Antano Klemento žemaičių kalba

LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI XXXVII (1997) LEKSIKOGRAFIJOS IR LEKSIKOLOGIJOS PROBLEMOS I do not wish, I say, to disparage the Telšiai dialect; I still long to give it the honor it deserves. Antanas Klementas Giedrius SUBAČIUS THE SAMOGITIAN LANGUAGE OF ANTANAS KLEMENTAS One of the first to leave us his thoughts on the standardization of a common Samogitian language was the poet and nobleman Antanas Klementas (c. 1756–June 4, 1823). Of Klementas’s Lithuanian poems that have survived, “we have 156 longer and shorter works, comprising 1,494 lines”1. However, he wrote much more in Polish; three huge manuscript volumes of Klementas’s poems have survived, containing, together with the aforementioned Lithuanian poems, approximately 60,000 lines2. The desire to know, “discover,” and appreciate the Lithuanian language, sparked by new currents in Europe, first arose more distinctly in the minds of T. Czacki, K. Bogusz, and Z. Niemcewicz. Czacki wanted to know what the Lithuanian language was and in what territory it was spoken. Bogusz already maintained that this language was independent and no less rich than others. Klementas, who had learned his native Samogitian language in childhood, was one of the first Samogitians concerned with discussing the question of a common language, proposing the Samogitian dialect as its basis. It is true that his Samogitian orientation grew stronger only toward the end of his life. Although born among the dounininkai Samogitians at Laumiai Manor (near Barstyčiai) and raised in Rietavas (for an unknown length of time), at about thirteen years of age, in 1769, he left the Samogitian-speaking environment with his parents for Vorobinas. He attended school in Dombrowica and lived in those places until 1777, thus for about another eight years, until he was approximately twenty-one. He then returned to Samogitia—within the area of the dūnininkai Samogitian dialect, he worked in Raseiniai from 1777 to 1792, that is, for about fourteen years. From then on, at about thirty-six, he returned once again to the area of the dounininkai Samogitian dialect, to Telšiai, where he died in 1823, hav- 1 Vanagas V. Antanas Klementas. – A. Klementas, Samogitian Song. Vilnius: Vaga, 1972, 12. 2 Biržiška M. Antanas Klementas, Lithuanian Writer at the Beginning of the 19th Century, Vilnius: M. Kuktos spaustuvė, 1910, 3. The three volumes of Klementas’s manuscripts are held at LLTIBR – vol. 1: Dziełko moje własnoręcznie Wierszem, a w małey cząsteczce prozą napisane y alfabetnie porządnie zrejestrowane Którego Tom Iszy, sign. f. 1–2156 (hereafter KIDI806); vol. 2: Dziełko moje własnoręcznie Wierszem, a bardzo w małey części prozą napisane y alfabetnie porządnie zrejestrowane Którego Tom 2gi, sign. f. 1–2157 (hereafter KIDII1808); vol. 3: Dziełko moje własnoręcznie Wierszem, a w małey sząstce prozą napisane y alfabetnie porządnie zrejestrowane Którego Tom 3ci, sign. f. 1–2158 (hereafter KIDIII1810). 225 having reached the age of about sixty-seven³. It is not known exactly when Klementas began composing verse in Samogitian. Vytautas Vanagas cautiously refines Mykolas Biržiška’s suggestion that his earliest works may generally have been written around 1792: “they may have been versified even earlier. This would be indicated by his ‘naratyva’ (narrative), dedicated to his own wedding [...], which took place around 1789.”⁴ In any case, it seems he began composing verse only after returning to Samogitia, perhaps in Raseiniai, or perhaps only in Telšiai. Vanagas continues that “it is possible that the poems dating approximately from this period mark the beginning of DI [KIDI1806], which ends with works from late 1806.”⁵ Since “the order of the poems in the manuscript volumes seems more or less to correspond to the chronology of their author’s work,”⁶ the first known Samogitian poems by Klementas may be considered to be the first “song” entered in his manuscript volumes, “Piosenka Żmudzka Czasu Rewolucyi robiona a teraz po wynalezieniu wyciąga się,” which calls for a fight during the 1794 Kościuszko Uprising. The title itself indicates that, although written during the uprising, it was brought to light later, perhaps having been copied out anew. Thus, we know Klementas’s Samogitian only from the dounininkai period of his life in Telšiai, after the uprising. 1.0. ORTHOGRAPHY 1.1. Until the end of 1806. As can be seen from the aforementioned “Piosenka Żmudzka” in KIDI1806, p. 125, and the “Takoż Piosenka Żmudzka Dawniey zrobiona, czyli zPols wytłumaczona” written on the following page, KIDI1806, p. 126, Klementas’s orthography had the following main features from the outset. (1) He did not use the nasal letters ą and ę at all. For example, he wrote not only y wyita wyina 126 ~ į vietą vieną, wiera 125 ~ vierą, but also ku 125 ~ ką, where many Samogitians pronounce a nasal sound. (2) He occasionally used the letter y to represent the widespread Samogitian [e]: dydziu 126 ~ didžia, motryszkiela 125 ~ motriškele, padyrbsett 125 ~ padirbsat, susytyki 126 ~ susitikę, stypruwkiet 125 ~ stipruokiат, unsytropij 126 ~ antsitropij[a], usydegin 126 ~ užsidegin[a], wysi 126 ~ visi, although the narrow [i] was also sometimes written as -y 126 ~ į. (3) With the letter i he wrote: 1) the Samogitian [i], which had not become widespread: giwa 125 ~ gyva, ikir 126 ~ įkyr[i], klawsik 125 ~ klausyk, and 2) the widespread [e]: ir126, isz 125 ~ iš, kita 125 ~ kitą, lig 125, umzina 126 ~ amžinai, Zina 126 ~ žinai. It is not apparent that Klemen- 3 Data according to: B i r ž i š k a M. Antanas Klementas, Lietuvių rašytojas pradžioj XIX-ojo amžiaus, 5–6; B i r ž i š k a V. Aleksandrynas 2, Chicago: JAV LB kultūros fondas, 1963, 225 (the 1990 photographed edition was consulted). 4 V a n a g a s V. Antanas Klementas, 163. 5 Ibid. 6 Ibid. 226 This would preserve the law of regressive assimilation possessed by some northern Samogitians—the Telšiai speakers—whereby [i]i, u is pronounced unbroadened before a following syllable with a narrow vowel system7. Although he used both the y and letters, the vowel system in the aforementioned words umzina, Žina contradicts that law (he would have had to write them with y). (4) With the letter u he marked all the [u] sounds of his dialect (cf. u, ū, ų) – budas 126 ~ būdas ‘way’, butum 126 ~ būtum ‘you would be’, ku 125 ~ ką ‘what’, kuna 125 ~ kūną ‘body’, rustibie 126 ~ rūstybę ‘wrath’ (?), suwed⁸ 126 ~ suved[a]; 2) [ɔ] (cf. u) – abtur126 ~ aptur[i], muna 125 ~ mano ‘my’, saldziu 126 ~ saldžia sg. i. (5) With the letter o he wrote the Samogitian [uo] (cf. o): motryszkiela 125 ~ motriškele, sodos 125 ~ sodos, žinot 125 ~ žinot. The example nog 125 ~ nuog shows an artificial form, which most likely arose when a Samogitian understood the Aukštaitian form with uo vocalism as Samogitian and wrote it with o—Samogitians must have read a sound written this way as [uo]. (6) With the digraph uu Klementas marked the Samogitian dounininkai [ọu] (cf. uo): duutas 126 ~ duotas ‘given’; also compare the hyper-Samogitianism formed from a loanword, luusa 125 ~ liuosą ‘free’. Another word in which the standard language would have uo is stypruwkiet 125 ~ stipruoki at, with the dounininkai [ọu] written as uw. These first little texts provide no further evidence about how this position was written. As Aleksas Girdenis points out, the diphthong [ọu] is pronounced in two ways in the Tirkšliai dialect (his examples: du·udi || ọoudi ~ duodi, ju·udus || ọoudus ~ juodus). “The assimilation of these sounds is not entirely consistent”⁹. It seems Klementas, too, may have been born in an area where this diphthong was pronounced variably¹⁰, and may have tended, when writing, to generalize one [uu] from the two different variants he heard—uu. On the other hand, it is apparent that Klementas generally intended to mark both [ọ] and [u] in his dialect simply with the letter u, in the usual way (i.e., without inventing a new sign for a specific Samogitian sound). Since he did not wish to abandon Samogitian diphthongs themselves, he may have explained the logic of this notation to himself as follows: if [ọ] and [u] are written u, then the diphthong [ọu] must be written uu. The notation un for [ɔn] (perhaps also [un]?) and um for [ọm] (perhaps also [um]?) would support this. Thus, it is difficult to determine whether Klementas was trying to represent the pronunciation [uu] or [ọu]; it is clear only that his decision to write uu may have been prompted both by the inconsistent pronunciation of [ọu] and by the familiar letter u, which represented the sound [ọ]. (7) With the digraph um Klementas marked the Samogitian [ọm] or [um] (cf. am): umzina 126 ~ amžinai ‘forever’. As can be seen from Girdenis’s article, regressive assimilation in the Tirkšliai dialect also affected the diphthongs [ọm], [ɔn], and thus in positions before syllables containing [i], 7 Cf.: Girdenis A. Vowel assimilation phenomena in the Tirkšliai dialect. – Kalbotyra 4, 1962, 141–147. 