška, Daukantas’s letter did not contain this error; see his Aleksandrynas 2, 155.

Kepurrės ibid. 23, 10, skaũdžos... bėdos DR 258, 12, Akys DRr 26, 10, Wagys ibid. 30, 29, riebùs ibid. 36, 41, (kanũs ibid. 16, 38); b) the fairly regular, though not exception-free, use of forms with the suffixes -ī-, -ē- (< in, en) (e.g.: inf. augyt DRr 26, 35, buddit ibid. 41, 11, paſirupit ibid. 15, 40, imper. 2 sg. atlimyk ibid. 9, 33, 2 pl. Skubikimes ibid. 12, 31, part. cont. n. sg. nufimīdams ibid. 15, 19, n. pl. gaiwīdami ibid. 3, 5..., but also: inf. gywent ibid. 30, 41, paſikákint ibid. 6, 21, cond. 3 nugabéntu ibid. 14, 38); c) forms preserving the ending -(i)a in the 3rd person present tense of verbs (e.g.: buddina DRr 5, 4, gárbina ibid. 5, 2, nedryta ibid. 30, 18, nufidūda ibid. 5, 36, ſkalbja ibid. 9, 25, werpja ibid. 35, 36..., but also: paſilinkſmin ibid. 9, 1, prijartin’ ibid. 28, 9, βweplén’). Forms with the so-called “mobile” [a] found in K. Donelaitis’s writings should likewise be considered southern: n. sg. m. Gandras DRr 4, 3, grybas ibid. 35, 18, linkſmas ibid. 4, 3, Stálas ibid. 39, 24, Weikalas ibid. 22, 28... In his verse works, however, forms in which that short vowel is omitted are used much more often (mainly because of the demands of hexameter meter; the omission is often marked by an apostrophe: kitt’s DRr 3, 36, Snieg’s ibid. 3, 4, Wyr’s ibid. 4, 17...).

Of course, it cannot be assumed that the frequent omission of mobile [a], as well as the shortening of certain other endings (e.g. dropping short -a in the 3rd person present tense of verbs, dropping short -i in the infinitive or in the 3rd person future tense of verbs, etc.), in Donelaitis’s writings is connected solely with the metrical requirements of his works. The influence of the neighboring striukių dialect and of the earlier written tradition may also be reflected here (for example, the 1735 and 1755 Bible texts likewise contain many forms with shortened endings marked by an apostrophe: n. sg. m. nakwin’s I Moz. 24, 54, Nelab’s Sal. pam. 16, 29, pien’s II Moz. 3, 17, Tew’s wien’s Jon. 10, 30..., praes 3 min’ Jon. 13, 18, pritar’ Ap. d. 15, 15..., inf. kalbėt’ Mat. 11, 7, pražūt III Moz. 20, 12..., in, sg. f. dwilinkoj’ I Moz. 25, 9, tréczoj’ II Moz. 19, 1...).

§ 13. Dialectal features of chancery documents.

Generally speaking, the dialectal basis of the chancery-style documents of eighteenth-century RP is western Southern Aukštaitian. But, as in other written-language styles of the region at that time, they also display, to a greater or lesser extent, features characteristic of the northern Western Aukštaitian subdialect (“striukiai”). Besides the fairly frequent omission of “mobile” [a], nearly all Prussian government decrees also show cases of the merger of [o] and [uo], [ė] and [ie], and of dropping the unstressed short final -a, -e, -i of verbs; compare: a) inf. atkartūti PVG 77, 7 // atkartūt ibid. 110, 3 and wažoti ibid. 314, 16; wartoti ibid. 97, 8 and praet. 3 wartūjo ibid. 97, 16; n. sg. m. kiem’s ibid. 198, 28, in. pl. Kiemūle ibid. 175, 9 and in. sg. Kėme ibid. 109, 28, g. pl. Kėmū ibid. 101, 22; d. pl. m. ėſantiems ibid. 299, 17 and minnėtems ibid. 236, 2; willėms ‘to the wicked’ ibid. 73, 8...; b) neutr. ger ibid. 105, 3, menk ibid. 253, 16, will ibid. 262, 3, praes.3 apſed ibid. 222, 15, yr ibid. 194, 21, pabėg ibid. 110, 7, pawag ibid. 153, 16 reik

