LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI, XXVIII (1989)

KALBŲ RYŠIAI IR SĄVEIKOS

ALVYDAS BUTKUS

THE INFLUENCE OF THE LATVIAN LANGUAGE ON THE LITHUANIAN DIALECT OF SKYRONYS

The data for this article were taken from texts recorded in 1984 in the Brūnava rural district, Bauska District, Latvian SSR, in the villages of Skyronys, Skyronėliai, and Vaļtakiai. The informants from Skyronys were J. Fataras* (born 1908) and A. Povilionis (born 1924); from Skyronėliai, E. Ščerbicka (born 1913); and from Vaļtakiai, O. Drūseikienė (born 1945). Skyronys lies about 7 km north of Smilgiai (Biržai District), separated from the Lithuanian-language area by Latvian-speaking territory. Vaļtakiai begins just beyond the border of the Latvian SSR; the Pleiriai Forest (also called the Būdbergė Forest), through which the border between the two republics runs, separates Vaļtakiai from the Smilgiai area. Skyronys and its surroundings were annexed to Latvia in 1921, when the Lithuania–Latvia border was determined by arbitration.

All the informants are indigenous. A. Povilionis is married to a Lithuanian woman from Smilgiai and speaks Lithuanian with his wife. Their children attended a Latvian school and speak Lithuanian only when their mother is present, but Latvian among themselves. The spouses of the other informants are Latvians, and Latvian is the language spoken at home. Some informants’ children, for example, J. Fataras’s daughter, understand Lithuanian but join the conversation in Latvian.

According to K. Garšva, in 1980 eight people in Skyronys could speak Lithuanian (Garšva 1985, 123). In 1984, besides E. Ščerbicka and A. Povilionis, J. Fataras named the teacher M. Ušerauskaitė and Vegys.

There are many Lithuanians in Vaļtakiai, but nearly all are newcomers from Lithuania. O. Drūseikienė says that she speaks Lithuanian with everyone who finds it harder to speak Latvian. Many Lithuanians have settled here as a result of mixed marriages. Incidentally, onomastic evidence indicates that Latvians also lived interspersed among the population in what is now the Smilgiai area; cf. the surnames Milinis, Stráutnykas, Žilgalvienė, and the homestead Jaunzemė (between the village of Smilgiai and Pleiriai Forest).

O. Drūseikienė and A. Povilionis speak Lithuanian best. The Latvian accent is most noticeable in E. Ščerbicka’s speech. Milda Ušerauskaitė, a teacher from Skyronys, speaks the dialect less well and leans toward literary Lithuanian.

A. Povilionis explained the etymology of the village name Skyronys as follows: the village was situated between two manors, Lankiečiai and Licner. According to the informant, the manors did not annex the village lands because they were of poor quality. The village separating the manors was named Skyronys** (Latvian Škirāni). There are two Skyronys settlements: Didieji Skyronys and Mažieji Skyronys, or Skyronėliai. The inhabitants of Mažieji Skyronys had small plots, owning only a few hectares of land each, and these plots lay in woodland and scrub.

* Texts recorded by K. Garšva in 1980 were also used.

** At present, the form Skyroniai is also used alongside it.

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* * *

The Skyronys or Valtakiai dialect is a continuation of the northern Panevėžys dialect, close to the Smilgiai subdialect. It has puntininkas-type pronunciation. Stress retraction is mixed; there is a greater tendency toward general retraction, cf. the adverbs labė, praštė, sk’aršė, išilgė (but senė, ruškė), as well as nominative plural ark’l’e, nàme, tėvė, vaikė, vãrdė; genitive plural ark’l’u, kãpu, vãrdu; instrumental plural šãkom, ark’lem, vaikem; nominative singular sėso; and present-tense 3rd person sãko. Various cases of koks, -(i)a, toks, -(i)a are stressed on the ending, as are a few of the words mentioned above, e.g., nominative plural namė, vardė, pavalkė; genitive plural namų; present-tense 3rd person nežinõ. Such variation has been observed in the speech of the same informant. Compared with the Smilgiai subdialect to the south, there are differences caused by the influence of Latvian, e.g., nominative plural šãpale (F), genitive plural làšėn’u (F), locative plural gùlb’ėnuos (D), locative singular lietuvo (F, D), rìgo (D). A word may have two stresses, e.g., pirmutinis (F), biržuoš (Š), pãnemūnes (Š). Overall, however, the influence of Latvian on the stress patterns of speakers of the dialect is slight.

Phonetics

Vocalism. In essence, the vocalism does not differ from that of the northern Panevėžys dialect, specifically the Smilgiai subdialect. Only a few distinctive features were noted.