8 Klementas most likely pronounced the preposition-prefix su as [su], as it is pronounced in Telšiai and the surrounding area where he was born; cf. Zinkevičius Z. Lietuvių dialektologija, Vilnius: Mintis, 1966, 63. However, some Samogitians—the Kretinga speakers (dounininkai) and some Varniai speakers (dūnininkai)—pronounce it [sọ]; cf. ibid. 64. Thus, as a child in Rietavas, Klementas may also have heard this pronunciation. 9 Girdenis A. Vowel assimilation phenomena in the Tirkšliai dialect, 144. 10 Ibid., 147. 227 [u] they were pronounced [um], [un]¹¹. Klementas may also have been familiar with such a varying pronunciation of these diphthongs, as in the case of uu [ou]. Thus, here the decision to write um may have been prompted by both phonetic and graphic reasons. (8) Klementas intended the digraph un to represent the Samogitian [ɔn] or [un] (standard an): untsytropij 126 ~ antsitropij[a]. As with uu and um, there may have been at least two reasons for this. It may also be noted that in somewhat later texts, also written before the end of 1806, alongside the un [ɔn] initially used and still in use—for example, weyzunt 229 ~ veizant—Klementas also happened to write on - wafondele 522 ~ valandelė[je]. (9) With the digraph yi he represented the diphthong [ei] of his dialect (standard ie): anyi 125 ~ anie, tyisa 126 ~ tiesa, wyina 125, 126 ~ vieno, vieną, wyita 126 ~ vietą. He did not use the traditional Aukštaitian ie in this position. After l he also sometimes wrote Samogitian [ei] as ij: lijpsnu 126 ~ liepsna sg. i. At the beginning of a word he also wrote i: iszka 126 ~ ieško. (10) He used the digraph ie to represent: 1) the [ie] of his dialect (standard e): biegs 125 ~ bėgs, niera 125 ~ nėra, padies 125 ~ padės, spiera 125 ~ spėrai (traditionally e was written after the sonorant consonant l: miletiś 126[4x] ~ mylėtis, miletumi 126 ~ mylėtumi); 2) the root vocalism of loanwords: miestela 125 ~ miestelio, wiera 125 ~ vierą ‘faith’. (11) He generally wrote the diphthong [au] with the digraph aw: dawg iaws 125 ~ daugiau, iawni 126 ~ jauni, jszpazinaw 126 ~ išpažinau, ktawsik 125 ~ klausyk, although iauns 125 ~ jauns also occurs. (12) He represented the diphthongs ai, ei with ay, ey: kayp 126 ~ kaip, labay 126 ~ labai, reyk 125 ~ reik, reykats 126 ~ reikals, tayp 126 ~ taip, uzlaykiti 125 ~ užlaikyti, waykielis 125 ~ vaikelis. However, he perhaps even more often used them to represent the Samogitian monophthongized [ā], [ē]: kap 126(2x) ~ kaip, kartas 126 ~ kartais, metela 126 ~ meteliai, nepritela 125 ~ nepritėliai, pikta 126 ~ piktai, tikta 125 ~ tiktai, umzina 126 ~ amžinai, waykiela 125 ~ vaikeliai, Zina 126 ~ žinai. (13) The soft [č’] was denoted by c, cz: Bazniczius ~ bažnyčių (?) 125, neisztizciu 126 ~ ne iš tyčių, Ziemaycius 125 ~ žemaičius; [š’] was denoted by -sz: szirdis 126 ~ širdis. (14) He spelled the consonant ž inconsistently, writing both the soft and the hard sound sometimes with the dot diacritic ž: kožnus 125 ~ kažnas, už 125 ~ už, žinot ~ žinot; elsewhere, without the dot, as z: Jszpazinaw 125 ~ išpažinau, uzem 125 ~ užem[a], uztaykiti 125 ~ užlaikyti. (15) Traditionally, the softness of the consonants g, k before e was marked with the letter i: waykielis 125 ~ vaikelis, Zmogielis 125 ~ žmogelis. Softness before e was also marked after ž: Ž iemaycius 125 ~ žemaičius. (16) Although they do not occur in the first two short texts, examples with the diphthong yn [en] (standard en) can already be found in somewhat later works, also written before the end of 1806: pynkta 522 ~ penktą, tyn 229 ~ ten. 11 Ibid., 143-144. 228 Quite a few features of Klementas’s spelling coincide with those of “Žyvatas”12—an eighteenth-century Samogitian book published many times—the spellings aw, uw, vi may have been borrowed from it. Thus Klementas already had a model to follow, and he followed it from the very beginning. His spelling changed little thereafter, through the end of 1806, about which we know from KIDI1806 and for which there is not much data to reconstruct. Of the more conspicuous changes, only the introduction (the first feature) of the nasal letters ą and ų (sic!) is worth mentioning, e.g., kų 522 ~ ką, tą 522 ~ tą, tų 597 ~ tą (at the very beginning he wrote without the nasal mark—ku 125 ~ ką). Both in Klementas’s native area and in Telšiai, [ɔn]13 is pronounced here. Since Klementas also wrote the sound [ɔ] as u elsewhere, it is likely that here too u represents [ɔ], while [n] is marked with a nasal sign (the nasal ą merely had to be read in Polish as [on] for the sound to be quite similar to the Samogitian one). Thus Klementas probably began writing the stressed pronoun endings with nasal marks in order to represent his dialect’s pronunciation [ɔn] more accurately. 1.2. Late 1806–October 1808. KIDI1808 covers texts from late 1806 to October 1808. In this second volume of “Dzielko,” as in the first, there are still few Samogitian poems. No significant spelling changes are apparent up to that time; only some fluctuations can be discerned. (1) For example, although, as mentioned, he had already tried writing kų ~ ką, tą ~ tą before the end of 1806, a year or two later he again wrote anu 755 ~ aną, ku 755 ~ ką. He had equated the nasal vowels in the stem with diphthongs: just as he wrote un for muszunti 206 ~ mušantį, runka 184 ~ ranką, so too he wrote grunžinu 755 ~ grąžinu, uszkunszti 184 ~ užkąsti. This merger also occurs in the Telšiai dialect, where both diphthongs and nasal sounds are pronounced [ɔn]14. (6) Dviraidžiu uu ir toliau paprastai žymėjo žemaičių [ou]: duuk 183(2x), 184 ~ duok, duus 755 ~ duos, neduusi 183 ~ neduosi. Pasitaikė ir žyvatiškas uw - paskuw 184 ~ paskuo=ui. Tačiau labai svarbu, kad du kartus iš uu Klementas ištaisė į uo: iuuda 206 ~ juoda ir duunas 206 ~ duonos pakeitė iouda bei dounas. Tai vienas iš pirmųjų žinomų bandymų žemaitišką [ou] imti rašyti ou, tikslinti “Žyvato” tradicija. Antra vertus, nėra visiškai aišku, ar Klementas taisė ne šiek tiek vėliau, negu rašė pati kūrinį. (9) In the first period, vi was the prevailing spelling for the Samogitian diphthong [ei], but after 1806 yi became dominant: dyjna 184 ~ diena, links mintyjs 185 ~ links minties, pyjna 206 ~ pieno, wyjna 184 ~ viena, wyjsz nies 184 ~ viešnios, wyjto 184 ~ vieto[je]. However, the variant that had prevailed before 1806 also occurred: Dyjws 755 ~ Diev[ą]s, wyjna 206 ~ vieną. Likewise ij after g: gijisme- 12 Žyvatas Pona yr Diewa musu Jezusa Christusa, Wilniow: Drukarnie J.K.M. yr RP Kolligio Kunigu Pioriu, 1759 ir kiti leidimai. 13 Zinkevičius Z. Lithuanian Dialectology, Samogitian, p. 50; Atlas of the Lithuanian Language 2, Phonetics, Vilnius: Mokslas, 1982, 63, Samogitian, p. 46 (hereafter LKA 2). 14 LKA 2, 61–63, Samogitian, pp. 44, 45, 46. 229 la 183 ~ hymn, gif mie 184 ~ a hymn, pagįdokiet 184 ~ sing. There seems to have emerged a rather faint tendency to abandon the usual two-letter yj of “Žyvatas,” with the second letter i. (11) Klementas’s departure from the “Žyvatas” tradition in 1806–1808 is also clear from the spelling of the diphthong [au]. Although aw – taw 183 ~ tau still occurred, on the following pages of this volume only au: brolau 184 ~ brolau, daugiaus 184, gausie 755 ~ abundantly, ilgiaus 755, fauk 755 ~ wait[s], piaun 184 ~ cut[s], praszau 755 ~ please. (13) KID1808 used for the first time the letter š to mark the palatalized (?) [s'] sound – turieś 755 ~ will have; here it still seems to have appeared quite spontaneously. 1.3. October 1808 – March 1810. However, Lithuanian texts are still very few in the first and second volumes of KID. As Vytautas Vanagas states, “Klementas wrote most of his Lithuanian verse in 1808–1810. Before then, he had composed a propagandistic poem, a couple of idylls, a couple of epigrams, and a dozen or so occasional letters¹⁵. Those texts, written from October 1808 to 1810, are in the third volume, KIDI-II1810. One of the most important parts of Klementas’s work—the verses dedicated and sent on 17 March 1810 to the Bishop of Samogitia, Juozapas Arnulfas Giedraitis—is also written down here, on pp. 534–559. But even before these texts dedicated to the bishop, Lithuanian texts have been entered. They are apparently datable to around 1809 or the very beginning of 1810. The features that had varied in earlier stages appear around 1809 (that is, the features in KIDIII 1810 on the pages preceding the texts dedicated to the bishop) as follows: (1) Klementas wrote both with and without ogoneks in the same positions; cf. ku 461 ~ what, tu 19(2x) ~ that, but also tų 490(3x) ~ that. (6) More often he wrote a single u [ou]: atiduti 19 ~ to give back, iustela 20 ~ a little ribbon, thus again one of the variants characteristic of “Žyvatas.” It is possible that Klementas sometimes considered two vowels written together excessive and wrote only one. It is less likely that he was inclined here to mark the Dūnininkai sound. (9) It is possible that Klementas began more often to write [ei] as yj instead of yi because Polish spelling conventions generally encouraged more frequent use of the letter j; cf. feature 12 below. Klementas’s use of yj here is also inconsistent (alongside the forms dyjna 490 ~ day, wyjna 21, 490 ~ one, there also occur forms with ij: dijna 21 ~ day, wijųu 20 ~ one). (11) The diphthong [au] continues to be written most often as au: didžiaus 461 ~ greatest, paras zau 461 ~ I write, praszau 461 ~ please, sau 20, 490, saus iay 490 ~ dry, although aw- jawnu 461 ~ young also occurs. (12) Quite unexpectedly, alongside the usual ay, ey (mayszus 461 ~ sack, Szateykius 19 ~ Šateikiai), Klementas began writing words with aj, ej as well: gailus 461 ~ I grieve, kajp 20 ~ how, tejsybie 21 ~ truth, wajkiela 20 ~ child. 