Apie istorinį ir etimologinį lietuvių kalbos žodynus

LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI XXXVII (1997) LEKSIKOGRAFIJOS IR LEKSIKOLOGIJOS PROBLEMOS Juozas KARACIEJUS ON HISTORICAL AND ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARIES OF THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE Publication of the great “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language,” though rather slow, is nevertheless now nearing its end. But it can in no way replace a dictionary of old writings or a historical dictionary of the Lithuanian language, which we increasingly find ourselves missing. Such a dictionary is needed not only by historians of the language, but also by practitioners, since a historical dictionary of the Lithuanian language, which should cover all our language monuments, both printed and manuscript, at least up to the beginning of the 19th century, ought to indicate not only how frequently words are used, but also the meanings in which one word or another is used and which features of word usage may have been conditioned by other languages. However, compiling such a dictionary is not so simple. Its compilers first need to become thoroughly familiar with all our old writings and their specific characteristics. Thus, the core group of compilers of a historical dictionary of the Lithuanian language should consist of specialists in the history of the Lithuanian language. It is therefore entirely understandable why, just over a decade ago, the idea of a historical dictionary of the Lithuanian language began to be discussed quite openly at the then Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature. The initiator of this idea was the Department of Language History and Dialectology. The question of a historical dictionary of the Lithuanian language was even considered by the special council for the development and coordination of philological research then in operation. Yet apart from the vague, noncommittal terms we so came to favor in the postwar years and continue to use diligently to this day—assign, consider, obligate—nothing more was done. Of course, now, looking back on those times, we might assess those discussions positively, in the sense that a genuinely pressing problem was raised. Unfortunately, after one or two meetings and discussions, enthusiasm began to wane, and the matter of a historical dictionary of the Lithuanian language was recalled ever more rarely. One might ask why this happened. The answer is very simple. Throughout the postwar period, although the achievements of Lithuanian studies, especially Lithuanian linguistics, were emphasized, when funds for research were allocated, Lithuanian studies ended up at the bottom of the list of applicants. It is true that this assertion cannot be disproved: in the postwar years, Lithuanian studies achieved notable successes. Most often, these were achieved thanks to the enthusiasm of people who entered the field of Lithuanian studies in the postwar years, and to their love of their mother tongue and their homeland. However, normal working conditions were not provided for them. Given such attitudes, not only were no additional funds allocated for compiling a historical dictionary of the Lithuanian language, but no consideration was even given to who could compile such a dictionary, or how many people, and with what qualifications, would be needed for the work. 209 It is true that the Department of Language History and Dialectology had begun compiling material for a historical dictionary on its own: sentences from some of the monuments of old writings were transcribed onto separate cards so they could be duplicated and thus form a card index for a historical dictionary of the Lithuanian language. This method is possible, but only as a last resort, since the meanings of words in all old writings cannot easily be determined from a shorter or longer phrase. We are often forced to examine the context more closely, and frequently a Lithuanian text (if it is a translation) must also be compared with the original: we must see which word in the original language is translated by the Lithuanian word and check what meanings the word in the original language was used in by Lithuanian translators at that time. The same can be said of the Lithuanian equivalents in bilingual manuscript dictionaries compiled in Lithuania Minor in the 17th–18th centuries, and of their variation, since these dictionaries most often give Lithuanian equivalents without illustrative sentences. Moreover, as recent research shows, these dictionaries still conceal many unsolved riddles (cf. Drotvinas 1984: 163–167; Urbutis 1987: 57–75). A second factor that considerably impedes the compilation of a historical dictionary of the Lithuanian language is that the language of our old writings has as yet been studied relatively little. M. Mažvydas has been analyzed in somewhat greater detail (Zinkevičius 1977–1979), as has M. Daukša (Kudz inoc? matters concerning the structure of the future historical dictionary of the Lithuanian language are open to consideration and discussion. These remarks do not aim at absolute truth. They are intended only to show that the compilation of a historical dictionary of the Lithuanian language cannot begin