E. Ščer­bicka pronounces the circumflex diphthongal sequence ir as r, e.g., p(ę)rm ‘first’, aps(ę)rgs ‘having fallen ill’, v(ę)rš ‘above’; she drops the short a from the past frequentative suffix: aidva ‘used to go’, būdva ‘used to be’, and sporadically from other forms as well: prn’i’ki ‘having disappeared’.

J. Fataras pronounces 1st person singular forms both without and with an ending: laũk ‘out’ and laũki ‘in the field’ (in Smilgiai, laũk), stãrp and stãrpi ‘between’.

Under the influence of Latvian, an originally stressed vowel is sometimes not lengthened, especially when the word is cognate with a Latvian word, e.g., accusative singular mšinu (F), nominative singular pàtars (Š) ‘Fataras’, tète (F, Š) ‘father’, nominative plural pàč’os (F), locative singular lätvijo (D, P), brūnavo (F, Š), nimãž (D) ‘not at all’.

Consonantism. The most striking new feature of the dialect is the loss of consonant palatalization. Consonants with both positional and jotational palatalization are pronounced harder, similarly to Latvian. The fricatives š, ž, v and the trill r are sometimes pronounced completely hard, e.g., šaũds ‘straw’ (F, Š), žỹds ‘Jew’ (F, Š), tur ėja ‘had’ (Š), letū.ve (Š) ‘Lithuanians’. In a cluster, the consonant immediately before a vowel is softer, e.g., šv’įn’t’e ‘celebrated’ (Š). The velarization of l is markedly reduced; before back vowels this consonant is pronounced by all informants (most noticeably by E. Ščer­bicka and O. Drūseikienė) as semi-hard, as in Latvian. At the end of a word, where a front vowel was formerly present, consonant palatalization is retained: reik’ ‘is needed’, ait’ ‘to go’, su ark’l’ ‘with a horse’. J. Fataras pronounces a palatalized consonant even in the present tense, e.g., aš neaužtmen’ (hypercorrection?). Progressive palatalization has also been retained in the dialect, e.g., vėgis’ ‘Vegys’, smil’g’s’ ‘Smilgius’.

Palatalization weakens to varying degrees. Besides the fricatives mentioned, the “Latvian hardening” affects dental stops (F, Š) and sonorants (Š). Palatalization is better preserved before i and at the end of a word, while the palatalization of the velars k and g is preserved in all positions. In shared vocabulary, palatalized k and g are pronounced as in Latvian, e.g., bi.ški

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(F, Š), gi.mi ‘was born’ (Š), ski·sts ‘liquid’ (P), zeŋķe (not zeŋk’e) ‘significantly, childishly’ (F, P). E. Ščer bicka occasionally also pronounces soft k in Lithuanian forms, e.g., trill.kos ‘in Trylikiai’. The pronunciation is similar to Lithuanian soft t’, d’.

Between two short vowels, a plosive consonant is lengthened, e.g., maž’ù.tte (Š), tėtte (F, Š).

Morphology

As in the neighboring Smilgių dialect, the nominal dual has been retained: pam’òr-ka dvę diẽn; the instrumental plural has the ending -(i)daim alongside -(i)ais: šo vaik’em, šo arkl’em.

Among the innovations observed, the establishment of affricates in paradigms where there is alternation between stem-final t, d and č, dž is noteworthy, e.g., nominative plural diā́dėj || diā́džė́j ‘the great ones’; dative plural didžiesiem (Š), pačiēm (F), cf. Latvian pašiēm. Latvian stem-final forms also occur: genitive plural jōdāišu ‘of the blacksmiths’ (F).

There is a tendency to replace nonmasculine forms of adjectives (pronouns, numerals) with masculine forms. However, this is done only in translated or analogous constructions, e.g., Šitas gañ sunku dabar atsakyt (Š); cf. also: aštuũnas gegužės (F).

Substantival modifiers are used instead of adjectives with the suffix -inis more often than in neighboring Lithuanian dialects: ‘hand machine’, ‘wooden drying sheds’.

The inflection of loanwords (Latvianisms) does not differ from that of native words, even when the endings coincide with Latvian ones; cf. genitive singular daṁp’a (Latvian dampja) ‘of the threshing machine’ (Š), locative singular tuōver (Latvian toveri) ‘in the tub’ (F). Although exceptions occur, cf.: first person singular present išmélžam (Latvian izslaucam; in the dialect it should be išmel’ž’am) (F).

Syntax

The dative of possession is widely used: Kožnāi pievai būvo vārdas (F). Sesuõ jāi dirbo ‘Her sister worked’ (Š).