15 Vanagas V. Antanas Klementas, 13. 230 It is well known that the spelling of these diphthongs with j in Polish orthography became firmly established only in the fourth decade of the 19th century, i.e., after this spelling was approved by a special Deputation in the publication “Rozprawy i wnioski o ortografii polskiej,” issued in Warsaw in 1830: “Before the Deputation approved the jot, it spread only regionally, and was accepted reluctantly; when the Deputation’s instructions were published, the situation changed completely in an instant: the new letter was adopted everywhere, and during the first decade after the appearance of “Rosprawy...” in 1830, the use of j came close to becoming the norm—and soon achieved it”16. The spread of the jot in Lithuanian texts can most often be linked to its spread in Polish spelling. That is, Lithuanian authors who began writing the diphthongs aj, ej in Polish texts according to the new orthography (instead of the old ay, ey) also introduced them into Lithuanian texts. Klementas’s attempt to begin writing j here, however, is considerably earlier, dating to the beginning of 1809–1810. True, as Bajerowa notes, “As early as the 18th century, Szylarski and Nowaczyński were supporters of the jot, but these were only isolated attempts, essentially without any response”17. As can be understood from the examples in Jan Łoś’s study, neither of them used that jot to write diphthongs in the 18th century, but only in some other positions (the letter j was entirely absent from traditional Polish spelling in the 18th century and earlier)18. One of the first to publicly advocate writing Polish diphthongs with j was the poet Ałoyz Feliński, in 181619. In general, “it is an indisputable fact that j spread earliest in Vilnius”20. However, it is well known that F. N. Goliński had already written publicly in Vilnius about Polish spelling reform in 180821; that the Warsaw Society of Friends of Science considered such a reform from 1809 to 181422; and that Joachim Lelewel wrote an article in 1809 about the need to change Polish spelling23. It may perhaps be supposed that Klementas, who travelled to Vilnius frequently and in great numbers, sensed the first reformist stirrings in Polish spelling, and perhaps also the need to refine the spelling of diphthongs, and that he himself occasionally tried out the innovation in his Samogitian texts. For the same reasons, the aforementioned may also have become more frequent 16 B a j e r o w a I. General Polish of the 19th Century, State and Evolution 1, Orthography, Phonology with Phonetics, Morphophonology, Katowice: University of Silesia, 1986, 39: “Before the Deputation’s approval, the jot spread only regionally and with resistance; after the Deputation’s rules were announced, the situation changed completely in an instant: the new letter was adopted everywhere, and in the first decade after the 1830 Treatises, the prevalence of j was already close to the norm—it soon attained it” 17 Ibid. 36: “Szylarski and Nowaczyński were already supporters of the jot in the 18th century, but these were isolated attempts, essentially without any response”. 18 Ł o ś J. Pisownia Polska w przeszłości i obecnie, zagadnienia i wnioski, Kraków, 1917, 55–57. 19 Cf. Ibid. 58; B a j e r o w a I. General Polish of the 19th..., century 1, 36. 20 Ibid. 38: “It is therefore an indisputable fact that j spread earliest in Vilnius”. 21 K a u p u ž A. From the history of Polish orthography in Vilnius in the first third of the 19th century. – Acta Baltico-Slavica 8, 1973, 172. 22 Ibid., 178. 23 Ibid., 170 ff. 231 variant yj [ei] instead of yi (9 occurrences). (13) And Klementas continued to use the letter ś: tauksiu 490 ~ lauksiu, tarší 541 ~ tarsi. 1.4. March 1810. And so, while searching for a more precise graphic expression for his Samogitian texts, Klementas sat down to write verses to Bishop Juozapas Arnulfas Giedraitis. This was a consequential moment in the creator’s biography. The bishop was already renowned at the time for looking after Lithuanian affairs and wishing to cultivate the Lithuanian language. His hands held far greater financial and administrative power than anyone else’s to influence the formation of a standard language. Klementas must also have felt the bishop’s moral authority. The Lithuanian Gospel edition supported by Giedraitis in 1806, printed for the first time without parallel Polish texts, was full of attention to the careful selection of words and contained numerous footnotes on Lithuanian synonyms, reflecting a philological concern for the language of Lithuanian writings. Klementas could not have been unaware of that edition. Thus, the great responsibility of offering his opinion in a fairly official written text must have been keenly felt by Klementas. Giedraitis’s approval or disapproval could have had great significance. No direct response from Giedraitis has survived, and only philological study makes it possible to surmise that his opinion was unfavorable to Klementas. Klementas may already have sensed and known that Giedraitis held a different view, making the importance of substantiating his claims well all the greater. The collection of verses dedicated to the Bishop of Samogitia was first copied by Klementas into his own KIDIM1810 (the first fair copy), and only then recopied more neatly and sent to Giedraitis himself24. By a fortunate twist of fate, both fair-copy versions have survived to the present day, and certain tendencies, though not very pronounced, toward refining his spelling can be observed by comparing the first fair copy not only with earlier texts but also with the second fair copy made by the author himself. Certain strengthened or newly emerging tendencies can be seen in Klementas’s programmatic and most substantial work, namely “Donis pridera...” (KIDP1810, pp. 3–9), the first piece entered among the texts for Giedraitis. (1) When sending the verses to Giedraitis, Klementas had already decided to use the nasal letter ų consistently, apparently primarily to mark the stressed end of a word that had retained a nasal sound. For example, KIDIII1810: ką 534, 535, 539 ~ ką, tų 535, 536, 537, 538(2x), 539 ~ tą. However, in this very text Klementas also wrote the forms Gudųsi 535 ~ Gudūse, Žiemayciūsi 539 ~ Žemaičiūse, and thus gradually began to extend the distribution of the letter ų. When making the second copy sent to the bishop, instances of the nasal letter became more frequent. For example, forms that had appeared in KIDIII1810 as Alsiediusie 534 ~ Alsėdžiuose, anų 538 ~ anų, buwysiu (sic!) 534 ~ buvusių, Telsziu 535 ~ Telšių, were already written in Klementas’s KIDP1810 as Alsiedūsi 1, anų 8, buwysių 1, 24 [Antanas Klementas], Donis pridera Dijino ward=metu Szwisiey-Skayciausiu Juzapou Kunigaykszcziu Giedrayciuu Wiskupuu Ziemayciu, Kavalieriu Grazibies Buwysių Linku Ponistes Metųsi 1810mę morciaus 19 D Ligiy su rasztas eyla sudietas Par tikra, ir wysa ziemiausi Tarna AK Alsiedųsi Adtydouta, manuscript held at LNMMB, shelfmark PR 1317, 34 p. (hereafter KIDP1810). 