LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI, XXXI (1994)

KALBOS NORMALIZACIJOS KLAUSIMAI

SIMAS KARALIŪNAS

THE NATION, SOCIETY, AND THE USE OF THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE

1. The Lithuanian Language and Society

Language, like every phenomenon of reality, has characteristics that do not belong to it itself and extend beyond its boundaries. These characteristics are the relations between language and what lies outside language. There are two kinds of such relations: relations between a language and the society that uses it, and relations between two or more languages. There is a close, direct connection between language and society, which is manifested in the use of language, or, in other words, in its functioning. We say that language is used by people, members of society. We can also put it somewhat differently: language functions in society. Thus, the relation between language users, society, and language itself is manifested in its use, or functioning. In using language every day, society exerts a certain influence on it. This is most often unconscious: people do not feel that they are having a certain influence on language. But society’s impact on language can also be conscious. For example, it may take the form of efforts to plan language use, attend to its cultivation, and so on.

Another readily observable feature of language use, or functioning, is its spread. For instance, English spread from the British Isles across several continents—North America, Australia, and India.

The spread of a language is entirely independent of the language itself, of its structure. Its causes lie beyond the boundaries of language. The spread of a language is determined by its users. According to the French linguist A. Martinet, the spread of a language “is a by-product of the military, political, religious, cultural, economic, or simply demographic expansion of the nation whose means of communication that language is. The widespread diffusion of Latin, Arabic, Spanish, and English can hardly be attributed to their nature. Whatever in their structure may have contributed to this at least reflected those features of the nation’s character and culture that, in one way or another, determined the subsequent course of events.”¹

As languages spread, they encounter one another and begin to influence one another. Thus, language contacts and their interaction are brought about by specific historical factors, namely: the mixing and cohabitation in the same territory of people who differ ethnically and linguistically, their geographical proximity, migration, military occupation, colonization, economic, social-political, and cultural relations among nations, and so forth.

The use of the Lithuanian language, its functioning in our time—as in earlier periods of its development—is characterized by the conscious influence exerted on it by Lithuanian society and by its interaction with other languages. Its use in public life today

¹ Мартине А. Распространение языка и структурная лингвистика // Новое в лингвистике. М., 1972. Т. 6. С. 81–82.

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In recent days, a decisive factor was the fact that the Lithuanian language had been granted the status of a state language. On November 18, 1988, the Supreme Council of the Lithuanian SSR supplemented the Republic’s Constitution with a new article, by which Lithuanian was legalized as the state language. Here is that article:

“The state language of the Lithuanian SSR is the Lithuanian language.

The Lithuanian SSR guarantees the use of the Lithuanian language in the activities of state and public bodies, in educational, cultural, scientific, industrial and other institutions, enterprises, and organizations, and the state’s care for the comprehensive development and teaching of the Lithuanian language. Conditions shall be created for developing other languages used in the Lithuanian SSR, and for learning and using Russian as a means of communication among the peoples of the USSR”². A comprehensive set of measures to develop the Lithuanian language and use it in state and public life was laid out in two other documents—the Decree of the Presidium of the Supreme Council of the Lithuanian SSR “On the Use of the State Language of the Lithuanian SSR” and the Resolution of the Council of Ministers of the Lithuanian SSR “On Measures to Ensure the Use of the State Language of the Lithuanian SSR.”

There is no doubt that granting Lithuanian the status of a state language, together with the full set of measures envisaged to implement the Law declaring Lithuanian the state language, created the conditions for the normal functioning of Lithuanian in public life, made it possible to improve substantially its teaching and culture, and helped raise the prestige of Lithuanian in the eyes of society. At the same time, all this contributed to the further development of national culture and science, the revival of the nation’s self-awareness, and spiritual rebirth.

Politically and culturally significant, too, is the fact that the aforementioned Law guarantees other ethnic communities living in Lithuania the right to use and develop their own languages.

On the other hand, declaring Lithuanian the state language also imposes many obligations and makes us responsible. This was expressed best by the famous Russian scholar V. Toporov: “The state status of a language reflects the historical reality of the development of language and culture and the level of national self-awareness, as well as readiness to assume responsibility for resolving the historical, social, economic, cultural, and other tasks that arise for a nation with state status.” Language, as an integrating factor that brings society together into a unified ethnos and as society’s principal means of communication, is connected with the resolution of these tasks, since their resolution also depends on the communicative capacities of the language. Whether we, as agents and members of society, are capable of this, the near future will show; there is no doubt about our language’s potential. Here again are V. Toporov’s words: “But is the Lithuanian language itself ready to take on yet another function—to be the state language of Lithuania? Certainly. Under the difficult conditions of the past century, without statehood, the Lithuanian language withstood the test, though not without losses, and even created a special, highest cultural and social form of language—the literary language—which became a powerful unifying force in national development, an effective and versatile instrument of culture, its spirit. The Lithuanian people not only defended and preserved their language, but nurtured and enriched it to such a degree that recognizing Lithuanian as the state language today would require no”

² Lietuvos TSR valstybinė kalba (svarbiausi dokumentai). V., 1989. P. 11.

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“patching,” “forcing,” or introducing language substitutes. The Lithuanian language has indeed demonstrated, even under nearly extreme conditions, its remarkable ability to apprehend and process adequately the content of contemporary life in its most complex and subtle manifestations. Both the Lithuanian language’s intrinsic potential and its concrete achievements allow us to regard it as one of the active and “strong” elements in the mosaic of contemporary world languages and to place many hopes in it. I would not be surprised if, at the beginning of the coming century, artistic creativity in Lithuanian reached unprecedented heights.”³

The concept of a state language means that the language is used in the state-administrative system and, of course, in other spheres, such as education, culture, industry, and so on. Legal measures to establish the use of a language in public life indicate that an extreme situation has arisen in its functioning. A language is declared a state language either because, for one reason or another, it cannot function in public life, primarily in the state-administrative system, and legal measures are therefore needed to guarantee its use, or because the state-administrative entity is multinational and multilingual. Thus, to facilitate communication in society and the functioning of state and social structures, one of the languages used in society is elevated to the rank of official, state language. When a society is monolingual and its language is sufficiently functional, neither declaring it a state language nor legal measures to guarantee its use are necessary. It is in the context of these considerations that we must assess the most significant event in the present life of our nation—the Act of March 11, 1990, restoring the independent state of Lithuania.

The restoration of Lithuanian statehood and the Lithuanian language and its use—phenomena that may seem fundamentally different—are directly connected with one another. First, the existence of an independent state ipso facto gives the language the status of an official means of communication. Second, a characteristic feature of a national language is its literary, common standard form. The existence of a literary language, a common standard written language, and a common standard spoken language shows that a nation has reached the highest degree of social organization, possesses a real possibility of establishing an independent national state, and, through its culturally creative work of universal value, stands alongside the other nations of the world. Third, the independent state of Lithuania brought the Lithuanian language out of the extreme situation into which it had been thrust during the years of stagnation and separated our language from the global processes of unification and elimination that were characteristic of linguistic life in the Soviet Union.

2. The Role of Language in Society

What role, then, does language play in the life of society and the nation?

Savo knygoje „Septyni šimtai metų vokiečių—lietuvių santykių“ Vydūnas piešia tokį vaizdelį: „Keletą dienų jaunikaitis viešėjo savo motinos tėviškėje prie Minijos. Teta darbavosi gretimame kambaryje, kai kažkas pas ją atėjo. Buvo girdėti jaunos mergaitės balsas, kuris skambėjo pakiliai, džiaugsmingai, bet iš lėto. Kaip skam-

³ Toporovas V. Ne dovana, bet teisė! // Mintys apie gimtąją kalbą. V., 1989. P. 29.

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The words fell like tinkling drops—full of love, cheerfulness, goodness, and beauty. Never had the young man imagined that the Lithuanian language of his birth was so pleasant and harmonious! One could sense that it was the song of the human heart, the voice of the soul. And she was speaking about very ordinary things. The young man could not see the speaker, and wondered whether she herself was just as beautiful. The voice fell silent, and he saw a slender […] figure flash across the garden⁴.

