LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI XXVII (1988)

LIETUVIŲ KALBA IR BILINGVIZMAS

VALERIUS ČEKMONAS

FUNCTIONING OF LANGUAGES AND BILINGUALISM

(Based on the Ramashkan dialects)

1. The article describes the contemporary sociolinguistic situation in the northeastern part of Voronovo District, Grodno Region, Byelorussian SSR, and reconstructs, on the basis of oral tradition, the main stages of its history over the past century and a half.

The dialects under study are located in the (micro)area between the villages of Benyakoni, Devenishkes, Geraneny, Peregantsy, and the urban-type settlement of Voronovo (see schematic map 1). Below, this (micro)area is called the Ramashkan area (the village of Geraneny is not included in it).

In 1959, J. Šukys surveyed the Lithuanian dialect of the village of Ramashkantsy (Lith. Ramaškõnys). Even then, Lithuanian was not the language of everyday communication in Ramashkantsy and the surrounding villages. “There are few families that speak Lithuanian at home, although almost all residents over 30 know how to speak Lithuanian or, at least, understand the language”; Belarusian had become the population’s main language and, in J. Šukys’s opinion, “Polish had spread to a greater extent only in villages near churches and in former estates” (Šukys, 1960, p. 177). In November 1977, we made tape recordings of local Lithuanian, Belarusian, and Polish speech in the villages of Stanishy (Lith. Stan’š·ei) and Tusamantsy (Lith. Tūsamon’ys¹). In July–August 1983, a comprehensive

¹The Lithuanian names of villages and quotations from the tape recordings are given in transcription. Syllabic intonations in the dialect very often have no phonological significance. Individual informants (especially those from the villages of Stanishy and Tusamantsy) sporadically pronounce short stressed vowels (usually at the ends of words), as well as the intonations /ˈi/ and /ˈu/ in diphthongal combinations. Characteristically, all informants pronounce the name Tūsamon’ys with a short /ū/. Stressed short vowels and syllabic intonations often occur in words under emphasis and are used to realize particular phrase contours. The same is observed in the informants’ Belarusian speech (especially among those who switched to Belarusian in adulthood). Monophthongs in Lithuanian dialect speech are accented in accordance with the tradition, in order to make them more accessible to the reader.

In the Lithuanian texts, the sign /e/ denotes an /e/ that is more open than in the standard language (for most informants, it is simply /a/); a dot placed above after a consonant indicates that the hard sibilants and /r/ are non-velarized; the sign /α/ marks a short reduced /a/; /э/ denotes a mid-central vowel of mid height (like Russian or Belarusian /е/).

Unstressed long vowels are uncharacteristic of the dialect. Stressed vowels are similar in length to stressed Belarusian vowels. Clitics usually have no stress; with long /ā/, older people sporadically pronounce the possessive pronoun -ma ‘my’.

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A survey of the villages in the Ramasškėnai area (all of them are shown on schematic map 1, where their names are given in Belarusian). During the expedition, tape recordings were made of all the local dialects, totaling more than 12 hours. Many dialect speakers were interviewed using a special questionnaire to determine their understanding of the current sociolinguistic situation in the area and its history. This article is based on these materials and serves as a prelude to a study of language interference in this part of the Lithuanian-Slavic borderland^².

2. At present, 12 people in Ramasškėnai speak Lithuanian, 6 of them fluently. The youngest speaker of the Lithuanian dialect is 52 years old. Only 3. Voishnis-Valishka (60) believes that it is easier for her to speak Lithuanian than “in the ordinary way” (i.e., in the local Belarusian dialect). In everyday settings, within the family, Lithuanian is spoken by 3. (born in 1916) and A. (born in 1909) Voishnis. S. Dubovich (born in 1910), the “performer” of numerous stories we recorded, speaks Lithuanian richly. The other six Lithuanian speakers have varying levels of proficiency, ranging from being able to hold a simple conversation to being able to construct individual simple sentences (while understanding dialect speech well).

The village’s main language is the local Belarusian dialect, “prosty language.” It is interesting to note that this settlement was surveyed in 1953 using the DABM programme (1963, p. 59, item 147), yet even then Belarusian dialectologists failed to notice any Lithuanian speech there.

The entire older population of Ramasškėnai knows some Polish. For them, it is primarily the language of religious practice: they learned the principal prayers and catechism in Polish as children, and many confess in Polish. Their practical knowledge of the language is due to the Polish school of the prewar period, when the Vilnius region and western Belarus were part of bourgeois Poland, and to contact with local native speakers of Polish. Such, broadly speaking, is the linguistic situation in Ramasškėnai, which J. Šukis called in 1959 “the most Lithuanian village” in the entire Lithuanian-speaking enclave in this part of Voronovo District.