232 Telsiai 4. Only in the word metūsi 1 ~ metūse, which appeared in KIDP1810, is the letter ų also found. Thus we can see Klementas’s active effort to decide whether, in accordance with Samogitian pronunciation, to introduce the nasal sign ų into stressed endings (and sometimes unstressed ones), namely the plural inessive ending. The spelling ku ~ ką, tu ~ tą had already disappeared from the first version of KIDIII1810. Klementas boldly took a new path and, in this case, followed his innovation fairly consistently. The letter ų was not used at all in traditional Lithuanian writings. In Lithuania Major before Klementas, it may have been used only by Mikalojus Daukša in his 1599 “Postilė.” In Lithuania Minor, ų was used by Danielius Kleinas in his grammars of 1653 and 1654, and by many other authors right up to and including Kristijonas Gotlybas Milk aus’s 1800 grammar (though graphically the nasal mark was represented not by the curve customary today but by a straight diagonal stroke). Apparently, Klementas took this grapheme from texts of Lithuania Minor, although he used it in somewhat different positions (Milk aus used ų only in the singular accusative, while for the plural genitive he writes ų²⁵). In these later texts by Klementas, the traditional Polish nasal letters ą and ę no longer occur at all. However, for example, Klementas’s decision to write Samogitian [ɔn] or [un], [ɔm] or [um] as un and um shows that he did not even need the letter ą[ɔn] used in the Samogitian “Žyvatas”: in this case he had decided to use the letter u, which represents a different sound. This may have helped him decide to use the letter ų—adding a nasal mark to u rather than to a. In this respect, Klementas’s boldness in reforming the tradition of Lithuania Major and proposing an innovation from Lithuania Minor even to the bishop is beyond doubt. Klementas was already introducing the letter ų consistently here. This is all the more remarkable because there are no other nasal letters. (6) In the copy retained by Klementas, uu. Giedrayciu 534 ~ Giedraičiou=ui, isziuuk 539 ~ išjuok[ia], Juzapuu 534 ~ Juozapou=ui, luusas 534 ~ liuosas, tuumi 539 ~ tuomi, and so on, continues to predominate in KIDIII1810. However, ou - adouti 534 ~ atduoti also appears. Although uu is often written in the copy sent, KIDP1810, there are also signs of some efforts to replace uu with ou. Thus, the earlier isziuuk was changed to isziouk 8, Juzapuu>Juzapou 1, luusas>lousas 3, tuumi>toumi 9 (the words isziouk and lousas, containing the digraph ou, were initially also written with uu in KIDP1810, but corrected). In several places where ou is written immediately in KIDP1810 (iszioug dams 3 ~ išjuokdam[a]s, isz doutas 5 ~ išduotas), uu had already been corrected to ou in the earlier KIDIII1810: isz ioug dams 535 and iszdoutas 536. The iog 535 found in KIDIII1810 was even changed in KIDP1810 to ioug 4, thus taking an ultra-Samogitian form! The effort to modify it consciously is conspicuous. Moreover, in some places a single u in KIDP1810 was replaced by a double uu: aplinku 536 ~ aplinkou=ui > aplinkuu 5, Kunigaykszcziu 534 ~ kunigaikščio=iuo > 25 Mielcke Ch. G. Anfangs=Gründe einer Littauischen Sprach=Lehre, in which the grammar previously published by the younger Ruhig was indeed taken as a basis, but was improved and expanded with extensive additions and new elaborations by Christian Gottlieb Mielcke, cantor in Pillckallen, Königsberg: Druck und Verlag der Hartungſchen Hofbuchdruckerey, 1800, 12 and following. 233 Kunigaykscziau 1. Even the uu written with a double wydiu 535 ~ vidou=uj Klementas sent Giedraitis a corrected version, unusually for him written with ui - wydūi 4. Clearly, this case too shows Klementas stirred into action, making an effort and beginning to pay more attention to his spelling, while clearly starting to move away from the Žyvatiškė tradition. Although the final predominance of ou is not yet visible here, his serious effort to introduce this spelling is beyond doubt. (9) When writing to Giedraitis, Klementas must already have decided not to use yi [ei], settling on two variants: yj (which replaced yi) and ij. Among other things, this standardized at least the second letter of the digraph. With more examples from writings of this period, it can be said with confidence that Klementas had decided to mark the two-letter diphthong ij only after the consonants k, g and l, for example, KIDIII1810: kijk=wyjnam 538 ~ everyone, kijk=wyjinas 535, kijk=wyjinas 539 ~ everyone, Lijt uwa 536 ~ Lithuania, Lijtuwβkay 537 ~ in Lithuanian, Lijtuwos 536 ~ of Lithuania, lijžuwia 537, 538, 539 ~ tongues, tongue, lijžuwie 538 ~ of the tongue, netolij 535 ~ not far away, tolij 535 ~ far away (examples with gij, although none occur here, can be found in earlier texts; compare the aforementioned gijsmela, gijmie, pagjidokiet, as well as in later ones—gijd gijsm es KIDIII1810 p. 547 ~ sing[a] songs, gijdi 990 ~ you sing). After other consonants (e.g., d, t, w), Klementas wrote yj: dyjnas 539 ~ days, dyjno 534 ~ day[on], dyjnu 536 ~ of days, Dyjws 534 ~ God, kijk=wyjnam 538 ~ for everyone, kijk=wyjinas 535 ~ everyone, tyjsiau 535 ~ more directly, wyjini 536 ~ alone (corrected from wyini!), wyjinims 538 ~ for the alone, wyjnok 534, 536, 537, 538 ~ however. The variants encountered, kijk=wyjinas 539 ~ everyone, wyina 536 ~ one, with yi, may be regarded as sporadic reflections of older spelling; one instance, Swisiey 534 ~ brightly, may have been copied from other writings. Among examples from later texts, note instances where Klementas uses yj after the consonants p, r, s, ž: pyjmou 547 ~ shepherd, pyjmenie 547 ~ shepherdess, vyjbus 547 ~ fatty, syjnas 540 ~ walls, žyjda 543 ~ of a ring, žyjdus 543 ~ rings. Thus, it is clear that although Klementas occasionally still wrote yi inaccurately even later, when addressing the bishop he had already decided how to spell [ei] in his dialect: after g, k and l- ij, after other consonants, yj. First, Klementas clearly shows a tendency to adopt the letter j, responding to the growing commotion about using it more often in Polish-language Lithuanian texts. Second, it is clear that Klementas’s use of two spellings for the diphthong [ei] is not a sign of disorder or confusion (Z. Zinkevičius’s remark that “he [Klementas] denotes ei [...] with the letters yi, yj, ij”²⁶ might give that impression). This was Klementas’s deliberate decision to distinguish them according to position. It can be argued that the graphemes yj and ij stand in a relation of complementary distribution and are therefore simply allographs. Apparently, Klementas intended to mark the palatalization of the consonants g, k, l somewhat differently from the traditional practice. 26 Zinkevičius Z. History of the Lithuanian Language 4, The Lithuanian Language in the 18th–19th Centuries, Vilnius: Mokslas, 1990, 132. 234 In general, before the sound [e], most consonants in his dialect remain hard and are not palatalized; “the exceptions are k, g, š, ž, č, dž, which are pronounced softly before every front vowel”27. Knowing that in Polish orthography the softness of g, k before e, wherever it occurs, is always specially marked, and that the grapheme i in any case always denotes a soft sound, Klementas chose to mark graphically precisely the softness of those consonants among the softly pronounced consonants of his dialect. And he did so very originally—not by inserting the softening i after g or k, but by beginning to write the following diphthong [eı] with the softening i – ij. Klementas retained the same notation after l as well—after all, he could hardly imagine writing the sign y after that letter, since in Polish it was used only after hard consonants! This is clear evidence of Klementas’s deliberate decision to mark softness more subtly. Great attention is paid to softness, even if this comes at the expense of marking qualitative distinctions among vowels. (2–3) Having established that the effort to mark softness led Klementas to introduce the allographs yj and ij, we can also clarify the reasons behind some other inconsistent spellings. For example, as in texts written up to the end of 1806, the letters y and i seem to be used rather inconsistently to denote the broad and narrow sounds i. (An attempt to discern whether Klementas intended to mark the results of regressive assimilation yielded no results.) Here are examples written with i rašoma gir 535 ∼ gir[ia], kiti 534, 536 ∼ kiti, kitu 535 ∼ kitų, lig 540 ∼ lig, mokytinelis 537 ∼ mokytinelis, nepalika 536 ∼ nepaliko, Raseyniszkiu 535 ∼ raseiniškių, raßiti 536 ∼ rašyti, silpney 539 ∼ silpnei, tiewiskie 535 ∼ tēviškę, tikieti 539 ∼ tikėti, tikray 537, 539 ∼ tikrai, tiktay 538 ∼ tiktai, and so on. No fewer examples can be collected with y: dydesni 536 ∼ bigger, mokityniu 538 ∼ of students, pagadynuma 536 ∼ of deterioration, stypryay 534 ∼ strongly, tyn dydyi 536 ∼ there, the great ones, wysas 536 ∼ all, wsyi 536, 538 ∼ all, Žiemaytisz kay 537 ∼ in Samogitian. Comparing after which consonants i [?] is written (after g, k, l, s, t, w, and in the earlier examples also after ž) and after which y is written (after d, t, w, and in the earlier examples also after s), it is clear that after the palatalized consonants g, k, l and ž (?)—thus, in most cases, after the same consonants as in the notation of the [eı] diphthong—Klementas never writes y! Although after s, t, w he writes both ways, he never writes the infinitive marker with y, so a certain regularity is unquestionably maintained. It is clear that here, too, softness seemed much more important to Klementas than marking vowel quality. Wherever he had determined that a consonant was pronounced softly, he consistently marked i after it. He wrote the vowel inconsistently only after a hard consonant—sometimes i, sometimes y. Thus, although the letter y is written in roughly similar contexts as in “Žyvate,” it is much rarer in Klementas’s writings—above all, Klementas regarded i and y as marking softness and hardness, rather than narrowness and openness; moreover, when uncertain, he more often chose i. Thus, here too Klementas must have had a different approach from “Žyvate”. 27 Zinkevičius Z. Lithuanian Dialectology, 156. 