The meaning of this seemingly simple scene is profound. Without seeing a person, we can tell from their manner of speaking and the language they use what their physical condition is (whether the speaker is a man or a woman, young or old). From their language, we can discern their state of mind: whether they are in good or bad spirits, gloomy and tired—or cheerful and in a bright mood. And there is more. From the features of speech—the pronunciation, the words used, the structure of sentences—we can tell a great deal else: the speakers’ level of education, what they do for a living, and so on. The Lithuanian language on the young girl’s lips seemed to the author “pleasant and harmonious,” so he wondered whether the girl herself was beautiful, too. Language, then, is highly informative—it tells us a great deal about a person. And it does so not only through words with meaning, but also through its very sound. On the other hand (as Vydūnas’s scene makes easy to understand), language depends on the person who uses it; its meaning, richness, and beauty derive from that person’s spirit. “When people speak,” Vydūnas continues, “their spiritual world opens up. And the more vital and conscious it is, the more beautiful its sound.” He adds: “Spiritual life and language spring from a single root. When a person speaks from a rich and vibrant soul, and with greater knowledge, the sound of their words is noble and beautiful⁵.

As if reflecting philosophically on the scene and drawing together his thoughts, Vydūnas states: “But every language expresses what no other language does. The purpose of every language is to express humanity. And each language accomplishes this only in part—it expresses only a small fragment of humanity. When a language falls silent, a string in the harp of humankind is broken⁶.

These lines reveal Vydūnas’s profound love for his native language and his pride in it, while his philosophical statements disclose his conception of language: language expresses the human spirit and humanity, and at the same time characterizes a person; every language is distinctive and special; every language has something no other language has—in other words, every language is national.

Why was Vydūnas able to say such wonderful and meaningful things about language—first and foremost about his native Lithuanian? Perhaps because he grew up, lived, and worked in an environment of language contact and bilingualism (Lithuanian-German).

Where two or more languages meet in everyday life, their similarities and differences become apparent; people begin to pay greater attention to their native language. When we live entirely within the environment of our own nation and language, we scarcely notice it anymore. Our first contact with a foreign language makes us feel our own language and look at it from the outside. By comparing our own language with the language others use in everyday communication, we begin to notice not only what is distinctive about our language, but also that language is what first distinguishes us from people of other nationalities.

⁴ Vydūnas. Sieben Hundert Jahre deutsch-litauischer Beziehungen. Tilsit, 1932. P. 45.

⁵ Ibid.

⁶ Ibid.

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In our daily interactions with our compatriots, we do not notice that language is closely connected with nationality. The active, ongoing interaction between nationality and language immediately comes to the fore as soon as we find ourselves among people of another nationality, and even more so in a different-language environment. After spending a long time among strangers, what a pleasant feeling floods the heart when we suddenly hear words in our native language!

Thus, the feeling of love and pride in one’s native language, which grows into linguistic patriotism, is first and foremost connected with language’s ability to characterize a person not only as an individual but also, in Vydūnas’s words, to express humanity, to reveal the spirit of the person and, together with it, of the nation, and to distinguish one’s own nation from others. This ability of language is determined by the fact that every language has something that no other language has; in other words, it is determined by the national and cultural specificity of language.

Linguists in other countries also note language’s ability to characterize an individual. For example, the American linguist and ethnologist E. Sapir writes: “The quality of the voice, the phonetic expression of speech, the speed and fluency of pronunciation, the length and structure of sentences, the nature and scope of the vocabulary, its enrichment with scientific elements, the ability of words to respond to the needs of the social environment, and, in part, the way speech is oriented toward the interlocutor’s linguistic skills—all this is only a small part of the complex characteristics that describe an individual.”⁷.

The experience of humankind, accumulated and cultivated over many generations, encompasses not only elements shared by all people but also distinctive, specific elements characteristic of one particular national culture. The realities and features of a nation’s work, social life, culture, and psychology, along with the concepts and images that reflect them, are fixed in the words, phrases, and sentences of a language. The national and cultural specificity of language, its uniqueness, is clearly evident in various idiomatic expressions—it is extremely difficult, and often entirely impossible, to translate them into another language. The distinctive, particular, national interpretation of society and human life in language is expressed mainly through the specific character of names and semantic changes, partly through phonetic changes, and through the way reality is divided linguistically. For example, in Lithuanian we call the sunflower saulespuķe according to the fact that this plant turns its leaves and flower toward the sun. Latvians call it подсолнечник—a flower of the sun, while Russians conceive of it as growing beneath the sun. The Polish słonecznik would be “sunny one” (słoneczny means “sunny”). We understand the concept “80” as made up of eight tens, whereas the French understand it as 4 × 20 (quatre-vingt). We divide “90” similarly (nine tens), whereas the French divide it as 4 × 20 + 10 (quatre-vingt-dix).

How differently languages divide reality can also be seen in the following example. English divides the hand into two parts: hand, “the part of the arm from the wrist to the fingertips,” and arm, “the arm from the hand to the shoulder.” Lithuanian, although it has plaštaką, “the part of the arm from the wrist to the fingertips,” now uses the word ranką to mean both “one of the two upper limbs of a person, up to the shoulder” and “the part of that limb up to the wrist.” In earlier times, however, the parts of the arm were distinguished in Lithuanian in much the same way as in English. This is clearly evident from the standard-language word pažastis, “the place under the arm beside the chest,” which indicates that there was once a word denoting the upper part of the arm. Finally, this is confirmed by the dialect word žastas, “the part of the arm from the elbow to the shoulder.” By contrast, the word rankà would originally have denoted the end of the arm

⁷ Сепир Э. Язык // Звегинцев В. А. История языкознания XIX и XX веков в очерках и извлечениях. М., 1960. Т. 2. С. 192.

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from the elbow; this fits well with its origin—from the verb rinkti (renka). Thus ranka is an organ with which one renkama—gathers.

Phonetics, grammar, syntax, and vocabulary are also specific. They are different in every language, characteristic of that language alone. Human thought, even when it is highly international, is expressed differently in different languages. Thus the manner of expressing thoughts is evidently specific and national as well.

The national and cultural specificity of language provides the basis for the expression of its ethnic function.

3. The Ethnic Function of Language

The factors that shape a nation and affect its existence are the common origin of the national group, language, way of life, shared destiny, culture, and psychology. Culture does not, in itself, create the substance of a nation, but is a form in which nationhood is expressed, fusing the material elements of a nation into a single whole and thereby shaping a national individuality. Culture creates the nation as an object, as a factual reality. In its subjective aspect, a nation is consciousness and will—a collective fused by conscious will. National consciousness distinguishes a nation from an ethnic group. “A nation is equally an object and a subject, a fact and an idea, a reality and a task,” says J. Girnius⁸.

The following traits belong to the psychology of a nation: national character, temperament, national feelings, moods, and superstitions. In addition to regularities in the interpsychic organization of members of an ethnocultural community, national character is also made up of cultural attributes or institutional structures that, in their overall configuration and arrangement, are sufficiently distinctive to set one society apart from another, even though these phenomena need not be unique to that society. As we can see, the psychological characteristics of members of an ethnocultural community—the regularities in their interpsychic organization—are only one element of national character. It is now generally held that members of every sociocultural community share a certain distinctive psychological commonality. Within an ethnosocial community, of course, there can be no question of all its members being psychologically identical. People differ from one another in sex, temperament, constitutional traits and, undoubtedly, characteristics that depend on genetic factors. These traits and characteristics do not shape national character. The character of ethnosocial communities seems to be determined more by culture than by people, the populace, or race. A certain distinctive, separate psychological commonality among members of ethnosocial communities is determined by certain aspects of those communities’ culture. Their members share historically formed and learned patterns of behavior and interaction. Certain systematic aspects of this behavior and interaction constitute the culture of a society and determine certain regularities in the interpsychic organization of members of an ethnosocial community; these regularities are created by culture⁹. The mental organization of a nation is not its culture, but as culture is realized in the behavior of particular individuals, it expresses the nation’s psychological specificity. The collective—

⁸ Cit. iš: Ideologinės srovės lietuvių išeivijoje. V., 1978. P. 293

⁹ Bednarek S. Charakter narodowy w koncepcjach i badaniach współczesnej humanistyki. Wrocław, 1980. S. 16 tt.

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cognitive structures, latent in the subconscious, manifest themselves externally in language and culture. The experience of the individual and the nation, as already noted, is recorded in language. Experience and cultural values are transmitted through language from generation to generation. Cultural continuity and transmission would be impossible without language. This is true of nations with highly developed cultures as well as of primitive cultural forms. A large part of the culture of a primitive people exists in linguistic form. Proverbs and sayings, healing incantations, prayers, tales and legends, songs, and genealogical narratives constitute relatively stable forms through which language functions as a repository of culture. Without language, today’s civilization—with its schools and libraries, vast store of knowledge and diversity of opinions, mass media, and feelings recorded in verbal form—would also be impossible.

By recording the experience of the individual and the nation and, together with it, transmitting cultural values from generation to generation, language links past, present, and future generations into one living historical whole. Thus, the inner unity of a nation rests on its linguistic unity.