ibid. 60, 32...; praes. 1 pl. darom ibid. 109, 10, dūdam ibid. 109, 9, norim ibid. 324, 5, žadam ibid. 109, 22; praet. 1 pl. dawēm’ ibid. 152, 21, jēbkōjom’ ibid. 152, 19, ibtyrēm’ ibid. 149, 5; fut. 1 pl. jūrēsim ibid. 233, 18, in. sg. ketwirtoj dienoj ibid. 66, 19, lenkiškōj Kalboje ibid. 321, 26, tam’ patim’ Kampē ibid. 141, 20–21, wienam’ ibid. 250, 21, inf. but’ ibid. 158, 21, darryt ibid. 101, 3, jēt’ ibid. 272, 1, praes. 3 gal ibid. 70, 13, gul ibid. 237, 19, nōr ibid. 97, 9, tur ibid. 113, 4... However, in many Prussian government chancery documents, the merger of both o / uo and ē / ie, as well as the shortening of endings, was irregular and often merely sporadic; moreover, no instances of monophthongization of the falling diphthongs [ãi], [áu], [éi], characteristic of the northern “striukiai” dialects, have been observed at all in documents of this style.

§ 14. Concluding remarks.

Having examined in broad outline the relationship between the Lithuanian written language and dialects in eighteenth-century RP, we can also answer the questions posed at the beginning of this chapter. Analysis of written-language usage shows that during the period in question most authors adhered to the main features of the Prussian Western Aukštaitian dialect, codified in D. Klein’s grammars. The exception in this respect is S. Bitner’s 1701 New Testament, in which an artificial attempt was made to reconcile two branches of the written language based on somewhat different dialectal foundations (the Prussian and the Middle Lithuanian). But this artificial reconciliation was not viable: RP did not gain wider acceptance, and the earlier, Kleinian tradition was soon restored here.

Nors tas grįžimas ryškiai atsispindi tiek 1727, tiek 1735 ir 1755 m. biblijos leidimuose, vis dėlto negalima tvirtinti, kad juose buvo nuosekliai laikomasi D. Kleino gramatikose kodifikuotų „kauniečių“ tarmės normų. Tai ypač pasakytina apie 1727 m. Naująjį testamentą, kuriame apstoka lyčių su prūsų vakarų aukštaičių šiauriečių šnektoms būdingu [o] ir [uo], [ė] ir [ie] suplakimu, neretai perkeltu ir į 1735, 1755 m. leidimus. Bet K. Donelaičio beletristiniuose kūriniuose tokių lyčių nepastebėta, nors jo brošiūroje apie separacijos naudą (išspausdintoje 1769 m.) šiek tiek pasitaiko. Esama jų ir Prūsų valdžios kanceliariniuose raštuose, rašytuose veikiausiai iš įvairių RP tarmių kilusių žmonių. Taigi XVIII a. prūsinės lietuvių rašomosios kalbos vartosenoje (ypač fonologijos ir morfologijos lygmenyse griežtai nesilaikyta kleiniškųjų normų, kartais nevengta ir tam tikrų dialektizmų, prieš kuriuos šio amžiaus pradžioje buvo pakėlęs balsą Mykolas Merlinas³¹. Tačiau siauresnių fonologinių ir morfologinių dialektizmų, būdingų tiktai kuriai nors šnektai (pvz., Labguvos) ir labiau nepaplitusių prūsų vakarų aukštaičių tarmėje, vis dėlto buvo vengiama.

31 M a c i ū n a s V. Project for the reform of the church language of Lithuania Minor in the early 18th century. – Archivum philologicum 6, Kaunas, 1937, 80.

