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LITHUANIAN LINGUISTICS QUESTIONS, XXXIV (1994) LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE DIARCHEMS AND THEIR STUDIES Rimgaila SALYTĖ RECALLING HIS FATHER* First of all, I would like to thank the Lithuanian Language Institute for the invitation [to participate in the conference in memory of A. Salis. —Red.]. I never thought that we would ever be in Lithuania for such an occasion. At various American conferences I had to listen to family members’ memories of one or another famous person. After listening to them, I came to the conclusion that I should be brief and focus on specific events. That's what I'll try to do. I must have been a screamer, because my first childhood memories of Dad are like this: I'm still blaring for some reason, and Dad calms me down. He sits on his knees and sings in Žemaičių "Pempel, pempel koudoutuoji, kam tav kambale longoutuoji? And he still got me on track. I liked it a lot, although I didn’t understand anything, neither then nor now. My first lesson in language, as well as in behaviour, I got from my dad. When I was about four years old, my mother became seriously ill, and Vincas Krėvė and his wife moved into our house to look after me. Aunt told Krėvė to call her professor. Mrs. Krėvienė, who was a non-Lithuanian, called her husband Vincas. The word “professor” was difficult for me to pronounce, so I began to call Professor Vincas. Dad explained to me that this was not allowed and unpolite, but I continued to turn to Professor Vincas. Daddy ran out of patience and picked me up. Dad, of course, paid a lot of attention to my Lithuanian language. If I started to use some otherwise acceptable, but non-Lithuanian words, such as siurprizas, anūkas, or I just said hobby, cereals, shopping center, they immediately corrected it. Only after many years I realized that not all American Lithuanians use the words staigmena, vaikaitis, nikis, javieniai, pirkykla. When my cousin Danute and I started to go to primary school, English quickly replaced Lithuanian. We also play shu-shu-- shu with each other, and Dad always runs around to listen to what language we speak. If in English, it was barred with a specific term: —Well, and again both of you are “blurben- ”! Dad was a farmer's son. He worked hard on his farm and worked hard on his life. Beekeeper. In America we lived in the suburbs of Philadelphia. | * These memories of R. Salytė, with some notes and some editing, were first published in "Naujasis dienovydis" (18-31 December 1992). No. 52—53, 1993 m. of January 1—7 d. No. 1). — Red. 39 in the city, a house with a small plot of land, less than a quarter of an acre**. Every day, when he came home from university, he would run to the garden. On the other side of the house, on one side there were raspberry bushes, in the middle there were several apple trees, currant and gooseberries. Next to the house grew five rose bushes; flowers and two big red vine roses. There were many trees in front of the house. Dad necessarily wanted a variety and special. Growing mimosa and paradise apple tree (expected to be jam from apples). Both trees were constantly polluting- —one in the summer, the other in the autumn, and Dad was getting scolded by Mom. She refused to cook the jam, she was already overburdened with work. In the summer, the roses were attacked by Japanese beetles, which ate his favorite flowers down to the last leaf. He hated those bugs so much that he would take them between his fingers and squeeze them so that their green bowels would come out of their hard shells. Anyway, he was a very calm, not at all hot-tempered person. But there was a real vengeance. “More sensitive” persons, i.e. me, were told to pick up those bugs and throw them into a container with water and kerosene. For each collected beetle, they paid one cent. There were a few cbeads that he loved especially. Although there was not enough land to grow them well, and the climate was not suitable (too warm), but Dad, as a northerner, planted them. One apple tree was low-growing, and the other was grafted and quite complex: on one apple tree — three trunks, three kinds of apples. He would squat around them, spray them forever, but it would end sadly: the apples would always be wormed. It wasn’t until I grew up that I understood why he needed that three-type apple tree and that overcrowded, small orchard. He grew up in the countryside and there was always too little space for him. He missed the land. After working in the garden, he felt recovered and returned to the desk. Dad made his own oatmeal from raspberries. Beekeeping in the suburbs of Philadelphia, as in the city, was banned. When Dad was visiting the Sisters of the Crucified Jesus in Elmhurst, Pennsylvania, I remember how he enjoyed putting on his beekeeper hat* with a net and going to check the hives with beekeeper Sister Barbara. Did not wash gloves; he used to say that bees never attacked him. In Philadelphia, honeydew production has slightly replaced beekeeping. While studying at the University of Leipzig, Daddy found various old recipes in the library, according to which he made his own meadowfowl. In the cellar there was equipment and all the necessary supplies: yeast and spices from Germany, a huge wooden barrel, from the