Thus, a historically formed system of communication among individuals, or between individuals and their environment, may be regarded as culture. Language is the expression of culture; it is therefore understandable that language is the most striking feature of national individuality and, at the same time, the most important factor in fusing a social community into a nation. Through its national-cultural specificity, language performs the function of national affiliation, or the ethnic function, which is, first, a factor in the formation and existence of a nation and, second, a factor in national demarcation.

Language, as a factor in the formation and existence of a nation, is expressed in the linguistic identity of people who use a particular linguistic system. First and foremost, language enables an individual to feel connected to a community, to a nation, and to identify with it. Our great language scholar K. Būga put it beautifully: “All Lithuanians, despite enjoying making fun of one another’s speech and calling one another names such as lešis, gudas, guogas, kapsas, dartininkas, cieksas, and others, feel themselves to be children of one nation. Every Lithuanian who, for one reason or another, happens to meet fellow members of his nation living farther away hears them speaking more or less the same language as his own. It is language that makes all Lithuanians, both Aukštaitians and Samogitians, one nation”¹⁰. Language therefore brings together and unites representatives of various occupational and social groups, facilitating communication and migration within the ethnolinguistic community. In this sense, language is an important factor in the formation and existence of a nation: it fuses a social community into a nation and creates national individuality. This identificatory and unifying function of language is expressed through linguistic commonality, which presupposes a single, shared language for all the inhabitants of a particular nation. Linguistic commonality guarantees the inner connection and cohesion of an ethnic community and creates the ethnic identity of its members. The importance of language as a factor in the formation and existence of a nation grows as national consciousness emerges and strengthens; in turn, national consciousness reinforces the nation’s linguistic unity¹¹.

¹⁰ Būga K. Rinktiniai raštai. V., 1958. T. 1. P. 403.

¹¹ Агаев А. Т. Функция языка как этнического признака // Язык и общество. М., 1968. С. 128; Druviete I. Valoda un etnos. Riga, 1990. 3. lpp. t.t.

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Another function of language is that of ethnic demarcation. Throughout history, Lithuanians have been distinguished from their neighbors—the Latvians, Russians, Belarusians, Poles, and Germans—by the Lithuanian language, which they could not understand. The neighbors’ languages, incomprehensible to Lithuanians, prevented the latter from leaving their ethnographic territory and kept them together.

Thus, the function of language in expressing national individuality has an internal and an external aspect. Internally, it manifests itself as a force that identifies and unites; externally, as a distinguishing feature.

The function of language in expressing national individuality is closely related to the function of language as an ethnic trait and the principal marker of nationality, but the two are not identical. The ethnic function, or the function of indicating national affiliation, as mentioned, manifests itself in the national-cultural specificity of a language, and it is performed not by the commonality of language but by the language itself. A nation’s common language can expand or contract over the years. There are many known instances in which the area of one language expands while that of another contracts. A nation is most often the product of the integration of several, or even an entire group of, neighboring tribes. For example, the Lithuanian nation was formed from the tribes of the Lithuanians, Curonians, Semigallians, Selonians, Yotvingians, and Scalvians. In the process of integration, the language of one tribe—most often a large, culturally strong, unifying one—stands out and, spreading together with political and cultural influence, assimilates people of other origins. In the process of forming the Lithuanian nation, this role was played by Lituania propria and its language. The languages of the tribes being integrated become local, their areas contract, and eventually they disappear altogether.

Thus, the commonality of language is variable, its function purely sociological, whereas the function of language as an indicator of ethnic affiliation is constant. That a nation’s common language and language as an indicator of ethnic affiliation are different things is also evident from those cases—admittedly rather rare—in which the language in use and the language that represents an ethnos do not coincide. For instance, the Scots and almost the entire Irish nation use English, which is their native language, but they do not therefore consider themselves English, and a Scot, for example, takes offense at being called English. The Scots and Irish see their ethnos, their nationality, in the Gaelic language, even though it is extinct. Thus, it is language itself that performs the function of an ethnic trait and the principal marker of nationality: the sole language created by the nation, received with mother’s milk, constituting the nation’s flesh and blood, and expressing its spirit. Language most clearly distinguishes people according to national affiliation; of all the characteristics of the concept of nation, it is the one most closely connected with the ethnos, even fused with it. The commonality of language unites and brings together all members of a community who use the same language, determining ethnic identity, while the language itself gives its ethnos distinctiveness, shapes national character, and creates emotional bonds among all members of society.

That the commonality of a nation’s language should not be equated with nationality is also evident from the fact that there are nations that do not have a single language, such as the Swiss or the Basques. On the other hand, there are languages that serve several nations, such as the Germans and Austrians, the English, Americans, Canadians, and Australians. If linguistic commonality were regarded as an ethnic marker, quite a few nations would be left without a nationality. But these are exceptions, and for the majority of the world’s population, the native language is the national language and coincides with their nationality.

3. Lietuvių kalbotyros klausimai, XXXI

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4. Language and the nation

As a nation takes shape, the significance of language as an ethnic marker grows. This is related to the specific character of the nation and its role.

The difference between a people and a nation apparently consists not only in the degree of cultural development: a nation is a people that, through its universally valuable cultural creativity, has become a member of the family of the world’s peoples. In general, the ability to establish, develop, and strengthen a state, and the capacity to contribute to the culture of all humankind, are the most important features that distinguish a nation, or at least establish the grounds for that distinction.

In scholarly and political literature, the term “nation” is used in two senses. In the literature of Western European countries, especially in the Anglo-Saxon world, the prevailing view is that a nation is the totality of a state’s citizens; in other words, it is a people that has attained a particularly high degree of cultural and political organization, has a common language and culture, but is united by a state organization. In the literature of Central and Eastern European countries, the prevailing view is that a nation is a community of people formed by a common culture, one higher than folk culture (folklore), that has created its own literature and art (symbolic culture) and is also bound by historical traditions and common origin. A nation is most often distinguished on the basis of language, a shared territory of residence, economic structure, national character (psychological structure), a distinct culture, political institutions created by the nation, and religion¹².

The specific characteristics of a nation are that: a) a nation is the most enduring form of human community, often lasting for millennia; b) it provides a lasting cultural heritage; c) it forms a strong sense of identification between the individual and the community; belonging to a nation, which gives an individual a language, a homeland, a place in history and in the succession of generations, is a basis for the individual’s self-determination; d) it creates a very strong sense of solidarity among members of the community and antagonism toward outsiders. Because of these characteristics, nations become a source of powerful social movements and extreme ideologies.

One of the most important factors determining a nation’s specific character and significance is language, which becomes national.

As mentioned, as a nation takes shape, the role of language as an ethnic trait increases: language becomes literary, codified, standardized, and common to the entire nation, and these are already the characteristics of a national language. The emergence of a literary language shows that the language has attained a “particularly high cultural-social form”¹³. A national language is inconceivable without a literary form. Alongside the written form, a codified standard spoken language develops, reaching ever larger masses of the population as education spreads—people from all regions and social groups of the country. The codified standard written (literary) language and the codified standard spoken language become the property of the whole nation—they become the common language in the true sense of the word.

A codified, correct, beautiful common language provides a standard of correctness and language culture, which makes it possible to evaluate accordingly the language variety used by oneself and others—in other words, to perceive and become aware of the existence of a norm. The language norm enters everyday language use. In a society divided into dialects, spee-

¹² Щепаньский Я. Элементарные понятия социологии. М., 1969. С. 176 – 179.

¹³ Toporovas V. Ne dovana, bet teisė! // Mintys apie gimtąją kalbą. V., 1989. P. 29.

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The standard language is a means of interethnic communication. Alongside it, of course, the native dialect is also used. Language, as a common, standard system, is associated with the integrity of society.

As noted, not every language performs an ethnic function. A society may use various language varieties, one or several languages, but the ethnic function is performed by the sociological type of language that is the national language. Language varieties—literary language, common standard written language, and common standard spoken language—are an expression of the social-functional differentiation of language, whereas the national language, which cannot exist without literary language and common-standard language, is an ethnic-functional typology of languages. The fact that a nation has created a literary and common standard language—written and spoken—shows that it has attained the highest degree of social organization, has the real possibility of establishing a national state, and, through its universally valuable cultural creativity, stands equal to other nations of the world¹⁴; in short, that it has become a nation. The significance of the common standard language (koine) is determined by the national character of culture, the growing economic integration of the country, and the political centralization of society.