without many preparatory tasks being completed. These would include writing dictionaries and indexes for individual written monuments, while also studying the language of those monuments. * * * The problems involved in compiling a historical dictionary of the Lithuanian language are closely related to those involved in compiling an etymological dictionary of the Lithuanian language, especially since historical-etymological dictionaries of individual languages have been appearing with increasing frequency in recent years. In these, the explanation of a word’s origin begins with its history, because, as K. Baltinger put it, “the more modern meaning of etymology is a word’s biography” (Baltinger 1977: 219). These include the well-known etymological dictionaries of Latin by the French linguists A. Ernout and A. Meillet (Ernout, Meillet 1959) and of Greek by P. Chantraine (Chantraine I–IV). Traditional etymological dictionaries have not lost their significance either. There are even more of them, and their principles of compilation differ. They scarcely examine a word’s semantics or its development; instead, on the basis of related words in other languages, they attempt to reconstruct its archetype. Although Lithuanian is one of the most archaic living Indo-European languages, we still do not have an etymological dictionary of our native language. In “Language and Antiquity,” K. Būga wrote in 1922: “It will be easy to write an etymological dictionary of the Lithuanian language once a substantial amount of material has accumulated in the literature” (Būga II 293). We now have not only sufficient material in the linguistic literature, but also the “Etymological Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language” by the distinguished German Balticist E. Fraenkel. Its relatively numerous reviews and annotations not only pointed out the dictionary’s positive aspects and identified inaccuracies and shortcomings, but also cautiously expressed the view that such shortcomings should be avoided in the future when preparing another edition of the dictionary or even a new etymological dictionary of the Lithuanian language. But after these proposals came long years of silence, and only on the initiative of the Department of Baltic Philology at Vilnius University did the compilation of material for an etymological dictionary of the Lithuanian language begin. However, collecting etymological material—that is, compiling a card index for an etymological dictionary—differs considerably from compiling card indexes for dictionaries of other kinds. The main reason is that a great deal of linguistic literature must be reviewed carefully, since the title of an article or monograph often does not make it possible to determine whether the work contains material valuable for an etymological dictionary of the Lithuanian language. Unfortunately, our libraries have few linguistic publications issued abroad. It is therefore hardly meaningful to speak of systematic work. A second factor that greatly slows the accumulation of etymological material is the way etymologies themselves are presented in linguistic works. Often, after reading a passage just once, it is not very clear what is most important and what should be entered on a card. And after all, each future 211 The basis of a dictionary is its card file, and the structure of the dictionary depends on it. In this case, another problem arises, which could be called the problem of selecting sources or of “serious” and “non-serious” works: that is, whether to collect material from all sources or, after dividing them into “serious” and “non-serious,” to ignore the latter. It is doubtful, however, whether one could then speak of a good card file. To make this clearer, I will give a couple of examples. The works of Belgian Indo-Europeanists, for instance those of the distinguished Tocharian specialist A. J. Van Windenken’s, cite the works of A. Carnoy relatively often (Carnoy 1955, 1957), and these also draw on facts from Lithuanian. Yet, in reviewing the aforementioned works of A. Carnoy, E. Benveniste stated that the Proto-Indo-European language named by A. Carnoy, whose vocabulary he presents, in many cases strongly resembles the language that A. J. Van Windenkensas calls “Pelasgian,” and went on to emphasize: “It must be stated clearly that not only is ‘Pelasgian’ pure fiction [...], but the etymological methods used to introduce this idea also run counter to the entire method of etymology and give rise to the most baseless combinations” (BSL 1957–1958: 53(2): 52). After reading such stern words from a well-known Indo-Europeanist, one is immediately taken aback and, of course, no longer feels inclined to collect etymological material from A. Carnoy’s works. If, following E. Benveniste, we can set A. Carnoy aside, what should we do with A. J. Van Windenken’s works devoted to the problems of “Pelasgian,” especially since the first of his works on this subject (Van Windenkens 1952) is also listed in the bibliography of E. Fraenkel’s “Lithuanian Etymological Dictionary”? After that work, A. J. Van Windenkensas also published “Studies in the Pelasgian Language” (Van Windenkens 1960) and drew on this theory when writing supplements to P. Chantraine’s “Etymological Dictionary of the