top protruding a tubing tube through which it was possible to follow the fermentation process. He loved to serve his guests with his production and, it seems, everyone liked it. My dad and I were both animal lovers. In Lithuania, he had hunting dogs, raised ponies. Mom was afraid of those povy, and, besides, and was allergic to animals. In the barn, when she came back from bathing in the stream, the peacocks would stand in the way and would not let her go. When they tried to pass, they would jump on their heads, grab their hair and chop them. Before the wedding, Dad's housewife warned Mom, "Miss, he's a very good man. Just don’t let those dogs keep you.” Despite warnings and Mom’s allergies, growing up we always kept some kind of pet ** An acre is a unit of land in the United States equal to 4,046.86 square meters. - Red. 40 animal. Of all, Dad loved the cat Micius most. They both got up early, about six. Micius used to sleep upstairs with me. As soon as he heard something screeching downstairs in the morning, he would run down to the kitchen, jump on Dad’s arm, put his paws on his chest and rub his muzzle first in one ear and then in the other. That was how they greeted each other in the morning. And then Micius would jump down and ask for breakfast. When he was a professor in Lithuania during the independence period, Dad earned a good ir salary, dressed nicely, ordered suits from the best Kaunas tailors. Like many emigrants, he came to America with nothing; started his life over again at the age of 44. At that time, American professors earned very little, less than factory workers. This was until the Russians launched the first Sputnik and the Americans, feeling behind, began to raise the level of higher education and at the same time expand the Slavic departments. For many years Dad had to earn money at the evening and summer school. It goes without saying that in such conditions all elegance was forgotten and remained so for life. Since ancient times, Dad was used to buying clothes for himself. He often went to S. Klein's second-hand store and picked out a suit for himself. He would come home very satisfied pigmen, and Mom did not know what to do. He could not see himself from the side, and his pants were crooked. But he was fine, and, to be honest, the American professors looked the same. But Mom still insisted that Dad buy good suits. As you know, Dad taught at the University of Pennsylvania from 1947 to 1972. You can retire at 65, but he didn't want to. He liked to dessert, liked students, and the university valued him as a specialist. He remained teaching until almost 70 years. Initially, when the department was small, I had to teach courses on a wide range of subjects: Bulgarian, Polish, Old Church Slavic, Old Prussian, Baltic and Slavic phonology. When the department expanded in the 1960s, it was possible to read more lectures from their field. Typical list of one-year courses: history of Lithuanian language, ancient Prussian language, comparative linguistics of Baltic languages, history of Russian language. The students liked my dad because he varied the lectures with jokes and samoyas, kept quite simple, often invited students to his house. His former student Prof. W. R. Schmalstiegs recalls: "My permanent impression of him is that of a man with a smile on his face". Dad himself liked to tell two stories. At one point, probably in the late 1950s or early 1960s, it became very fashionable to knit during lectures. At first Dad didn’t pay attention to this, but later he noticed that there were a lot of knitting students whose hands were so busy that they couldn’t take notes. There was a need to save the situation. At the beginning of the lecture, Dad, like nowhere else, announced: "I would like to announce that only pregnant women are permitted to knit in the classroom". All the knitting disappeared immediately. Once, while teaching Lithuanian language history, Dad explained to the students the old form "šitonai. " The students were mostly Americans, so he repeated the word in syllables to make them spell it correctly. The slower and clearer he pronounces the word, the more confused the students look at each other. And he keeps repeating, louder and louder, "this —on —ais. Write it down correctly "šit —on —ais”. People started to stop at the open door when the students didn’t stand the test, and everyone started laughing. The Lithuanian word turns into three words in English, which means "to perform a natural thing on ice". 41 During the summer, Dad often travelled to give lectures in various Lithuanian language courses for teachers and students, who taught Lithuanian to children on Saturdays during the winter. At the beginning of the academic year, he prepared very carefully for lectures, worked with his doctoral students and this took almost the whole day. I remember him sitting at a table in his room. After a while he started walking around the first floor, he couldn’t see anything, I listened — he talked to himself (as it seemed to me). Later I realized that, when he was preparing, for example, "Lithuanian written language zodyna"- ***, he liked to repeat a word aloud and thus delve into its etymology, other forms and so on. In the 1950s and 1960s, the Lithuanian Encyclopedia was published in Boston. The authors of