As noted, the national language is an element of national culture and, at the same time, its manifestation. Growing and maturing within their culture, people become attached to its distinctive features; the consciousness of adults is imbued with pleasant nostalgic sentiments, and culture acquires symbolic value. Something similar happens with language. Acquired with mother's milk, used from an early age at home and at school, and associated with emotional experiences—it is the language of one's childhood home, the language of one's parents, the language in which one thinks and creates. A person experiences the feeling that such a language is their mother tongue. Every nation has a sense of its mother tongue. It is strongest among those nations that have developed an understanding of their essence, characteristics, and role, and thus a developed national consciousness. The sense of one's mother tongue deepens especially when the language becomes a language of science, when works of art are created in it that express the nation's character, mentality, national feelings, moods, and superstitions. The nation's hopes and aspirations, expressed by artists in a concrete artistic form, awaken national feelings and affect people's psychology. Alongside works of art and science created in the national language, the language itself becomes a source of national pride. In this way, language—especially when standardized and cultivated, and having become literary and common-standard—becomes a symbol of the nation. The sense of one's mother tongue gradually grows into a feeling of love and pride in the language—a person becomes a patriot not only of their homeland but also of their language. Linguistic patriotism—like nationalism—arises and strengthens in cases where communities that differ ethnically and linguistically coexist in a society, and one dominates in some respect—political, economic, demographic, or cultural—especially when it is felt that the dominant community wishes to impose its culture and language on another community. Because language is an indivisible unity, closely connected with and expressive of the ethnos, it is regarded with extraordinary respect and pride, and is considered one of those national values that must be defended when the nation's existence is endangered.

¹⁴ Карапольнас С. Этническая функция языка //Valstybinė kalba ir kalbos normalizacija (Pranešimų tezės). V., 1990. P. 8–9.

3*

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existence. In defending its language, a nation also defends its nationality and its existence. The loss of a language is considered the first stage in the loss of nationality. “When language falls silent, a string of humanity's harp snaps,” says Vydūnas.

5. Bilingualism and its typology

In scholarly literature, the phenomenon of bilingualism is understood in very diverse ways. Various forms and types of bilingualism are distinguished and defined or identified according to extralinguistic characteristics—psychological, social, political, etc.—as well as depending on how bilingualism arises, the degree of language proficiency, and their use—passive or active, spoken or written, and so on: individual–mass, natural–cultural, direct–distant, active–passive, conjunctive–disjunctive (depending on whether the languages used are related or unrelated), etc. Such and similar classifications of bilingualism are artificial and fragmented; they fail to take account of actual bilingual situations and their social and psychological functions, and therefore have little practical or theoretical significance. All the problems stem from the fact that the phenomenon of bilingualism is understood too broadly. “The word ‘bilingualism’ is a popular term applied to such different phenomena that it has in fact become meaningless,” writes the American linguist E. Haugen¹⁵.

In the social linguistics of the former Soviet Union, bilingualism is likewise understood very broadly. Bilingualism may be said to mean any contact with a second language, while a bilingual is someone able to say a few phrases in a second language—or even someone unable to speak it, but merely able to understand it. This broadening of the concept of bilingualism is apparently driven by political and ideological considerations: the desire for as large a proportion as possible of the non-Russian population of the former Soviet Union to be bilingual—in other words, to know Russian—so that demographic processes could be planned and steered in a desired direction on that basis. As noted, the postulate of bilingualism, and with it certain political and ideological objectives in the sphere of national-language relations, was not abandoned even during the period of perestroika, when radical reforms were fundamentally changing the Soviet system. There would be no restructuring of national-language relations if the union republics themselves did not take charge of managing these matters.

Bilingualism and the use of a second language, let alone proficiency in it, are by no means the same thing. For the alternating use of two (or more) languages by several individuals, a social group, or a society has various aspects, depending on what the use of the second language is intended to achieve. Defining bilingualism as the practice of alternating, or switching between, two languages (and, correspondingly, polylingualism as the practice of using several languages) might be satisfactory, bearing in mind that a person, social group, or society may need to know and use two languages: work and communication with other people—in short, life itself—may require one to use, alongside one's own mother tongue, another language every day.

¹⁵ Haugen E. On the Meaning of Bilingual Competence // Studies in General and Oriental Linguistics presented to Shirō Hattori on the Occasion of His Sixtieth Birthday. Tokyo, 1970. P. 221.

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language; without knowing a second language, a person cannot integrate into a community, cannot earn a living, and thus cannot live. In short, the knowledge and use of two (or more) languages (in other words, the practice of bilingualism) are determined by social factors and the needs of everyday communication¹⁶.

A second language may also be learned and used for reasons other than economic ones, for example, to meet cultural and intellectual needs. Foreign languages are taught in schools for this purpose. A considerable proportion of members of modern societies, usually intellectuals, use foreign languages (English, German, French, etc.) alongside their native language to read literature, watch television programs, listen to radio broadcasts, communicate with foreigners, or simply for entertainment. But no one calls such bilingual individuals bilinguals. They are biglots and, correspondingly, polyglots. The practice of using two languages for cultural and intellectual purposes is biglotism (and, correspondingly, the use of several languages is polyglotism).

Two languages may function in a society and be divided between spheres of use. For example, one language may be used in the education system or in administration, and another in the family, among members of one’s ethnic group, friends, or simply close acquaintances. A society may use one language for interpersonal communication and an entirely different one for written matters. The coexistence of languages divided between spheres of use is the phenomenon of diglossia. Although the languages functioning in situations of biglotism and diglossia are used by the same individuals, they are separate from one another; contact between them is minimal, and so is interference, since they do not affect one another but function in parallel, side by side and independently of one another.

A comparison of diglossia and bilingualism brings out another distinctive feature of the latter: in bilingualism, both languages are used by the same individuals in the same communicative situations. Thus, a characteristic feature of bilingual individuals’ linguistic behavior is code-switching—continually moving from one language to another. Psychologically, this means that two linguistic systems coexist side by side in an individual’s consciousness, with first one and then the other activated. The way languages ‘coexist’ in the consciousness of different people seems to vary.

The idea that there may be two ways for languages to coexist in an individual’s consciousness was put forward as early as 1925 by the Russian scholar Lev Shcherba¹⁷. Later researchers accepted and developed his most important psycholinguistic ideas, and experimentally confirmed some of them as well. Although the nature and essence of the coexistence of two linguistic systems in an individual’s consciousness—like many other matters in psycholinguistics—remain far from fully investigated, two principal types of bilingualism are now distinguished in the psychology of language on the basis of these two modes of coexistence: pure, or coordinate, bilingualism and mixed, or subordinate, bilingualism. Intermediate, transitional types are also identified.

¹⁶ Karaliūnas S. Dvikalbystė // Tarybų Lietuvos enciklopedija. V., 1985. T. 1. P. 480.

¹⁷ Ščerba L. Sur la notion de mélange des langues // Яфетический сборник. Ленинград, 1925. Т. 4. С. 1—19; Щерба Л. В. О понятии смешения языков // Щерба Л. В. Языковая система и речевая деятельность. Ленинград, 1974. С. 60—74.

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In pure, or coordinate, bilingualism, two languages exist independently in an individual’s consciousness and form separate systems of associations that have no contact with each other. The individual speaks both languages quite fluently. Such a bilingual can explain what a phrase or word means, but translating them into the other language always causes considerable difficulty. The bilingual does not compare the words of one language with those of the other, so it is always difficult for them to find an equivalent in the other language for a word in one language. Every word—whether in one language or the other—has a distinct meaning. In general, every segment of expression—a signifier—corresponds directly to some portion of meaningful content—a signified. This can be represented schematically as follows:

signified x ⟷ signifier A; signified x’ ⟷ signifier B.

In the first language, signifier A is consistently associated with signified x, and the signifier B of the second language is directly linked to signified x’, but there is no contact here between the signifiers A and B of the two languages¹⁸.

Pure bilingualism arises when the second (foreign) language is learned under circumstances entirely different from those in which the native language is learned, and without the native language being involved at all. A foreign language can be learned in this way, for example, in a completely different sociocultural environment or at a school where the language of instruction is foreign. Pure bilingualism also develops when, for example, one parent speaks one language to a child at home and the other parent speaks another. Before the revolution in Russia, foreign languages were learned in this way from governesses, with whom one could speak only a foreign language, since a good governess was considered to be one who did not know a single word of the children’s native language.

When languages are learned in different circumstances, especially under different sociocultural conditions, the association between a verbal symbol such as the Lithuanian bažnyčia (‘church’) and the corresponding fact of reality was established and fixed in a context entirely different from the one in which the association between the Russian церковь or English church and the corresponding element of reality was formed.