235 the author’s motives. Clearly, Klement could not have arrived at such a suggestion without an example of Polish spelling. The importance of marking softness was obvious to him, whereas the need to mark vowel openness was less clear, perhaps not as well understood. At the same time that Pabrėža used the letter y to mark the lengthened [ę] in žyvatiškai, Klement marked the hardness of the consonant preceding it. And more than four decades later, Juozas Čiulda would write that “the hard consonants g, k soften before a vowel of fuller timbre: gyrė ‘giria’, kyrwis ‘kirvis’”²⁸; it would be clear to him that the consonants were soft, but this would not prompt him to mark softness in any special way—everyone would simply have to know and learn what they were like. (11) Klement has by now fully decided to write and send the bishop the diphthong [au] in a standardized form—au: auginc 535 ~ augint[a]s, buwau 535 ~ buvau, daugiaus 537, dydžiaus 537 ~ didžiaus, galiniaus 540 ‘galinio’, ganitoiaus 534 ~ ganytojaus, iau 534, 535, 538 ~ jau, fauktum 538 ~ lauktų, matau 534 ~ matau, nežinau 538 ~ nežinau, sakau 535, 537, sau 539, toliaus 539, tuiau 538 ~ tujau, žinau 539 ~ žinau, etc. The first fair copy also contains dawgiei 538 ~ daugel, but the second fair copy has dawgiel 7, apparently corrected from dawgiel. A complete and deliberate departure from the žyvatiškas and Universitas tradition. (13) Increasingly often, Klement marked the soft sound [s’] (!) with ś, following the Polish spelling model, of course: dydėśni 536 ~ didesni, eśi 538 ~ esi, nepameśi 539 ~ nepamesi, raśi 538 ~ rasi, supraśi 538 ~ suprasi. Likewise, instead of the first fair copy’s atleyśi 535 ~ atleisi, Gudųśi 535 ~ Gudūse, neadmeśi 535 ~ neatmesi, pryiṃśi 535 ~ priimsi, the second has adleyśi 4, Gusuśi 4, neadmeśi 3, pryiṃśi 3 (KIDP1810). KIDIII1810 also occasionally began marking the soft [č’] with ć: Giedrayčių 543 ~ Giedraičių, Žiemayčių 534 ~ Žemaičių. Although alongside these there are also cicie 535 ~ čičia, neiunciu 535 ~ nejunčiu, neturiecio 537 ~ neturėčio, Ziemayciu 534, 535, Ziemayciu 534, in KIDP1810 these too are already written with ć: cićie 4, neiuńćiu 4, neturiećio 6, Ziemayćiu 3(3x), 4. However, on the other hand, only c is written in KIDP1810 too: cie 5 ~ čia, płacio 3 ~ plačio[je], Szauliciu 3 ~ Šaulyčiu. Thus, once again we see Klement’s desire to mark consonant softness in an ever wider range of positions and with increasing frequency. In the work recopied for the bishop, one can sense Klement’s greater self-discipline and considerable effort to standardize and refine the marking of softness—to use ć, ś with diacritics. (16) Klement had already replaced the spelling en of the diphthong [ęn] with yn by in, e.g., in KIDP1810: kintieja 7 ~ kentėjo, Linkizskay 3 ~ lenkiškai, Linku 5 ~ lenku, neabkinti 5 ~ neapkentę, tin 6 ~ ten. Most Dounininkai here pronounce [ęn]²⁹, so it is quite clear why Klement does not write *en. The same desire to mark consonant softness probably helped him decide to write in after l, k (cf. ij after the same ²⁸ Čiulda J. Brief reflections on the rules of Samogitian grammar. – Lietuvių atgimimo istorijos studijos 6, Vilnius: Mokslo ir enciklopedijų leidykla, 1993, 253. ²⁹ Cf. LKA 2, Samogitian, 70, 71. 236 next to a consonant, the allograph yj) and to pay less attention to the vowel’s quality. The occurrence of tin could be considered, more generally, the result of generalizing the spelling of the diphthong en. Of all the spelling changes mentioned from March 1810, the writing of Giedraitis shows a desire to improve it and deliberate efforts to make it uniform. It was not made entirely uniform, but many instances undoubtedly reflect such an aim and a desire to standardize. Klementas’s efforts to seek out certain innovations are also important—to mark uo, the nasal ų, yj (with a jot!) and its allograph ij. All these, as well as, for example, the instance of au, represent a departure from the Samogitian orthography proposed in “Žyvatas,” a search for distinctive means of expression and a desire to create. 1.5. From March 1810 to November 1810. Many spelling practices that had been made considerably more uniform, though not completely standardized, remained so in other texts written that year as well. Although no particular innovations are evident at the end of 1810, several features deserve mention. (6) The spelling of the diphthong uo is already clearly dominant, even in the singular dative, e.g., kuysiu 982 ~ kuisiuo=iui ‘toad’, szuniou 979 ~ šuniui, wyłkou 979 ~ vilkui, zuykio(u) 980 ~ zuikiui. Klementas’s final decision to write uo everywhere, rather than uu, u, is also indicated by hyper-Samogitian forms joug 976, 980, 987 ~ jog, senou 979 ~ senou=ui ‘old’. (13) Apparently, Klementas came to dislike using ć to mark soft [č’], and abandoned it; cf. Bažniccio 978 ~ bažnyčio[ję], czie 983, 985 (3x), 986 (2x) ~ čia, gieydieczio 976 ~ geidėčio, ptaucius 986 ~ plaučius, wiszticzius 982 ~ višt yčius. He switched to writing simply cz before the marker of softness, i (older spelling with c also occurs). He probably decided that the sign ć was suitable only for marking soft [c’], not soft [č’]—after all, the letter ś continued to denote only [s’], not [š’]. This, then, is what Klementas’s spelling appears to have been like up to 1811. Although Klementas lived for about 13 years afterward and is thought to have written in Lithuanian even more intensively, no writings from that latest period of his creative work have survived. In 1811, none of the figures in Samogitian culture had yet reached a final decision about what kind of standard Samogitian language they wanted—Dionizas Poška would not reach that decision for about another 12 years, and Jurgis Ambraziejus Pabrėža for about 18–20 years. Perhaps Aleksandras Butkevičius’s 1811 grammar could reveal a more or less formed position, but its manuscript cannot be found. It is possible that by 1823 Klementas’s vision of a standard language had become much more mature and had changed more markedly. After all, the tendency to improve his spelling is clearly evident in his earlier writings. Undated lecture notes by the student Aldona Dirmantaitė (from before the Second World War) contain the following remark about Klementas’s orthography: “There is not much to say about the spelling itself. He wrote as best he knew how, as it came into his head”³⁰. A strong suggestion that Klementas paid no attention whatsoever 30 D i r m a n t a i t ė A. Fragmentary lecture notes, [undated], 19. The manuscript is held at LNMMB, call no. f. 64–143. 237 spelling. However, this is not the case. Despite numerous inconsistencies, there is also a marked desire to reduce them deliberately and to seek more precise means of expression. If something “came to mind” for Klementas, he would think it over before writing, considering how it would suit his texts. 2.0. The dialectal basis of the standard language. In reconstructing Klementas’s views on the standard language and restoring his model of it, it is perhaps most important first to determine the relationship among the phonetic and morphological forms of the various dialects in his texts. Jonas Palionis, for instance, wrote that Klementas’s “texts display fairly pronounced features of the Northern Samogitian dounininkai subdialect [...]. However, in addition to dounininkai forms, his poems (especially the later ones) also contain ūnininkai forms, and even Aukštaitian forms. As the author himself admitted, such mixing of forms was primarily due to the changes in his place of residence”31. 2.1. Samogitian forms. In fact, there can be no doubt about the Samogitian dounininkai forms used by Klementas. As already noted in discussing his spelling, dounininkai phonetic forms with [ọu], [ẹi] are overwhelmingly predominant, written respectively as ou, uu or even u and yj, ij, yi or even i. It is unclear only what Palionis had in mind when he mentioned that Klementas also used ūnininkai forms. It would hardly be accurate to associate the rather spontaneous spellings u and i with that subdialect. As other Samogitian texts show, for example, in the “Žyvatas” u was also used to denote the dounininkai [ọu], and the entire logic of Klementas’s spelling discussed above likewise suggests that he intended to represent the dounininkai sound. The hyper-dounininkai forms that occur also point to particular efforts to write in that subdialect; cf. the frequent joug, joug ~ jog, and the loanword luusas ~ liuosas, even corrected to lousas. Moreover, several forms with i in place of the expected diphthong yj, ij, yi may simply be slips or forms copied from other writings. The hyper-dounininkai forms Dyivs 3 ~ Dievs (since, through the church, Samogitians had adapted the form with the Aukštaitian ie, this is confirmed by the consistently Samogitian text of “Žyvatas,” where the spelling of the Diew- stem predominates32), wos tyjk 5 ~ vos likewise attest to Klementas’s determined efforts to use only dounininkai forms. Thus, forms with u, i may perhaps be more accurately interpreted as allographs used to denote dounininkai sounds—as inconsistency in the graphic system. Further evidence from Klementas’s fairly consistent Samogitian phonetics includes the aforementioned forms with um (feature 7), un (8), ie (10), and in (16). Klementas’s morphological forms also show that he generally preferred Samogitian ones. For example, KIDP1810 uses a shortened third-person form of o-stem verbs: atevý 5 ~ atein[a], dydin 4 ~ didin[a], iem 4 ~ im[a], kath 5 ~ kalb[a], parstou 5 ~ parstov[i], pratin 5 ~ pratin[a], prider 3 ~ prider[a], priguf 4 ~ prigul[i], sznek 4 ~ šnek[a], tur 5 ~ tur[i], warstoj (sic!) 31 P a l i o n i s J. Lietuvių literatūrinės kalbos istorija. Vilnius: Mokslas, 1979, 188. 