various articles often called and asked about specialized terms. That interpretation took a lot of time. Another considerable annual task — the editing of the Modern Language Assotiation’s bibliography of Eastern European languages and literatures — had to be carried out mostly during the Christmas holidays. Dad could only start his work around 10 p.m. and usually worked until 2 p.m. After a long, hard work, the stomach broke down, digestion was disturbed. Then he would blame Mom for not cooking food well! The desk and the floor in my dad’s office were loaded with papers. Once a priest sent a manuscript of a booklet to Dad for correction. The manuscript mixed with the newspapers on the floor, and Mom, trying to clean up the room a little, accidentally threw it away with the newspapers. The title of that booklet was "Who looks and does not see". After this incident, Dad forbade not only Mom, but also the house cleaners from entering his room, and there was always a larger or smaller garbage dump, even of a very high level. On the other hand, when summarizing scientific papers, preparing lectures and articles, he wrote everything very neatly in thin notebooks so that individual pages would not be lost. All of that material has survived. + In 1967, my father showed the first symptoms of lymph node cancer. He was treated with radiation. The doctor decided not to tell him the details; My father understood little about such things and lived quietly for another five years. In 1972, he was preparing to retire and planned to start writing a historical dictionary of Lithuanian language. He also planned to go back to Lithuania. Unfortunately, the cancer appeared again in May and forced him to lie in hospital. He also took me there to correct the students' exam papers. After a blood transfusion, he returned home, but not for long; needed blood again. He then stayed in the hospital. *** While professor at the University of Pennsylvania, A. Salys together with A. Senna completed the five-volume "Wörterbuch der litauischen Schriftsprache, Litauisch-Deutsch" ("Wordbook of the Lithuanian Written Language, Lithuanian-German"), started in 1926 by M. Niedermann, F. Brender and A. Senna. - Red. 42 Uncle Alex Washkel arranged for Dad to be filmed. We brought him home for one day. Dad kept telling me that he was feeling fine, and I took him to the hospital in the evening after the shooting. Going through the corridor, she swayed, I asked if she was weak. He replied that no, only Mom told him to put on new shoes, it is uncomfortable to walk, but it was clear that the strength was leaving him. When he was in the hospital, he didn't want anyone to visit him. He told me to remember when I was healthy. He was still answering letters in the hospital. He dictated me a letter to Prof. Juozas Girnis. When I brought the printed text, he looked at it, shook his head and laughed: "When will you learn to write the year abbreviation ("m.*") separately from the numbers!" He started to talk about himself only once. He said that life somehow passed very quickly. I would have liked to have done more. If not for teaching and the Encyclopedia, he would have written more of his work, but he does not regret it. The disease has progressed; it seemed that he was getting weaker and weaker. In the last days he was tormented by high temperature, but there were no pains. Daddy asked me to cook cold cuts with blueberries. We brought him that last meal. In the evening we said goodbye; as he left he smiled at us and waved one hand. On July 31, 2008, he was reported to have had a heart attack. As I prepared this report, I pulled out Dad’s briefcase, which contained things he had taken with him when he was last in the hospital. It was a man who did not pay particular attention to the household. The briefcase itself is black, worn, artificial leather, not even leather. Inside a characteristic mixture: keys, newspapers "Draugas" and "Gimtasis kraštas", magazines "U. S. News and World Report" and "Aidai", a toothbrush, a letter from Prof. K. Korsakas about a string of cards sent from the dictionary and the list of names**** with the following note: "A lot of what you reproach us for depends on real conditions and circumstances, which you should be at least approximately known from the press and other sources of information. And if we are going into polemics, then we could also make a lot of claims on our part about the partiality and different criteria of evaluation of our works in the overseas press... But would this strengthen our scientific cooperation? I hope you will understand me correctly- .” There was also a letter from V. Šeštokas about a planned lecture at the World Lithuanian Youth Camp on the theme "Lithuanian language — value and duty", Elta information, paper and envelopes with the heading of the University of Pennsylvania, pen and pencil, comb, mirror, green leather wallet worn to brown, glasses worn with faded frames, Archbishop J. Skvirecko- 's "New Testament", Eberhard Nestle's "Novum Testamentum Graece et Latine", Father S. Yla's "Questions of liturgical terminology", a brown and black striped "frog" — that's how he called his handkerchief ties. He didn't like long ties. **** References to the academic Lithuanian language dictionary and Lithuanian surname lists. — Red. 43