In the case of mixed, or subordinate, bilingualism, it is believed that the two languages form a single system of associations in an individual’s consciousness. For a speaker of mixed bilingualism, equivalent words in the two languages, such as Lithuanian stãlas and English table, apparently have a shared meaning. In mixed bilingualism, the system of meanings (signifieds) seems to be the same, but it is expressed in two ways—by the signifiers of one language (s-t-a-l-a-s) and by those of the second language (t-e-i-b-l). It is therefore not entirely accurate to say that a person knows two languages: in fact, the bilingual apparently knows one language with two modes of expression, using one and then the other. Since this mode of coexistence of languages in an individual’s consciousness also provides favorable conditions for mutual influence and mixing between languages, L. Shcherba called such a language a mixed language with two terms (langue mixte à deux termes)¹⁹. An example of speakers of such a language, in L. Shcherba’s view, is

¹⁸ Weinreich U. Languages in Contact. Findings and Problems. 6th Ed. Hague; Paris, 1968. P. 9—12.

¹⁹ Ščerba L. V. Sur la notion de mélange des langues. P. 1—19.

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bilingual Sorbs, in whose consciousness Sorbian and German form a unity with two expressions. But later researchers did not confirm this. S. Michalk and H. Protze (1974), who studied the dialect of bilingual Sorbs, question whether such an uneconomical means of communication can arise naturally at all in the presence of language contact, and regard langue mixte à deux termes as an abstraction of thought that nobody has studied or verified²⁰.

The model of mixed, or subordinate, bilingualism would look schematically as follows:

But it may also be that the referents of the second language’s words are not real objects, but words in the first (native) language. For example, for someone learning English, the signified of the signifier [teibl] may be not an object in reality (a referent), but the Lithuanian word stalas ‘a piece of furniture on which one eats, writes, and so on’:

Thus, here a stable associative relation exists only between the signified (meaning) and the primary language’s signifier A; in other words, the concept (meaning) is produced in the first (native) language. The secondary language’s signifier B, meanwhile, is connected to the signified not directly, but through the primary language’s signifier A, which thus mediates between the signified and signifier B.

In the case of mixed, or subordinate, bilingualism, speakers become able to compare words in one language with words in another, bring them closer semantically, and identify their equivalents. A word in one language thus acquires an equivalent in the other language, so translating from one language into the other poses no difficulty for speakers.

Different types of bilingualism generally depend on the circumstances in which the second language is learned. If the second language was learned under entirely different sociocultural conditions, we have the pure, or coordinate, type of bilingualism.

The psychological division of bilingualism into two main types partly correlates with the kinds arising from language use. A fairly common bilingual practice is to speak one language about some topics (for example, the weather or shopping) and another about other topics (for example, political events). Or one language is usually spoken with some interlocutors and another with others. Thus, each language has its own spheres of use. Such language use is specialized and characteristic of pure bilingualism. In practice, however, there is very often a need to switch from one

²⁰ Michalk S., Protze H. Studien zur sprachlichen Interferenz. II: Deutsch-sorbische Dialekttexte aus Radibor, Kreis Bautzen. Berlin, 1974.

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to switch suddenly from one language to another, and the aforementioned division of languages by spheres collapses. This is unspecialized use of languages by a bilingual.

Thus, on the basis of specialized and unspecialized language use, two main types of bilingualism are also distinguished. S. Ervin and C. Osgood, understanding them in psycholinguistic terms, call them coordinate and subordinate²¹, while U. Weinreich calls them organic and inorganic bilingualism²².

Thus, pure, or coordinate, bilingualism is characterized by specialized, orderly language use, whereas unspecialized, disorderly language use is characteristic of mixed, or subordinate, bilingualism. This type of bilingualism is widespread in mixed families and work collectives where people of different ethnicities and languages work together, and where two or more languages are used indiscriminately, interchangeably, at the same time and in the same situation. A sudden switch from one language to another is not psychologically easy, and this circumstance cannot but affect the languages being used—they begin to influence one another. Using languages indiscriminately and disorderly, bilinguals begin to mix them: the rules of one language are applied when speaking another. This type of bilingualism—especially when it is widespread—is the greatest source of interference.

6. Consequences of bilingualism

Of all forms and types of bilingualism, mass bilingualism—bilingualism that encompasses the population at large over longer or shorter historical periods—is of greatest significance to society, the languages it uses, and their functioning and development. The term bilingualism applies in the true sense of the word only to this variety. It is the sole domain in which language contacts take place and interference arises, and all this determines the degree, direction, and rate of language change. “Over the millennia, bilingualism has played and continues to play an exceptional role in the existence of human language in general and in the life of specific languages. Without exaggeration, we can say that all languages—wherever and whenever they existed or exist—are wholly or partly the result of bilingualism, which in most cases arises from ethnic contact and mixing,” states the Romanian linguist Iorgus Iordanas²³.

Thus, one of the linguistic axioms is that wherever the influence of one language on another extends, it operates through bilingual individuals²⁴. Bilinguals are therefore the conduits of foreign-language influence. Bilingualism is the very process of language contact, which is why it is considered the most active form of language interaction. Since language contacts are realized by the people who use those languages, human speech (speaking) is where languages first and most directly come into contact. Language contact begins—

²¹ Ervin S. M., Osgood C. E. Second Language Learning and Bilingualism // Osgood C. E., Sebeok T. A. (Editors). Psycholinguistics. A Survey of Theory and Research Problems. Bloomington, 1954. P. 136—146.

²² Weinreich U. Languages in Contact. P. 80—83.

²³ Iordan I. Bilingvism în domeniul romanic // Studii și cercetări lingvistice. 1973. T. 24. P. 129.

²⁴ Haugen E. The Norwegian Language in America. Philadelphia, 1953. Vol. 1. P. 4.

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takes place and is realized in the speech of bilingual and multilingual individuals, but the results of this contact are recorded in the language system, since historically the fact of speech always precedes the fact of language.

Languages influence one another under any form of contact, including biglotism and diglossia. For new realities and ideas continually emerge in social life and culture, and the need arises to have words to name them. Making a new word within the resources of one’s own language may not be very difficult, but it is much harder for the speaking community to accept that neologism and for it to take root there. It is considerably easier to borrow a ready-made word along with a newly acquired object or concept, even if the word is foreign. Objects acquired through exchange very often come with foreign words that designate them. This applies above all to so-called cultural words, that is, words designating cultural objects. These are traveling words, moving from one language to another along with cultural objects and concepts. In such cases, direct contact between the languages may not occur. There has never been any contact, for example, between Lithuanian and Arabic, yet we use their words perfectly well—coffee, sugar, etc.

Contacts between distant peoples and languages take place through intermediary peoples and languages. We received the oldest cultural words (for example, glass, silk, pepper, baptism, etc.) from Germanic and other cultural languages of the Mediterranean basin through the mediation of Slavic languages; this was clearly thanks to individuals who knew and used both Lithuanian and Slavic.

Thus, although mutual influence between languages (manifesting itself mainly in borrowed words) is possible even without the languages coming into direct contact, this circumstance in no way undermines the aforementioned fundamental claim of contact linguistics: that bilingual individuals are the agents through which languages influence one another.

Mutual influence between languages is considerably greater when they are in direct contact, for example in conditions of biglotism and diglossia. This influence is greatest under conditions of bilingualism, extending even to more highly organized areas of language structure. A diglossic situation existed in the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, where, alongside the Lithuanian language used for everyday communication, the official language of old Lithuanian legal documents was Slavic. It was purely a written language, spoken by no one and lacking many words used in everyday life. Consequently, under diglossic conditions, a stream of Lithuanian words flowed into it to designate specific realities of Lithuanian life, such as: diaklo, mezleva, dobilda, dyrvan, degesy, apidemia, daržyna, nom, primen, biciul, bitnik, and many others. In the old Slavic language of the Grand Duchy’s legal documents, K. Jablonskis found 218 basic Lithuanian words, and about 320 including derivatives²⁵. This shows, first, that this Slavic language was dead, used solely for written purposes; second, that the culture of the Lithuanian people was highly developed, equal to the other ethnocultures that existed in the old Lithuanian state, and exerted considerable influence on them.

Besides borrowings, mutual influence between languages manifests itself as interference. Interference is characteristic of mixed, or subordinate, bilingualism.

The term interference was proposed by the Prague linguists and is now universally accepted. The term itself comes from other fields, primarily the exact sciences. The concept of interference

²⁵ Jablonskis K. Lietuviški žodžiai senosios Lietuvos raštinių kalboje. K., 1941.