32 Aleksas Girdenis wrote that in the 1759 edition of “Žyvatas,” “Diewas VII, 15 (and its various forms) [...] occurs 728 times and is written with yi only once (sg. acc. Dyiwa 70, 2)” (Girdenis A. “Baltiškųjų *tĭ, *dĭ refleksai 1759 m. “Žyvate” – Baltistica 8[2], 1972, 175). He merely made a counting error—the same book also contains Dyjwas 68 and 6 238 5 ~ vartoj[a]. The only verb that occurs many times written in the distinctly Aukštaitian form is ira ~ yra; apparently, because of its brevity (or lack of euphony?), Klementas avoided the Samogitian [ir]. Klementas did not shorten the infinitive, as an Aukštaitian speaker might have done: girdėti 4 ~ girdėti, mokiti 4 ~ mokyti, pasakiti 4 ~ pasakyti, pažinti 4 ~ pažinti, peykti 4 ~ peikti, rašiti 5 ~ rašyti, sznekieti 5 ~ šnekėti, teykti 4 ~ teikti, wadinti 4 ~ vadinti. He used the Samogitian first-person singular conditional form: isymokiečio 12 ~ įsimokėčio, negalečio 6 ~ negalėčio, nenutrotičio 12 ~ nenutrotyčio, neturiečio 6 ~ neturėčio. Klementas also tended to choose Samogitian case endings. Cf. sg. dat. Szwisiew-Skayciausiu Juzapou Kunigaykszciu Giedrayciu Wiskupuu 1 ~ Šviesiai skaičiausiu=ui Juzapou=ui kunigaikščio=ui Giedraičiu=ui vyskupou=ui; sg. iness. lijžuwie 7 ~ liežuvė[je] ‘in the tongue’, łopiszie 8 ~ lopiše [je] ‘in the cradle’, szirdie 8 ~ širdė[je] ‘in the heart’, to pacio ganikło 3 ~ to[je] pacio[je] ganyklo[je], žinio 4 ~ žinio[je]; pl. dat. anims 5 ~ anims, wysims 4 ~ visims; pl. acc. anus 5, kurius 8; pl. iness. Alsiediūsi 1 ~ Alsėdžiūse, rasztūsi 5 ~ raštūse, Ziemayciusi 4 ~ Žemaičiuose. Thus, there can be no doubt that “the language of Klementas’s Lithuanian poems essentially coincides with his native Northern Samogitian [dounininkai] subdialect”33. However, Aukštaitian forms also occur. 2.2. Highland Lithuanian forms. Only two cases can be distinguished in which Klementas made more marked efforts to use Highland Lithuanian forms as well. First, alongside the Samogitian monophthongized diphthongs ai and ei (e.g., KIDP1810 Guda 5 ~ gudai, ia 4 ~ jei, Linka 5 ~ lenkai, nedy dia 4 ~ nedidžiai, raszta 5 ~ raštai, Telszia 4, 5 ~ Telšiai, wakus 4 ~ vaikus, Warnia 5 ~ Varniai), Highland forms preserving the diphthong are often written: błogay 4 ~ blogai, dydziay 5 ~ didžiai, gieray 5 ~ gerai, ilg ay 4 ~ ilgai, kayp 5 ~ kaip, Linkiszkay 3 ~ lenkiškai, protingay 3 ~ protingai, tay 4 ~ tai, tayp 5 ~ taip, tynay 5 ~ tenai, žodžiay 3 ~ žodžiai. These Highland forms occur too frequently to be considered accidental slips or unconscious intrusions. Second, there are the affricates gieydziu ~ geidžiu, Giedrayčių 3 ~ Giedraičių, Žemayčių 3(3x) ~ žemaičių, žodžiay 3 ~ žodžiai, žodžiu 5 ~ žodžiu. Evidence that Klementas deliberately avoided Samogitian forms without affricates is also provided by hyper-Highland forms with affricates: Kunigaykszciau 3 ~ kunigaikšti, neižėydzies 3 ~ neižėidės, žodži 6 ~ žodį. Forms without affricates slipped through only occasionally, when Klementas failed to notice that they lacked them, for example, dydlay 5, nedydia 4. Only these two features can be described as Highland forms that Klementas consciously preferred over Samogitian ones (indeed, one may also include among them the frequent third-person present-tense form of the verb būti, ira ~ yra). These are also the features that Samogitians most often considered least suitable for use in writing from their own dialect. 33 Z i n k e v i č i u s Z. Lietuvių kalba XVIII–XIX a., 132. 239 written language. Apparently, this was not a decision made by Klementas alone; it reflected a certain general attitude among Samogitians of the time. Other Highland features that occur are merely incidental, for example, giwendami 5 ~ gyvenami (in Samogitian it would be *giwendamis), wydui 4 ~ viduj (in Samogitian it would be *vėdou). 2.3. Samogitian standard language. The relationship between Samogitian and Highland Lithuanian forms in Klementas’s texts clearly shows that he wrote in the Dounininkai variety of Samogitian. Highland forms used instead of Samogitian ones were chosen in only two cases (diphthongs and affricates), and this in no way allows us to speak of a theoretical policy of combining different dialects. Nor are these Highland features likely to have crept in merely because Klementas frequently changed his place of residence, as researchers often like to suggest on the basis of Klementas’s own words: they were inserted deliberately. Theoretically, Klementas also proposed to Giedraitis, in KIDP1810, that the Telšiai dialect of Samogitian be chosen as the standard language. He put forward at least two arguments. The first was that the Telšiai dialect was Klementas’s native dialect. It must be acknowledged, however, that Klementas was perhaps the first to admit publicly that, like everyone else, he was deeply attached to his own dialect: “Tay ira zinio wysims: iog kijk wyj nas sawa ||Gir pusie tu; kur gimiś, kur tiewiszkie gawa –||Diełto dydin tas, ir kic Lizda sau prigimta,||Kur giwenima pradzia žmogaus ira imta –||Diełto nenoriu sakau: Telszių kalba peykti;||Dar troksztu szłowie anay priderunti teykti”, p. 4. For Giedraitis, however, whose native dialect was probably not Samogitian, Klementas proposed another argument—a geographical one: Telšiai is near Varniai, which was supposedly the center of Samogitia: “Nu Warniu, Telzia esu netolij padieti,||Abu wydui Ziemayčių –/;Jog tayp sznek girdieti:/ – Jszto paskuyto priguł teysibie pazinti:||Kad kalba musysk ie reyk tikroui wadinti”, p. 4. Of course, if Klementas hoped to persuade anyone (in this case, the bishop), it would have been only with the second argument. Moreover, Klementas would have preferred it if even K. Sirvydas had written his dictionary “truly in Samogitian”: “Kurius/:regiems daktc:/wercie daugiaus Litjuwyszkay ||Nekayp priguł mussiszkay, tikray Ziemaytyszkay”, p. 6. These arguments show that Klementas was already concerned, in theory as well, with a standard language—or, more precisely, a standard Samogitian language. 3. Territory of use of the standard written Samogitian language. The next step would be to try to determine whether Klementas already had a vision of who should write in Samogitian—that is, which inhabitants of Lithuanian-speaking territories might use that written Samogitian language. Of course, Samogitians first and foremost. But did he imagine that the Samogitian language would also have readers and writers among the Aukštaitians of Lithuania Minor and Lithuania Major? It is striking that, although Klementas did not like Sirvydas’s dialect, he praised his dictionary highly: “Nevertheless, one must praise that book with respect,||For it gave us a beginning [...]||[...] – So, instead of despising||His work, one should rather honour him for it – ||If I myself did not have his little book, ||I could not now make myself understood” KIDP1810, p. 6. And in Klementas’s own text one can find unmistakable words from Sirvydas’s dictionary, for example, iszpaustuwes sg. gen. 5 ~ ‘printing house’, a word whose meaning was unclear to Klementas and which he explained in Polish in a footnote – Drukarnia (cf. 240 Sirvydas’s Drukárnia [...] Išßpautuwe ráßto/literu34, 152); paszápa 8 ~ ‘aid’, in the footnote – Posiek (Sir. Posíek wojenny [...] padeimas / paßalpa, 428); teysiku 6 ~ ‘rules’, in the footnote – Prawidła (Sirv. Prawidło [...] Taysikłe, 441–442); wilta= wilis 9 ~ ‘sycophant’, in the footnote Podchlebca, (Sirv. Pochlebca [...] Wiltawilis, 402), and so on. Such praise and fondness for Sirvydas’s “Dictionarium” show that Klementas regarded it as his own. Yet the dictionary was written in an Eastern Aukštaitian dialect, quite different from the Samogitian Dounininkai dialect proposed by Klementas. Thus, in this case, dialect was not a major obstacle for Klementas. This could support the initial assumption that the Aukštaitian part of Lithuania Major felt quite familiar to Klementas, and that the difference between dialects mattered less than their shared cultural and geopolitical identity. Moreover, an illustrative example of Klementas’s thinking about the linguistic integration of Lithuania Major is the parallel he drew with the consolidation of the dialect that became the basis of the Polish standard language. Although Klementas modestly claimed that “I