Greek Language.” In an article published in 1982 in the journal “Indogermanische Forschungen,” on the structure and original meaning of the Indo-European numerals “four” and “five,” he explains, drawing on the works of A. Cuny and A. Carnoy, that Indo-European *qʷet̯uor “four” consists of *qʷe, meaning “and,” and the root *tuor, found in the Lithuanian words tveriu, turiu (Van Windekens 1982: 9). A second example would be X. Delamarre’s thematic etymological dictionary of Indo-European languages, published in Paris in 1984 (Delamarre 1984), whose motto is a stanza from Maironis’s poem “I Would Like to Awaken...” and whose “Preface” explains that it is being published because French has no comparable work to the dictionaries of Waldes-Pokorny, Pokorny, and Buck. It, too, draws very frequently on Lithuanian facts, which are often presented inaccurately. M. Mayrhofer, however, ends his notice of this dictionary in the journal “Kratylos” (1986, 31: 186–187) with a very stern verdict: “Darum: in den Giftschrank”. Of course, in this case, too, the easiest course would be to trust the opinion of a distinguished etymologist and disregard publications of this kind. But what should one do when no such assessments are available? After all, notices of articles, and reviews even more so, are written very rarely. Moreover, even when one has such negative assessments, one begins to wonder whether, if we set these works aside, we will have a good card file and, in turn, a good etymological dictionary—that is, whether they might be needed in compiling a Lithuanian etymological dictionary. Besides, it also becomes interesting to see how, in such publications, 212 Lithuanian facts are presented, how they are interpreted, whether they might mislead researchers who do not know Lithuanian well, and so on. These are all questions that arise in the course of this work and that must be answered one way or another. LITERATŪRA Baltinger K. 1977: L’étymologie hier et aujourd’hui. – Etymologie (Wege der Forschung 373), Darmstadt, 201–224. BSL – Bulletin de la Société de linguistique de Paris, Paris, 1868. Būga K. II: Kalba ir senovė. – Būga K. Rinktiniai raštai 2, Vilnius, 1959, 7–328. Carnoy A. 1955: Dictionnaire étymologique du protoindoeuropéen, Louvain. Carnoy A. 1957: Dictionnaire étymologique de la mythologie greco-romaine, Paris. Chantraine P. I–IV: Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue grecque. Histoire des mots 1–4, Paris, 1968–1980. Drotvinas V. 1984: Kada parašytas vadinamasis Krauzės žodynas. – Baltistica 22(2), 163–167. Delamarre X. 1984: Le vocabulaire indo-européen. Lexique étymologique thématique, Paris. Ernout A., Meillet A. 1959: Dictionnaire étymologique de la langue latine. Histoire des mots 4 éd., Paris. Kruopas J. 1970: 1598 m. Merkelio Petkevičiaus katekizmo leksika. – Lietuvių kalbotyros klausimai 12, 83–154. Kudzinowski Cz. 1977: Indeks-słownik do “Daukšos Postilė”. Oprac. Cz. Kudzinowski, 1–2, Poznań. Mayrhofer M. 1986: [rec.] X. Delamarre. Le vocabulaire indo-europeen Lexique etymologique thematique, Paris, 1984, 332 p. – Kratylos 31, 186–187. Morkūnas K. 1980: Konstantino Širvydo “Punktų sakymų” veiksmžodis (indeksas). – Lietuvių kalbotyros klausimai 20, 109–222. Pakalka K. 1979: K. Širvydo “Dictionarium trium linguarum”. – Pirmasis lietuvių kalbos žodynas: K. Širvydas. Dictionarium trium linguarum, Vilnius, 13–83. Palionis J. 1995: 1595 metų katekizmo žodžių formų rodyklė. – Mikalojaus Daukšos 1595 metų katekizmas, 627–748. Urbutis V. 1987: 1728 m. klaipėdiškių žodyno leksikografiniai šaltiniai. – Baltistica 23(1), 57–75. Van Windekens A. J. 1952: Le pélasgique, Louvain. Van Windekens A. J. 1960: Études pélasgique, Louvain. Van Windekens A. J. 1982: Structure et sens primitif des noms de nombre indoeuropéens *qʷetour “quatre” et *penqʷe “eing”. – Indogermanische Forschungen 87, 8–14. Zinkevičius Z. 1970–1971: M. Petkevičiaus Katekizmo (1598) tarmė. – Baltistica 6(2), 227–243; 7(1), 67–86. Zinkevičius Z. 1971: Dėl K. Sirvydo “Punktų sakymų” genezės ir kalbos. – Baltistica 7(2), 153–167. Zinkevičius Z. 1977–1979: M. Mažvydo raštų kalba. – Baltistica 13(2), 358–371; 14(1), 38–44; 14(2), 139–146; 15(1), 16–22. Žulys V. 1966: Kaip J. Rėza keitė J. Bretkūno leksiką. – Kalbotyra 14, 149–159. Žulys V. 1970: Jono Rėzos raštų leksika. Filologijos m. daktaro disertacijos rankraštis. 213 ON HISTORICAL AND ETYMOLOGICAL DICTIONARIES OF THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE Summary We have been missing a historical dictionary more and more frequently. Its preparation, however, is very complicated work, as it should contain not only the statistics of word usage but also indication of the meanings in whish the words are used most frequently or most seldom. Without thorough investigation of the language of separate written records this is impossible to do. Therefore, the first thing to start with is dictionaries – indexes of separate written records. * * * The structure of a new etymological dictionary of the Lithuanian language can be discussed only after all the material has been collected. Compiling the card index of an etymological dictionary is not an easy task. Therefore, the paper concentrates on the principles of compiling a card index and the problems related to this work. 214