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in physics and psychology refers to the mutual influence of two processes, movements, or forms of energy. The term is used similarly in linguistics, where it denotes the mutual influence of two languages. In physics and psychology, as well as in linguistics, interference has a dual meaning: it refers both to the process of mutual influence and to the result of that process. Interference as a process may occur in the speech act, speaking, or language production, while interference as a result appears in a text—spoken or written—that is, in language production itself, in language.

If we call language learning Aufbau—“building”—and its degradation in aphasia Abbau—“dismantling”—we could call a bilingual’s interference Umbau—“restructuring”²⁶. Deviations from language norms that appear in bilinguals’ speech because they know more than one language are considered a phenomenon of interference²⁷. Unlike borrowings, interference affects more structurally organized levels of language—phonology, morphology, and particular areas of the lexicon (systems of kinship terms, color terms, weather terms, etc.). In such cases, it is not enough to speak of borrowing or merely adding something to the system. After all, the enrichment or impoverishment of a language system essentially involves reorganizing the old system of oppositions. This is already a phenomenon of language as a system.

For convenience of exposition, it is useful to distinguish speech interference (речь, speech) from interference in the linguistic system, or—in short—language interference. Interference in speech, as U. Weinreich²⁸ vividly put it, is like sand carried along by a current, whereas interference in language is like sand settled on the bottom of a lake. In speech, it continually appears in a bilingual’s utterances as a result of their command of a second language.

The languages in contact on a bilingual’s lips are not equally susceptible to mutual interaction, interference, and mixing—one of them is affected more than the other. Which one is described by a law formulated back in the previous century (1897) by the German linguist E. Windisch: it is not the second, newly learned language that becomes most affected and mixed, but the mother tongue²⁹. The reasons for this are various—psychological, communicative, social, etc. Alongside the language user’s psychological resolve, when speaking another, foreign language, not to contaminate it with words and forms from their mother tongue, and thus to speak as correctly as possible, there is also the need not to disrupt communication: my interlocutor simply does not understand inserted words, forms, and expressions because they do not know my language. The second, learned language often performs more social functions—in other words, it is more functional than the language users’ mother tongue—and often has greater prestige, or at least its users consider it to have such prestige. In mentioning language prestige, one should not forget that prestige is not measured in square kilometers or by the millions who speak a language. Language prestige reflects the high culture and spiritual strength of a people, the morality of its conduct, its great tolerance toward other people and cultures, and respect for them.

²⁶ Haugen E. The Ecology of Language. Stanford, Ca., 1972. P. 304.

²⁷ Weinreich U. Languages in Contact. P. 1.

²⁸ Ten pat. P. 11.

²⁹ Windisch E. Zur Theorie der Mischsprachen und Lehnwörter // Berichte über die Verhandlungen der sächsischen Gesellschaft der Wissenschaften zu Leipzig (philologisch-historische Klasse). Leipzig, 1897. Bd. 49. S. 101 und weiter.

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The native language of a bilingual, of course, affects the second language, too, but to a much lesser extent than the second language affects the native one. This is primarily because the main body of users of the second language is monolingual and tolerates no deviations from its language norms. Starting from the influence exerted on the second language, some researchers (for example, V. Rozencveigas³⁰) tend to distinguish two kinds of interference—direct and indirect. When using the second language, a person relies in their speech primarily on the rules of the native language. This is direct interference. Indirect interference occurs when the rules of the second language that have no analogues in the native language are eliminated from speech. It should be said that this twofold interference is characteristic not only of bilingualism but also of biglotism, for example, when learning languages at school. In normative grammar terms, the difference between direct and indirect interference can be described as follows: in the first case, errors arise; in the second, deviations from stylistic norms. A statement, for example, may be morphologically well-formed yet still incorrect: it is stylistically impoverished, lacking synonymy, because, among several possible means of expression, the one that has an equivalent in the native language is chosen.

The consequences of mass mixed, or subordinative, bilingualism are of two kinds—internal and external. A bilingual, using two (less often, several) languages alternately every day, gradually ceases to feel the difference between them, and this circumstance directly affects the native language in the first instance. The pronunciation, word-governance and agreement, and sentence-construction rules of the second, learned language are unconsciously applied by the bilingual when speaking the native language. As a result, first, the command of the native language—the ability to formulate and express thoughts in it and to use it correctly, in other words, native-language competence—weakens. Second, deviations from native-language norms, occurring frequently in a bilingual’s speech, become habitual; people grow accustomed to them and begin not to notice them. Interference phenomena from bilinguals’ speech gradually enter the speech of monolingual native speakers and are accepted by monolingual society. In this way, new interference phenomena become established in the language. The language becomes incorrect, mixed, distorted, and its culture declines. Moreover, the weakening of native-language competence is accompanied by the fading of national consciousness. A person finds themselves—especially, as is characteristic of ethnically mixed families (one in six families in the former Soviet Union is mixed)—between two languages, two cultures, and two ethnic groups. And only a slight push from outside is needed for such a person to begin identifying with the other, dominant culture and ethnic group.

The nation and language degenerate.

The weakening of native-language competence and the decline in society’s language culture constitute the internal consequences of bilingualism.

One external consequence of bilingualism is that the second language—often the dominant one—takes the place of the native language in communication. The sphere in which the native language is used contracts and shrinks; the language is pushed out of public life, at first from some spheres and later from public life altogether. This also affects the language itself: no new means of expression emerge, terminology is no longer created, and the language becomes impoverished. For a language to be

³⁰ Розенцвейг Б.Ю. Языковые контакты. Ленинград, 1972. С. 25—26.

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pure-blooded, capable, and rich, it must have normal conditions for functioning, since one of the language’s principal characteristics is its constant regeneration in the process of communication. If this does not happen, the language degenerates.

The contraction and decline of spheres of language use, the weakening of native-language competence, and the accompanying fading of national consciousness are primary conditions for language replacement.

It has long been observed that one language can displace another and take its place. The German linguist H. Paul, one of the most prominent theorists of linguistics, wrote at the beginning of our century: “Where two peoples mingle and unite, bilingualism is a common phenomenon, and with it the mutual interaction of languages also begins. If, in addition, one people surpasses another in some respect—in population, political or economic power, or spiritual terms—its language begins to be used ever more widely at the expense of the other language; ultimately, bilingualism is once again replaced by the use of a single language. Depending on the resistance offered by the language being defeated, this process proceeds more quickly or more slowly, while the traces it leaves in the victorious language may be more or less pronounced”³¹. In discussing the difference between direct and indirect interference, the influence exerted on the second language by the native language being pushed out of use has already been addressed. In linguistics, the traces left in the victorious language by a dying language have a name: substrate.

The second, new language does not push the native language out of use all at once, but gradually. This process must not disrupt communication in society. The new language first takes the place of the old one in particular spheres of use, such as administration, the military, or school. The native language continues to be used in the family and in informal communication. Researchers also consider the occupation of some spheres of use in this way to be the replacement of one language by another and call it partial³².

The gradual shift of society toward another language is reflected in families by grandparents speaking one language while the younger generation, usually the grandchildren, already use another. Thus, the native-language group coincides with the age group, which is a synchronic manifestation of one language being replaced by another. The middle generation—the parents—is usually bilingual or multilingual; at home, they speak two or several languages interchangeably³³.

It should not be assumed that the second, new language, as a system of expressive means and a means of communication, is superior and therefore defeats the other language. There are no advanced or backward languages, large or small ones—all languages are equal in terms of communication; each language serves its community, its people, whose native language it is, perfectly well. “A rival language is overcome not because of any of its internal features, but because its users are more warlike, more fanatical, more cultured, more energetic,” aptly notes the French linguist A. Martinet³⁴.

³¹ Paul H. Prinzipien der Sprachgeschichte. 7. Aufl. Tübingen, 1966. S. 391 (Pirmajame leidime 1880 m. skyriaus „Sprachmischung“ dar nebuvo).

³² Weinreich U. Op. cit. P. 107.

³³ Plačiau — Karaliūnas S. Bilingvizmo situacijos ir jų socialinė dinamika // Lietuvių kalba ir bilingvizmas: Lietuvių kalbotyros klausimai. V., 1988. T. 28. P. 8—18.

³⁴ Мартине А. Распространение языка и структурная лингвистика. С. 82.

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7. Ethnic-demographic processes. Language use and its character today

Thus, as can be seen, bilingualism is a misfortune for a nation, a heavy, unnecessary burden weighing on its shoulders, impoverishing it and undermining its culture³⁵. As noted, bilingualism arises because a dominant nation imposes its language and culture on a subjugated nation through political and economic pressure. A nation can manage perfectly well with just one language; it does not need two. Such is the way of life of the peoples of the world—with few exceptions.