am no foreign visitor to Poland,||I know only a little of the Polish land” KIDP1810, p. 5, he was aware of a certain rivalry between the Greater Polish and Lesser Polish dialects: “Where the great ones are, and the little ones are called,||One cannot bear the other’s speech,” p. 5. They could not even tolerate one another’s dialects. Klementas went on to observe: “Nevertheless, the little =Poles have the power to write,” even though “The great can impose their speech on the little,” p. 5. In writing, the Lesser Poles take precedence, not the Greater Poles, although the Greater Poles wield more power. However much the Greater Poles might dislike it, books are printed in the Lesser Polish dialect: “All the books that are published are in one way,” and these are claims that provoke no debate, since “Not only do we know this, but all the Ruthenians too,” p. 5. Klementas had no doubt about the integrity of the theory of Polish standard-language use. Thus, this characterization of the relationship between Polish dialects is an obvious allusion by Klementas to the competition between the Samogitian and Aukštaitian dialects of Lithuania Major. It is clear to him that a larger dialect and a broader territory do not necessarily determine the dialectal basis that shapes a standard language. Klementas suggests that the Samogitian dialect would be entirely suitable for this standard language, even though its territory is smaller than that of Aukštaitian. If Klementas sees that the dialects are competing, then their prospects are modeled for the same territory. He speaks of the territory of Lithuania Major, at least the Lithuanian-speaking part, as a unity that should also have a single standard language. And the familiarity of Sirvydas’s writings to Samogitians clearly confirms this understanding of unity. Meanwhile, the books read by Greater Poles and written in the dialect of Lesser Poland offer a good hint to the Aukštaitians of Lithuania Major about which dialect they should choose for texts to be written in...Although Klementas did not develop his thoughts more precisely, it is clear that he would have found it most acceptable to propose a standard language based on the dounininkai dialect of Samogitian not only for Samogitians but also for the Aukštaitians of Lithuania Major. One territory and one standard Samogitian language. Zigmas Zinkevičius made a similar point, saying that “Kle- 34 Cituojama pagal trečiąjį fotografuotą leidimą (1642): Pirmasis lietuvių kalbos žodynas, Konstantinas Širvydas, Dictionarium trium linguarum, parengė Kazys Pakalka Vilnius: Mokslas, 1979. 241 in Klementas’s opinion, it [the standard language] should be based on the Telšiai dialect of Samogitian (the Aukštaitians yield)35 However, it would hardly be possible to find any indications that would allow the territory of Klementas’s standard written Samogitian language to be extended to Lithuania Minor. Some of his ideas suggest that the written tradition of the Prussian Lithuanians did not seem to Klementas an important or worthy model to follow. For instance, he complained that “There is nothing here that we can do properly; we have no rules,||We have none at all, nor any guides,||While others, as we see and praise them, have their own tongues,||Because of this, we cannot speak or write well” KIDP1810, pp. 6–7. Klementas imagined that the Lithuanian language had no rules; apparently, by this he meant the lack of printed grammars. By the lack of guides, Klementas may have meant a shortage of word lists or even dictionaries (in Sirvydas’s dictionary rodyklė is explained in one place as Rejestr w księgach/Elenchus, syllabus, index. Rodikłe/rodibu knigu36). Yet quite a few significant Lithuanian grammars and dictionaries had been published in Lithuania Minor, the latest of them being the impressive works of Kristijonas Gotlybas Milk aus in 1800. It is hard to believe that Klementas had not heard of them. He spoke only of Sirvydas’s “Dictionarium” as something that existed and was therefore important. Apparently, the writings of Lithuania Minor did not attract Klementas’s attention; they functioned in another territory, whose inhabitants Klementas felt no need to model his standard written Samogitian language for. A pattern of thought is becoming apparent, one that also shaped Klementas’s conception of the territory of the standard written Samogitian language. Clearly, the political border between the two states—Russia and Prussia—which divided two Lithuanian-speaking territories, also became for Klementas a border that limited his vision of a standard Samogitian language. In the mind of the nobleman Klementas, the traditional geopolitical conception of Lithuania, which did not include the Lithuanians of Lithuania Minor, undoubtedly prevailed. It was very powerful; the linguistic model was not yet capable of taking its place. Klementas was attached to the old noble conception of the nation, which did not connect language with nationhood. More than a decade later, around 1823, a very similar model would emerge in the writings of the nobleman Dionizas Poška. Jurgis Ambraziejus Pabrėža, a peasant’s son, five years later and thereafter would seem to try to choose a linguistic rather than political division of Lithuanian-speaking territory for his standard written Lithuanian project; however, instead of trying to expand ethnic boundaries, he would separate some Samogitians from others, narrowing the ethnic territory to a subethnic one. And an entire epoch would still have to pass before the Daukantian linguistic-ethnic conception of the nation took hold. 4. The relationship of the written standard to spoken language. Few of Klementas’s thoughts have survived that would allow us to consider whether he also thought about a spoken variant of the standard language. It is worth quoting, for example, Klementas’s conclusion after complaining that there were no rules (grammars?) or guides for his native language: “Par to negalem gieray kalbėti, raszity” KIDP1810, p. 7. It would seem that grammars (and dictionaries?) 35 Z i n k e v i č i u s Z. The Lithuanian Language in the 18th–19th Centuries, 132. 36 The First Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language, 474. 242 Klementas needed them not only to write well but also to speak; thus, it would have been clear to him that when speaking one must take normative works into account and that one should not speak just any old way. Elsewhere, it is again apparent that Klementas understood the connection whereby written language influences spoken language: “Kiti [...]||[...] Giwendami [...] Lijtuwos pakraszti|| Tayp prad ieia sznekieti; kayp tyn rada raszti”, p. 5. However, this superficial characterization may be inaccurate. The first quotation is completed as follows: “Sakau! isz girdieima maž weykti galetum,||Nieks pora sudurstoti wirsziu nemokietum,||Nes Linkiszkas žodžias Z-iemaycia prikayszia,||Ir tayp jau tikra kalba suw ysu sumayszia”, p. 7. It is apparent that “speaking well” (in accordance with grammars and dictionaries) primarily meant not standardizing pronunciation, but purifying the lexicon. The continuation of the second quotation would be: “Tay senu=dyjnu kalba Z-iemaytiszka musa,||Jau nupagadynima nepalika luusa”, p. 5. Having in mind, apparently, the macaronic language of texts written in the eighteenth century, Klementas, of course, considered the lexicon corrupted here too, rather than the pronunciation. Klementas primarily meant that words pass from texts into speech, not that speech is to be adjusted to the phonetic forms written down. Thus, Klementas had not clearly distinguished pronunciation from the use of words in spoken language. These surviving hints about the connection between speech and written texts do not yet allow us to state with confidence that Klementas was concerned with standardizing a spoken variety of the standard language. Klementas wished to cultivate the lexicon of spoken language just as he did that of written language, but he did not yet feel the need to standardize pronunciation specifically. Therefore, it is appropriate to speak only of Klementas’s vision of a standard written Samogitian language. 5. The basis of the written standard: systematicity. The opposition between usage and the language system is perhaps somewhat more clearly discernible in Klementas’s thought. As mentioned, because normative texts were lacking, Klementas thought it impossible to speak and write well. It seems he was more concerned with relying on grammatical rules than on usage alone. Since “Mes cicie kalbom tikta iszprigirdieima” KIDP1810, p. 6, is a poor state of affairs, speaking well would be possible only after rules and guides had been created. This expresses a desire to rely on the language system. Thus, although one dialect should be taken as the basis of the written standard, rules are needed to organize it, rules that one could follow. Klementas may have been encouraged to think this way also by sometimes feeling unsure of his command of his native dialect—he avidly read Sirvydas’s dictionary, searching for words, and would have read a grammar just as avidly if one had been available. Perhaps Klementas’s particular efforts to mark consonant softness (ć, i, ij, š), mentioned above, also indicate to some extent his aim to orient himself toward rules and the language system; softness may have seemed to him a more salient feature of the system than vowel narrowness or openness. In any case, Klementas could not have agreed with the opposite principle—to write as one speaks—“isz girdieima maž weykti galetum”. Mykolas Biržiška simply thought that Klementas despised the language of the common people37. 