To express direction, both the preposition ant with the accusative and the inessive are used: Varydavo tós kārves ant ganyklės (F). Važiāvo piršliuos an Lietuvą (F). Mum lang-vidū – Lātvijo mokyklė ėję (D). Latvian also uses both of these ways of expressing direction.* In Lithuania, the preposition ant with the accusative is used to express direction across a fairly large area of Eastern Aukštaitian, especially in the Kupiškėnai and Northern Panevėžiškiai dialects (Zinkevičius 1966, 416). The directional inessive is known in Lithuania only in the Biržai–Papilys area (Zinkevičius 1966, 201).

To express location, as well as attention and placing, alongside the usual inessive a construction with the preposition terp: Kiek terp selýklo yrā cūkro (P) is also used. This construction is also known in the neighboring Biržai region.

The inhabitants of Skyronys use translated analytic constructions somewhat more often than the communities along the northern Lithuanian border. For example, in addition to the calques atidaryti, palikti vālio (‘to open, leave open’), familiar to the people of Smilgiai (Latvian atvērt, atstāt vaļā ‘ditto’), the formulaic expressions dėti pašāl ‘add’ are widely used in Skyronys: Krapūs dėda pašāl’, česnakūs dėda pašāl’ [they add to the sausage meat] (F). Mės pradė-

* The Latvian preposition uz ‘on’ with the genitive expresses location, and with the accusative—direction.

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jom cukrų dėt pašāl’ [and add sugar to beer] (Š); cf. Latvian likt klāt ‘ditto’; tikti pašāl’ ‘to get to, reach’: Ir apriša aplink, ir [kiškiai] netinka pašāl’ [they tie it around, and [the hares] cannot get to [the apple trees]] (F); cf. Latvian tikt klāt ‘ditto’ (the sentence also contains another calque: aprišti aplink, cf. Latvian aptīt apkārt); kinkýti pašāl’ ‘to hitch up’: árkli įsikinkė pašāl’ ir mušė tuos arklius – ąjetumāna (Š), cf. Latvian jūgt klāt ‘ditto’; to let through: Par mašina (=mešmale) išleidžia kiāurai (F), cf. Latvian izlaist cauri.

The government of some verbs differs. For example, the verb klausti ‘to ask’ governs the dative, as does Latvian jautāt; cf.: Ateis tė mokytoja, tai paklaũs tam Uše-raučku, ar jis atsimena (F); the verb šaukti ‘to call, name’ is also used with the locative, e.g.: tamė vardė šaukia ‘by that name’; cf. Latvian saukt vārdā ‘to call by name’.

Relative clauses modifying a noun are introduced by the pronoun kas ‘who/that’ when the subject of the main clause is expressed in the nominative: O ir lāistes tie, kas jau slūuke (=milked) tos kārves (F). Vienas šėnas buvo sulýgtas, kas gāne tą bendrą ganiyklę (F).

Lexicon

Because of the lack of data, the vocabulary of Skvronys has not been specially studied. Presented here is a glossary of dialect words (mostly loanwords) occurring in the texts. Words also known in the neighboring Smilgius dialect are marked with an asterisk. The origin of loanwords is indicated according to the language from which they were borrowed directly. For example, the word pãgrabas ‘cellar’ is considered a Latvianism (not a Slavism), since this meaning entered the dialect from Latvian. The surname of the informant is given at the end of the illustrative sentence, because some words may have been used sporadically.

apýnis noun masc. ‘hop’: on tu šáudu suvi.r’ on tos apūn’s’ (F).

apskaityti, apskaito, -ė verb transitive ‘to calculate’: apskaita vālunds, kiek kožnām kūl’t’ (F).

ateinantis, -i participle present active (Latvian nākošais) ‘next in sequence’: pi.l’ atāinuņcem sudin’ (F).

attaisyti, attaiso, -ė verb transitive (Latvian attaisīt) ‘to untie, uncork’: vōlbi attaisa vāl’o (F).

cūkras noun masc. (Latvian (?) cukrus) ‘sugar’: un tiek ta cū.kra daũk idējām, kad […] (Š) | cū.kra idu senēu nedēdava (P).

dām̃pis noun masc. (Latvian dampis) ‘threshing machine’: pr(i) tok’ā dām̃p’a te jaũ gangreit nu tep kēp višōniške [šneką], visaip – ir letū.viške, ir lātviške (Š).

džiovintuvė noun fem. ‘drying room’: ar on pēč’, ar kor dž’uvintoves ira, ir sudž’ovi.n tep kaip visai saūss ira (F).