When society has been overtaken by mass bilingualism, when the inhabitants of the principal nationality make up only two thirds (in Estonia, Estonians account for 61.5%, Russians for 30.3%) or barely half (according to the 1989 population census in Latvia, Latvians account for 52%, Russians for 34.0%) of all the republic’s inhabitants, and when the number of mixed families is steadily growing, with children’s sense of national belonging having faded, the nation stands on the edge of an abyss—on the verge of replacing its language. Such a situation, dangerous to the nation’s very existence, cannot be allowed to continue. The adoption of laws declaring the respective languages state languages is a desperate effort by the Baltic states’ parliaments to preserve their languages and cultures, maintain their national distinctiveness—which, as noted, is impossible without language—in other words, an effort to defend the existence of the nation. This is not auto-isolation; it is auto-affirmation.

In Lithuania, Russian was used—and is still used to some extent—not only for Lithuanians to communicate with people of other nationalities and correspond with central institutions and organizations, as well as with other republics. Alongside Lithuanian, Russian was used to serve many areas of Lithuania’s economic, social, civic, political, and cultural life. In some of them, Lithuanian had already been displaced, and Russian had become dominant. This applies, for example, to the transport and communications system, state administrative institutions, record-keeping and technical documentation, official correspondence, and so on.

Because Russian carried a heavier functional load and its speakers were aggressive (for example, a citizen who came to a government office in Lithuania with a matter to attend to would be told, “Govorite po ruski”—“Speak Russian!”), and also because mixed, or subordinate, bilingualism prevailed and spread, interaction between Lithuanian and Russian intensified, the use of Lithuanian receded, and the negative influence of Russian on Lithuanian grew, as phenomena of interference arising in bilingual speakers’ speech intruded not only into spoken but also into written Lithuanian. In such an important cultural sphere as science, Lithuanian functioned only partially—works in the natural and exact sciences were published, and articles and monographs written, in Russian. The scientific style of Lithuanian was no longer developing, and scientific terminology was no longer being created.

As a result, the culture of the Lithuanian language declined, and the culture of society as a whole, especially that of young people, declined as well. Concern was no longer focused so much on issues concerning Lithuanian language culture

³⁵ For more on the negative social, psychological, and other effects of so-called national-Russian bilingualism, see Хинт М. Проблема двуязычия: взгляд без розовых очков // Радуга. Таллин, 1987. № 6. С. 72–78; № 7. С. 46–51.

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in society or the position of Lithuanian in schools—which, of course, is also important—as it was on the fact that many people’s very competence in their native language, their very ability to use Lithuanian and express their thoughts in it, had been impaired³⁶.

The way out of the catastrophic situation that has developed is not to move toward destructive bilingualism, developing and strengthening it, but to cherish the native language, for society to care for it, and for the state to protect it through measures provided for by law. None of this denies Russian or its great cultural and communicative significance. Quite the contrary. It has been observed that, after the law declaring Lithuanian the state language was adopted, Lithuanians became more willing to speak Russian and did so more often. This means that interethnic tensions are subsiding and communication between the two ethnic communities is improving. Therefore, the task is not to promote bilingualism but to foster a good command of Russian and care for the standard of Russian used in Lithuania. Lithuanians need a good command of Russian, beautiful pronunciation, and a high standard of Russian both to communicate with Russians and people of other nations in Russia and to become acquainted with the rich culture of the Russian people. For example, one takes much greater aesthetic pleasure in reading Dostoevsky or Pasternak in the original language. However, the teaching of Russian must not be compulsory—a person must have the right to decide for themselves which foreign language to choose and learn. The situation is different in Russian schools, which no one intends to close in Lithuania. There, Russian is not only the language of instruction but also the language in which subjects are taught. And, in general, how much and in what way to study Russian, how many Russian-language schools of what kinds to maintain, and how much and in what way to use Russian in public life are matters for Lithuania’s Russian community itself; no one interferes in its cultural affairs, nor has the right to do so. On the other hand, if Russians and people of other nationalities want to live and work in Lithuania and take part in Lithuania’s civic and economic life, it is difficult for them to manage without at least a basic command of Lithuanian.

It should be said that a considerable proportion of Russians and people of other nationalities who live and work permanently in Lithuania know and use Lithuanian, and that, overall, this proportion is gradually increasing. This is clearly evident from the latest population census results and their comparison with data from earlier censuses. In the 1989 all-Union population census, the following proportions said that they spoke Lithuanian fluently: 33.4 percent of Russians (35.2 percent in 1979), 15.5 percent of Poles (11.1 percent in 1979), 17.0 percent of Belarusians (12.7 percent in 1979), 16.8 percent of Ukrainians (15.2 percent in 1979), 38.0 percent of Jews (31.1 percent in 1979), 14.2 percent of Tatars (13.5 percent in 1979), 43.7 percent of Latvians (48.3 percent in 1979), 45.2 percent of Roma (41.8 percent in 1979), 35.7 percent of Germans (23.2 percent in 1979), 31.8 percent of Estonians (22.2 percent in 1979), and 50.9 percent of Karaites (31.8 percent in 1979).³⁷.

And this is understandable. The needs of work and everyday communication encourage people of other nations who live and work permanently in Lithuania to learn Lithuanian. This is a spontaneous process, arising from the needs of work and communication. To make a fuss on the grounds that Russians in Lithuania are supposedly being forced to learn Lithuanian and are being persecuted,

³⁶ See S. Keinys’s article “The Lithuanian State, Nation, and Language” in this volume. Cf. S. Karaliūnas, “The Lithuanian Language and Bilingualism” // Vakarinės naujienos. 1988. July 21.

³⁷ Results of the 1989 All-Union Population Census // Tiesa. 1990. March 10.

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There is no basis for claiming that the Russian language is discriminated against. Under a resolution of the Government of the Republic of Lithuania, only non-Lithuanians working in managerial positions are required to learn Lithuanian within the prescribed period (by 1995).

The fact that a considerable proportion of people of other nationalities use Lithuanian shows that in Lithuania Lithuanian serves as a means of communication and mutual understanding among people of different nationalities and languages, and that it performs the role of a regional language. This is a distinct function of Lithuanian alongside its function as the state language, as a means of communication among members of the Lithuanian nation, and as an ethnic language.

The use of Lithuanian as a means of regional communication presupposes that people of other nationalities use both their native language and Lithuanian here. Since there are situations in which the native languages of people of other nationalities and Lithuanian are used alternately, one can speak, for example, of manifestations of Russian–Lithuanian, Polish–Lithuanian, and Belarusian–Lithuanian bilingualism, and in particular cases perhaps also of multilingualism, for example Jewish–Russian–Lithuanian³⁸. Typical bilinguals are Russians, the long-standing inhabitants of Lithuania³⁹.

Given the fundamentally different ways in which two languages are used (diglossia, biglotism, bilingualism), the alternating use of Lithuanian and Russian must also be viewed in a differentiated way. Clearly, this also involves elements of diglossia and biglotism, not just bilingualism. The fact that, during the 1989 population census, 37.4 percent of Lithuanians registered themselves as speaking Russian fluently does not in any way show that this percentage of Lithuanians are bilinguals in the true sense of the word. It is interesting to note in this connection that in 1979 Lithuanians who spoke Russian fluently made up 52.2 percent. This rather substantial decline in the number of people who spoke Russian fluently over a relatively short period (ten years) is apparently explicable by the fact that people noticed the manipulation of statistical data for less than honest purposes and began to take a more critical view of their own command of Russian.

A comparison of population census results, together with sociolinguistic data, makes it possible to discern to some extent recent trends in language use and ethnic-demographic processes in Lithuania. In 1987, the Social Linguistics Group of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature surveyed 2,071 people from various social groups in Lithuania using a questionnaire. These data show that ethnic and linguistic relations¹ in Lithuania are relatively stable, with no discernible major shift in either direction that might cause concern.

During the period between the 1979 and 1989 population censuses—that is, over ten years—the ethnic composition of Lithuania’s population changed somewhat. The number of Lithuanians increased by 212,000, although their share of the total population decreased slightly. This is connected with inter-republic migration and the natural increase among people of other nationalities living in Lithuania. The number of residents of Russian nationality increased by 41,000, that of Poles by 11,000, and that of Belarusians by 5,600.

³⁸ Karaliūnas S., Vidugiris A. Bilingvizmo tipų Lietuvos TSR klausimu // Mūsų vardų kultūra. V., 1970. Sąs. 19; Видугирис А., Каралюнас С. К вопросу о типах двуязычия в Литовской ССР // Проблемы двуязычия и многоязычия. М., 1972. С. 156—160.