ABBREVIATIONS

Ap. d. – Acts of the Apostles (Bible)

B¹ – Biblia, that is, Wissas Szwentas Rasztas... 1735

B² – Biblia, that is, Wissas Szwentas Rasztas...1755

BG – J. Berentas’ newly revised and improved Hymn Book... 1747

BT – S. Bitner’s New Testament... 1701

Comp. – D. Klein’s Compendium Lituanico-Germanicum... 1747

DR – Writings of K. Donelaitis... 1977

DRr – K. Donelaitis’ manuscripts... 1955

EK – G. Engel’s Mážas Katgismas... 1722

GG² – F. Glazeris’s Kittos naujos Giesmes...1748

GL – D. Klein’s Grammatica Litvanica...1653

Isa. – The Book of Isaiah (Bible)

Job. – The Book of Job (Bible)

John. – The Gospel of John (Bible)

Rev. – The Revelation of John (Bible)

K⁹ – D. Martini Lutheri Catechismus minor... 1709

KNT – J. Quandt’s New Testament...1727

LK – H. J. Lysius’s Mážas Katgismas...1719

LTB – Bibliography of the Lithuanian SSR

Luke. – The Gospel of Luke (Bible)

Matt. – The Gospel of Matthew (Bible)

MLK – Mážas Katgismas D.Mertino Luterus...1730

Mark. – The Gospel of Mark (Bible)

Moses. – The Books of Moses (Bible)

1 Pet. – The First Letter of Peter (Bible)

Pov. 1. efez. – Paul’s Letter to the Ephesians (Bible)

Pov. 1. rym. – Paul’s Letter to the Romans (Bible)

Pov. 1. tes. – Paul’s Letter to the Thessalonians (Bible)

Pov. 1. Tim.– Paul’s Letter to Timothy (Bible)

PrP⁷⁰ – J. Joskaudas, Prastas Pamokslas...1770

PrP⁷² – J. Joskaudas, Prastas Pamokslas...1772

Prp⁷⁹ – J. Joskaudas, Prastas Pamokslas...1779

Ps. – Psalms of David (Bible)

PVG – Prussian Government Letters...1960

RG – J. Rikovijus, Naujos... Giesmju Knygos... 1685

RM – V. Rėgė, Mokslas Pamokinnimo... 1788

RS – V. Rėgė, Skaitimo Knygeles... 1788

Rūt. – Book of Ruth (Bible)

Sal. pam. – Ecclesiastes (Bible)

Sal. išm. – Book of Wisdom of Solomon (Bible)

ŠG – F. Šuster’s 1705 hymnal

ŠiG⁵⁷ – A. Šimelpenigis’s Jsz naujo pérweizdėtos ir pagerintos Giesmjų Knygos... 1755

ŠiG⁷⁶ – A. Šimelpenigis’s Jsz naujo pérweizdėtos ir pagerintos Giesmjų Knygos... 1776

ŠiG⁹¹ – A. Šimelpenigis’s Jsz naujo pérweizdėtos ir pagerintos Giesmjų Knygos... 1791

RELATIONSHIPS BETWEEN THE LITHUANIAN WRITTEN LANGUAGE AND DIALECTS IN EAST PRUSSIA IN THE 18TH CENTURY

Summary

This article examines the dialectal basis of the Lithuanian written language in East Prussia through an in-depth phonetic and morphological analysis, and, in part, syntactic and lexicological analysis, of evidence from 18th-century linguistic monuments (biblical texts, hymnals, prayer books, catechisms, as well as the works of K. Donelaitis and chancery-language documents). The study has shown that most authors of the period followed the southwestern High Lithuanian dialect, whose features were codified in the grammars of Daniel Klein. An exception is Samuel Bitner’s “New Testament” (1701), which represents an attempt to combine the Prussian and Central Lithuanian branches of the written language. However, such a combination had no prospects: in East Prussia, people very soon returned to the Kleinian tradition.

The Kleinian tradition was retained in the 1727 edition of the “New Testament” as well as in the 1735 and 1755 editions of the entire Bible. However, the norms of D. Klein’s grammar are not applied consistently in these editions: they also exhibit some characteristic features of the northwestern High Lithuanian dialect (the conflation of /o/ and /uo/, /ė/ and /ie/, among others). These features also occur sporadically in chancery-language documents of the period. Such northwestern High Lithuanian elements, however, are absent from K. Donelaitis’s literary works.