* gangreit adverb (Latvian gandrīz) ‘almost’: atrōda gangreit, ka nebēmōk (Š). gangreit kožnu sekmāden’ [gerdavo alų] (F).

garšùs -i adjective (Latvian garšs) ‘tasty’: tas salds salds, lābe garšs (F).

giedóti, gieda, giedójo verb transitive (Latvian dziedāt) ‘to sing’: ir lī·got’ gies’m’s’ gedōja tipāt kep lātvijo par jōnu (F).

giesmē noun fem. (Latvian dziesma) ‘song’; see giedoti.

jáunas, -a adjective (Latvian jauns) ‘new’: ti venō pū.se ī·ra jauniej kapē, venō pū.se ir saniej kapē (Š).

Jonai noun masc. (Latvian Jāņi) ‘Midsummer festival’: nu, jōns jau šv’iñt’e vės’ činājos […] vės’ šv’iñt’e jōns (F). (In recordings from 1980, the informant also uses the singular form *Jōnas).

kārtas noun masc. ‘time, occasion’: kuli.ma kārt jam ar būdava viz bācku pãgrab’ (P).

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kitōniškai adv. translated (Latvian citādi) ‘otherwise, differently’: one has to wrap [it] another way (=also) with paper […] otherwise the hares will already have gnawed the little apple tree (F).

krēsłas noun (Latvian (?) krēsls) ‘chair’: I’ll take a chair (F).

kūlēja feminine noun (Latvian kūlēja) ‘thresher’: now they bring […] by train (=locomotive), how they call it there, and then I threshed with that, and then [they] just threshed (Š) | that handle (=of the locomotive), which boiled that thresher (F).

kultuvas noun ‘flail’: a long pole for threshing, with a short flail attached to the end of a rope (F).

* labiai adv. ‘very’: in the old days my father used to be very lazy, he was very lazy (F).

liāuti, -ja, liōve (?) transitive verb (Latvian ļaut) ‘to allow’: [I] was young, [my] mother wouldn’t let [me] drink beer at such times (P).

lydākas noun (cf. Latvian līdaka) ‘pike’: there is pike and […] roach (F).

liuterōnis, -ē masculine personal noun (Latvian luterānis) ‘Lutheran’: and those who are Lutheran went to Būdberga, to the Lutheran church (F).

mālka feminine noun (Latvian malka) ‘firewood’: we heat the machine with firewood (F).

* mokyklē feminine noun ‘school’: there were no Lithuanian schools (F)

pagālam adv. (Latvian pagalam) ‘finished, the end’: it’s so bad for me that I thought, perhaps it’s the end (Š).

pāgrabas noun (Latvian pagrabs) ‘cellar’: during the war he would have lots of barrels in the cellar (P) | he would go into that cellar, then you would pour [the beer] out and drink it (P).

pāri postposition (Latvian pāri) ‘across’: the aunt used to walk across the river (F).

platībē feminine noun (Latvian platība) ‘area’: then they measured hectares and various such areas (Š).

pranýkti, pranýksta, pranýko intransitive verb ‘?’: well, that’s how we too are disappearing from that language which I learned from my father (Š).

priāuges, -usi participle translated (Latvian pieaudzis) ‘grown-up’: when I had already grown up like that, then we[…] (F).

pūrvas m. (Latvian purvs) ‘bog’: tokiē pūrvē bū.ṇa, tokiē pagręmtī.ṇę bū.ṇa č’d ā pas kāps (F).

rāuda f. (Latvian rauda) ‘blue bream’: l’idāke īra ir […] rāud, jā (F).

rāugas m. (Latvian raugs) ‘yeast’: d’ād rāugu terp tos mi.sos i rugi.n (F).

rinda f. (Latvian rinda) ‘row’: veļk ōr’ [flax], laid out in rows, sù.r’oš kūl’os (F).

* rubēžius m., Slavic (cf. Latvian robeža) ‘state border’: jodaišę tie ir už rubēž’os (F).

sprigulis m. (Latvian sprigulis) ‘flail’: aš es kūlībs ir su tuo spri.gul’ kep šaukes, su kūltou (F).

starpas: sāvo starpē (Latvian savā starpā) ‘among themselves’: sāva star’p’ ār lātviške [we speak] (D) | mēs sāva star’p’i [used to play football] – ni su kō nēlošem (F).

sùjauktas, -à participle (Latvian sajaukts) ‘mixed’: nu ti man’ ār sujāukt to kalb (F).

* šāukti, -ja, -ē transitive (Latvian saukt) ‘to call’: kep jōs ti šāuk’?(D) | ir kā ji ti par l’ūnu šāuke, tū aš nežēno (F) | reflexive: l’ūn’ šāukes’ tos mūsu ganīkes šāukes’ l’ūns (F).