37 Biržiška M. Antanas Klementas, a Lithuanian Writer at the Beginning of the 19th Century, 28. 243 6. Klementas’s Samogitian literary language: sources and prospects. Klementas outlined roughly these parameters for a standard language in the making to Bishop Giedraitis. But whatever he imagined them to be, this was only a tentative desire to make a proposal, not a determined desire to persuade. He proposed and standardized while sensing that the power to decide lay in the bishop’s hands. Klementas’s text sounds like a vote “for,” but not an initiative to implement it. Klementas created ideas but did not himself feel capable of putting them into practice. The text to Giedraitis shows that Klementas, too, may have known something about the addressee’s ideas concerning the formation of a standard language. For example, Klementas wrote, “Rasi cie Kunigaykszcziau! kalba neprigimta,||Jsz kitų szalu, pusiu Z-iemayčių įszimta,” p. 3. The duke’s dialect was therefore probably not Samogitian; after all, he came from the East Aukštaitian region! Perhaps, sensing a certain distance between Giedraitis and the Samogitian dialect (after all, he said he knew that everyone praises the region where they were born), Klementas saw it as necessary to emphasize the commonality of Samogitians and Aukštaitians: “Wyjnims, untrusius nereyk par žodžius niekinti,||Jog wysi mes Z-iemayčia esma, reyk adminti,” p. 7. We are all the same, and everyone should have the same standard language. Klementas believed that the Aukštaitian texts that had prevailed until then owed their dominance to the printing presses located in Lithuania (Aukštaitija), which published primers for children there: “Nedydia ira Łustas, tayp mums pasakiti:||’Kad und alemtoriaus iem wakus mokiti,||Pas tokiu žodziu pratin, kayp warstoy Lijtuwą!’||Nes iszpaustuwes raszta tynay arciaus buwa,” pp. 4–5. Thus, a printing press was needed in Samogitia to begin publishing Samogitian books: “Kad Warmia arba Telszia anus [raš­tus] sau turietum,||Kayp cie aplinkuu kalb; tayp rasziti pradietum,” p. 5. Vis dėlto Giedraičiui Klemento siūlymas neturėjo įtakos. Po šešerių metų (1816) vyskupas išleido visiškai aukštaitišką “Naująjį Testamentą”. 1813 metais kviesdamas padėjėjais šiam lietuviškam leidiniui rengti net 10 pagalbininkų38, Klemento Giedraitis nepakvietė. Klemento įtikinėjimo rezultatų tame tekste taip pat nėra nė aido. Vyskupas turėjo savo nuomonę, jam aukštaičių kalbos tarmė, matyt, buvo ir senesnė, ir perspektyvesnė. Nepavyko Klementui pratęsti, kad ir modifikuotos “Žyvato” tradicijos. Bet vis dėlto jo tekstai Giedraičiui – vienas iš pirmųjų išlikusių teorinių mąstymų kurti bendrinę rašomąją žemaičių kalbą. Researchers also point to other cultural connections Klementas had with figures of the time who were concerned with the fate or standardization of the Lithuanian language. For instance, Klementas was even acquainted with Ksaveras Bogušas: “as early as 1803, when Rev. Baužas was visiting Samogitian schools on behalf of Vilnius University (wizy­tator), and perhaps already collecting material for his book, Kl. very much wished to meet him, ‘bo jego bytnosť ciekawść wzrusza’ [...]. Soon afterward Rev. B., who had influence over Governor-General of Vilnius Benningsen and even lived with him, helped Kl. in his personal dealings with the governor-general (Kl., grateful to both, kissed their hands!)”39. 38 Cf.: Prašmantaitė A. Bishop J.A. Giedraitis of Samogitia—the translator of the New Testament. – Senoji Lietuvos literatūra 3, Having entered the nineteenth century, Vilnius: Pradai, 1994, 232–234. 39 Biržiška M. Antanas Klementas, Lithuanian Writer at the Beginning of the Nineteenth Century, 24. 244 There is little reason to doubt that Klementas knew about Bogušas’s ideas on language and was influenced by his thoughts. It has been noted more than once that “having formerly written macaronic verse himself, K. was now indignant that ‘the Samogitians have stuffed their language with Polish words and thus thoroughly muddled an already genuine language,’”40 and that “at first he himself used all kinds of borrowings in his Lithuanian poems, but later began to avoid them and even took offence at them”41. Bogušas, and his work published in 1808, which Klementas must also have known, may have directly influenced this change. In Biržiška’s words, Klementas “was concerned only with the honor of the language”42, while Bogušas also fostered the need for and understanding of that honor. Klementas also maintained ties with Dionizas Poška, ten years his junior: “From his youth, D. Poška knew A. Klementas well. For several years they both moved in the same circles in the Raseiniai courts [...]. They met later as well, discussing not only ‘earthly’ matters but literary topics too”43. It is thought that Klementas may have influenced Poška’s literary explorations. However, there is no evidence that he influenced Poška’s linguistic views. It is true that Poška made his theoretical decision to promote a language based on the standard Dünininkai dialect considerably later, only in 1823, but no clear direct following of Klementas’s standard literary language ideas can be found in it. The younger Poška sought his own path. It seems, then, that Klementas’s standard literary language ideas had no well-known followers. None of the writers in his circle of acquaintances began to write as Klementas had proposed. Having tried to improve the Dounininkai “Žyvatas” tradition, and turned toward his own language by Bogušas and other writers, he sought to articulate a theory of a standard literary language; however, he was not an active proponent of it and gained no adherents. As the first theorist of the standard Samogitian literary language, he was also the last follower of the Dounininkai “Žyvatas” tradition before the emergence of a dominant group of writers supporting the Dünininkai dialect. Although Pabrėža was already writing manuscript sermons in Dounininkai at the time, he developed his ideas more fully only after the 1831 uprising. Thus, once the potential of the Dünininkai dialect had waned again, he reconstructed the Dounininkai tradition, and then sought to disseminate it much more actively and broadly than Klementas had. 7. Summary. Antanas Klementas searched for a solution, gradually refined and standardized spelling, and paid particular attention to marking softness rather than vowel openness or closeness. He drew on the Samogitian Dounininkai dialect—the “Žyvatas” tradition—and refined it. He also wanted to promote his standard Samogitian literary language among the Aukštaitians of Lithuania proper; he had not yet considered a spoken standard-language variety, giving priority to the language system, 40 M a c i ū n a s V., Klementas Antanas. – Lietuvių enciklopedija 12, Boston: Lietuvių enciklopedijos leidykla, 1957, 102. 41 P a l i o n i s J. Lietuvių literatūrinės kalbos istorija, 159. 42 B i r ž i š k a M. Antanas Klementas, Lithuanian Writer at the Beginning of the 19th Century, 27. 43 V a n a g a s V. Dionizas Poška, Vilnius: Pradai, 1994, 58. 245 to rules, and not to usage. However, he did not convince Bishop Giedraitis and gained no followers. There is no evidence that Klementas made any efforts to educate them. Chicago, April 25, 1996. THE SAMOGITIAN LANGUAGE OF ANTANAS KLEMENTAS Summary The Samogitian texts of the poet Antanas Klementas (1756–1823) have survived only from the period of 1794 to 1810, nevertheless even these texts reveal a certain development of Klementas’ attitude to written language. In course of time Klementas made his Samogitian orthography more precise. He also made noticeable efforts to express palatalization of consonants in an innovative way. However, Klementas did not manage to make his orthography uniform. Klementas tried to base the norms of the standard Samogitian that he preferred on the Samogitian - duonininkai tradition of “Žyvatas” (1759, etc.). He also wanted to see even the users of Aukštaitišk dialect learn his Samogitian version of standard written language. But Klementas was not thinking of a spoken form of standard Samogitian. His priorities lay on the rules (the system) of language rather than on its usage. However Juozapas Arnulfas Giedraitis, the bishop of Samogitia, did not support Klementas’ ideas and he did not have any known followers. 246