³⁹ For more details, see Karaliūnas S. Characteristics of the Republic’s Linguosocial Situation // Language Contacts in the Lithuanian SSR: Questions of Lithuanian Linguistics. V., 1984. Vol. 23. P. 22—24.

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The inhabitants of the principal nationality—Lithuanians—number 2,924,251, or 79.6 percent of the total population of Lithuania (in 1979 they constituted 80 percent). The significance of this fact can be seen by comparing it with the numbers of inhabitants of the principal nationalities in neighboring countries. In Latvia, Latvians make up 52 percent of the total population (53.7 percent in 1979); in Estonia, Estonians make up 61.5 percent (64.7 percent in 1979); and in Belarus, Belarusians make up 77.9 percent (79.4 percent in 1979).⁴⁰ As can be seen, the proportion of inhabitants belonging to the principal nationality is gradually declining.

According to the 1989 all-Union census, the population of Lithuania now includes 344,455 Russians, or 9.4 percent (8.9 percent in 1979, 8.6 percent in 1970, and 8.5 percent in 1959); 257,994 Poles, or 7.0 percent (7.3 percent in 1979, 7.7 percent in 1970, and 8.5 percent in 1959); 63,169 Belarusians, or 1.7 percent (1.7 percent in 1979, 1.5 percent in 1970, and 1.1 percent in 1959); and 44,789 Ukrainians, or 1.2 percent (1.0 percent in 1979, 0.8 percent in 1970, and 0.7 percent in 1959). Data collected through sociolinguistic questionnaires differ somewhat. According to these data, in 1987 Lithuanians made up 82.29 percent of the total population of Lithuania, Russians 9.14 percent, and Poles 6.24 percent (question 6 of the questionnaire “Language Use in Lithuania”).

Sociolinguistic questionnaire data also reveal the relationship between nationality and native language. It is known that native language and nationality do not always coincide, since a language belonging to another nationality may also be regarded as one’s native language. In the survey, 82.25 percent of respondents identified Lithuanian as their native language (as noted, Lithuanians now make up 79.6 percent), 11.08 percent identified Russian as their native language (Russians account for 9.4 percent of the population of Lithuania), 5.89 percent identified Polish as their native language (Poles now account for 7.0 percent), and 0.78 percent of respondents identified some other language (question 124 of the questionnaire “Language Use in Lithuania”).

The difference between native language and nationality appears to arise primarily in ethnically mixed families. In the Soviet Union, one in six families was mixed, and their number was steadily growing. For example, from 1970 to 1978 the number of mixed families in Lithuania increased by 3 percent. Children born into them account for 13.9 percent of all newborns⁴¹.

It has been observed that the choice of language and, correspondingly, nationality in mixed families depends primarily on the mother’s language—whatever the mother’s language, so is the children’s. This also determines their nationality. The choice of language depends to some extent on the environment: for family communication, people choose the language used by those around them, at school, and so on⁴². In reality, the process by which native language and nationality are determined in mixed families is much more complex and difficult to predict.

A 1987 survey of the population using a sociolinguistic questionnaire found that 7.0 percent of the 2,071 respondents came from mixed families.

In response to the questionnaire item “What are the nationalities of your spouse and your children?”, 3.5 percent of the respondents in the above-mentioned group said they were Lithuanians and indicated that their

⁴⁰ 1989 metų sąjunginio gyventojų surašymo rezultatai // Tiesa. 1990. Kovo 10.

⁴¹ Gaučas P. Dabartiniai etniniai procesai Lietuvoje // Mokslas ir gyvenimas. 1981. Nr. 3. P. 27—28.

⁴² Трифоновас Я. Языковые процессы в этнически смешанных семьях // Kalbų ryšiai ir sąveikos: Lietuvių kalbotyros klausimai. V., 1989. P. 149—152.

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— the spouses are Russians, Poles, or people of other nationalities. For 95.8% of them, Lithuanian is their mother tongue—34.7% of the men and 59.7% of the women (only 1.4% each indicated that their mother tongue was Russian or Polish). Seventy-five percent of their children—40.3% of the girls and 31.9% of the boys—are Lithuanians. However, 6.9% of the children are of Russian nationality, and 1.4% each are Polish or of another nationality.

Among those whose spouses are Russians, Poles, or people of other nationalities, 2.6% of respondents said that they were Russian. For 92.5% of them—52.8% of the women and 39.6% of the men—Russian is their mother tongue, and for only 1.9% it is Lithuanian (the remaining 5.7% did not indicate their mother tongue). Although these respondents consider themselves Russian and have Russian as their mother tongue, only 30.2% of their children are Russian (24.5% boys and 5.7% girls), while 3.8% are of another nationality. The remaining 43.4% of their children are Lithuanian (34.0% girls and 9.4% boys).

As can be seen, the choice of mother tongue and the process of national identification in mixed families are quite complex. The determination of mother tongue and, correspondingly, nationality among the population of Lithuania has, overall, remained relatively stable—it has changed very little over ten years. In the 1989 population census, the majority (96.1%) of Lithuania’s residents identified the language of their nationality as their mother tongue. For example, the language of their nationality was considered their mother tongue by 99.6% of Lithuanians (99.7% in 1979), 95.6% of Russians (97.7% in 1979), 85.0% of Poles (88.3% in 1979), 68.6% of Latvians (77.7% in 1979), and 72.7% of Karaites (73.3% in 1979).⁴³ According to the 1979 All-Union Population Census, 96.9% of Lithuania’s residents considered the language of their nationality their mother tongue, and only 3.1% considered the languages of other peoples of the Soviet Union their mother tongue⁴⁴.

* * *

In summary, a language is declared a state language either because it lacks normal conditions for functioning in public life and legal measures are needed to guarantee its use, or because state and administrative employees are multiethnic and multilingual. Therefore, in order to facilitate communication in society and the functioning of state and social structures, one of the languages used in society is elevated to the rank of an official, state language. The existence of an independent national state ipso facto confers on a language the status of an official means of communication.

The collective, subconscious cognitive structures of ethnosocial communities manifest themselves externally in language and culture. In addition to its personological properties, language has the capacity to express the spirit and psychological distinctiveness of a nation. Thus, the national-cultural specificity of language forms the foundation of its ethnic function. Through the functions it performs in identifying and uniting, and in demarcating a nation, language is an important factor in the formation and existence of a nation.

As a nation takes shape, the significance of language as an ethnic trait increases; language becomes national. The existence of a literary and standard language—written and spoken

⁴³ Results of the 1989 All-Union Population Census. P. 57—58.

⁴⁴ Lietuvos TSR gyventojai. V., 1980. P. 16.

4. Lietuvių kalbotyros klausimai, XXXI

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— indicates that a nation has reached the highest degree of social organization, has a real opportunity to establish a national state, and, through its universally valuable cultural creativity, stands on a par with the other peoples of the world.

The main forms of language contact are biglotism, diglossia, and bilingualism. Of the two principal types of bilingualism—pure, or coordinate, and mixed, or subordinate—the latter has the greatest influence on the functioning and development of a language, especially when mixed bilingualism is widespread.

Bilingual individuals are the conduits through which one language influences another.

Windisch’s law states that, of two (or, less commonly, several) languages in contact under conditions of bilingualism, the language most affected and diminished becomes the mother tongue. The consequences of bilingualism are internal (weakening of mother-tongue competence, the occurrence of interference, and a decline in the language culture of society) and external (a narrowing of the domains in which the language is used and replacement of the mother tongue by another language).

THE NATION, SOCIETY AND THE FUNCTIONING OF THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE

Summary

One of the first steps in the national-linguistic process of restructuring was elevating national languages to the status of state languages. This is due either to the fact that a language lacks normal conditions for functioning in public life, as a result of which it deteriorates, or to the fact that two or more languages exist within a state-administrative entity; in that case, to facilitate communication within society and the functioning of social and state structures, one of the languages is elevated to the status of state language.

The national-cultural specificity of a language serves as the basis for its ethnic function, manifested in the identification, unification, and delimitation of an ethnic group. Language is an important factor in the formation and existence of a nation; therefore, it occupies a special position in the scale of social values, and, in the event of a real or imagined danger threatening the existence of the nation, language must be protected first and foremost.

Bilingualism, alongside biglotism and diglossia, is one—but the most active—form of language contact, exerting a great influence on the functioning and development of a language. It follows from Windisch’s law that it is precisely the native language that is most subject to influence, distortion, and mixing.

Bilingual people are the direct agents through whom one language influences another.

The consequences of bilingualism can be divided into internal ones (weakening of native-language competence, the phenomenon of interference) and external ones (narrowing of the domains in which a language is used, replacement of one language by another).