* šāukiamas(ai), -oji participle (Latvian saucamais) ‘so-called’: bū.ṇa sumdīts šāukemas ustōus (F).

šīur tūf adverb (Latvian šur tur) ‘here and there’: š’ōr’ tōr namē, š’ōr’ tōr namēle (Š).

* švakūs, -i adjective (Latvian švaks) ‘weak’: lābe švāks, kep limonāds (about beer) | tad jā stiprù.ms ār švakēsnis (P).

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that time adv. (Latvian toreiz) ‘at that time; then’: tūkart sù.mal (F) | I wouldn’t taste it then (P).

right here adv. (Latvian tepat) ‘right here’: right here, right here g̃l.mi (Š).

only particle (Latvian tikai) ‘only’: bù.va only tėp bažnīc’ vien (Š) | we only had three kārves (F).

tub m. (Latvian toveris) ‘vat, tub’: in that tub they drill holes, and in that tub they stack such pieces of wood (when making beer) (F).

herdsman m. dialectal ‘shepherd’: and the village boys would help that herdsman herd (F).

on prep. (Latvian uz) ‘on’: the shepherd would put [it] on the cows’ horns (F) (in the 1980 recordings, it is said as unt rāgu).

* to plug, plugs, plugged tr. (Latvian aiztaisīt) ‘to plug, close’: he plugged [the barrel] tightly and the beer is in (F).

war f. dialectal ‘war’: well, later someone came along — war broke out (Š).

all the same adv. (Latvian vienalga) ‘anyway’: it’s all the same whether they speak Latvian or Lithuanian—they don’t care (Š).

in every way adv. variant (Latvian visādi) ‘in various ways’: in every way, in various ways—in Lithuanian and in Latvian (Š).

* lad, m. (Latvian zenķis) ‘adolescent, young man’: those lads would hang around until the farmer went to sleep, and they would get into the barn […] and steal all that beer there (P).

word: in other words cf. (Latv. vārdu sakot) ‘in a word’: well, I already [know] that [it is] Latvian, so to speak, [unclear] (D).

ABBREVIATIONS

a. – accusativus, accusative D – O. Drūseikienė F – J. Fataras g. – genetivus, genitive i. – instrumentalis, instrumental l. – locativus, locative n. – nominativus, nominative P – A. Povilonis

pl. – pluralis, plural postp. – postpositio, postpositional praes. – praesens, present tense sg. – singularis, singular Š – E. Ščerbička t.p. – the same vert. – calque

Other abbreviations as in the “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language”.

LITERATŪRA

Garšva K. Lietuvių kalbos tarmės ir jų kontaktai Latvijoje (2. Lietuvių gyvenamosios vietos ir kalbų funkcionavimas) // Lietuvos TSR Mokslų Akademijos darbai. A serija. 1985. T. 1(90). P. 118–126.

Garšva K. Latvijos lietuvių tarmių sintaksės ypatybės ir tekstai // Lietuvių kalbotyros klausimai: Lietuvių kalbos sintaksės tyrinėjimai. 1986. T. 25. P. 218–240.

Grinaveckienė E. Kai kurios Daugpilio lietuvių šnektos gramatinės ypatybės // Lietuvių kalbotyros klausimai: Kalbų kontaktai Lietuvos TSR. 1983. T. 23. P. 107–122.

Latviešu valodas vārdnīca. Rīga, 1987.

Latviešu valodas sinonīmu vārdnīca. Rīga, 1972.

Zinkevičius Z. Lietuvių dialektologija. V., 1966.

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ВЛИЯНИЕ ЛАТЫШСКОГО ЯЗЫКА НА ДИАЛЕКТ ЛИТОВСКОГО ЯЗЫКА В ШКИРАНАХ

Резюме

Остров литовского языка — дер. Шкираны (лит. Skyrõnys) — находится в Бауском р-не ЛатвССР. Окрестность присоединена к Латвии в 1921 г.

Шкиранский диалект является продолжением северопоневежского диалекта в Литве. В статье анализируются особенности речи 4 информантов, три из которых в семье говорят по-латышски.

Влияние латышского языка наиболее заметно сказывается на консонантизме диалекта. В частности, оно проявляется в качестве депалатализации, девеляризации согласных. Однако мягкие k и g сохраняют палатальность, а в общих словах (напр. biški, gim) k и g произносятся как в латышском языке.

Заметны также инновации в словаре (заимствования, кальки), морфологии (сравнительно редкое применение имен прилагательных с суффиксом -inis), синтаксисе (употребление заимствованных аналитических конструкций).

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