In the village of Stanišys (Lith. Stan'iš'ėi), all local residents over 60 (approximately 15 people) speak Lithuanian, but it is used as the language of everyday communication only in the family of B. and V. Utkewicz (and V. Utkewicz is not local). B. Utkewicz (born in 1910)

^² О литовском говоре д. Рамашканцы см.: (Zinkevičius, 1966, p. 26 и карты). История изучения языковой и этнической ситуации в этом районе Виленщины рассмотрена в работе (Lipskienė, Vidugiris, 1967, p. 183—187). Социолингвистическая ситуация, подобная рамашканской, описана А. Видугирисом (1959, p. 195—213). Особенности литовских говоров к юго-западу от Воронова рассматривались О. Броком (1958, с. 1—71). Об этнических отношениях в Виленском крае см.: (Видугирис, Климчук, 1978, с. 10—35; Гаучас, Видугирис, 1983, с. 26—73). Языковая ситуация в островных литовских говорах на территории Белоруссии в общих чертах описана Т. М. Судник (1975, с. 3—22, 102—104, 143—146). О юго-западных, южных и восточных границах этнической Литвы в позднем средневековье см.: (Ochmanski, 1981).

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is a true guardian of the local “Lithuanian tradition,” knows the history of her region well, and speaks the Belarusian and Polish dialects superbly. V. (born in 1910) and M. (born in 1908) Sinitsky speak Lithuanian fluently, but do not use it in the family; M. Sinitsky’s speech preserves the traditional phonetics of the Lithuanian dialect particularly well (almost in the state described by J. Šukis). The other residents of Stanišys speak Lithuanian among themselves sporadically, on rare occasions (when they are alone, reminiscing about the past, “working” for dialectologists, and the like). The usual language of communication here is “prosty”; the older generation, as in Ramasškėnai, knows Polish (some of the best speakers of the Polish dialect are the same Sinitskys).

In Tusamantsy (Lith. Tùsamon’ys), neighboring Stanišys, two people can speak Lithuanian, while 6–7 know the language at the level of individual words. An example of the latter category of Lithuanian dialect speakers is Goltsia Kazarova (63). She can name, virtually without hesitation, in Lithuanian the objects in her surroundings shown to her (žmõgus, tvõra, l’ ėra, išòlas, b’ ažas, m’ adž’us ‘forest’, kárv’э, av’is), household items (pìodas, lóva ‘bench’, sámc’is, lalė ‘doll’), and parts of the body (gálva, rankà, kója, ak’is, aus’is, nós’is, danc’is, p’ìrš tas, etc.); she remembers the most commonly used verbs and can name them in the infinitive, sometimes in other forms (šn’ak’эс, suñku, dud’ án’с, l’ietùv’išk’i, važóc’, važóju, g’iedóc, ās ẽinũ, ās rag’ù, atn’āšk duonos, v’āšk kárv’i, n’āšk d’uonu). She has difficulty understanding fluent Lithuanian speech. She attended a Polish school and willingly speaks the local Polish dialect; the usual language of communication for her (as for all residents of the area) is “prosty.”

In terms of how well the Lithuanian dialect has been preserved, the villages of Navasiadai (Lith. Navas’ėdai) and Biliūnai (or Biliūnai, Lith. Bil’ūnai) are comparable to the villages listed above. In the former, I. Mikhnevich (born in 1913) can deliver monologues in Lithuanian, albeit with difficulty; in all, about four people in the village speak Lithuanian fluently.

In Biliūnai, the only speaker of living Lithuanian speech is Bronislava Mikolch (born in 1912); according to her, five or six people in the village still remember Lithuanian but have not spoken it for a long time.

In the small village of Stilgūnai (Lith. S’t’ilgūnai), located near Navasiadai and Ramasškėnai, four people can still speak Lithuanian (all are over 70: E. and S. Lileika, A. Zdanovich, L. Karvel, and her brother A. Karvel). The settlements listed above (Ramasškėnai, Stanišys, Tusamantsy, Navasiadai, Stilgūnai, Biliūnai) form the core zone in our area in terms of preservation of the Lithuanian dialect (see schematic map 1).

In Biliai (Lith. B’il’эi), the last speaker of Lithuanian is A. Skritun (70)³; in Parabiškės (Lith. Pārab’išk’ės), it is V. Melko (73),

³ Residents of this village also mention the names of some elderly people who supposedly speak Lithuanian, but all of them have either completely forgotten the language or stubbornly refuse to speak it.

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In Dainava (Lith. Dainavà)—I. Melko (72 years old), and in Romutės (Lith. Romùc’ei)—K. Mickiewicz (73 years old). In Dainava, V. Jaskokaitis still remembers Lithuanian, but he “actively” does not wish to speak the language.

In Daukšantsai (Daukšany), Germanishki, Valotkishki, and Peregantsy, we managed to find elderly people who had not spoken Lithuanian for some 60–70 years. They struggled to recall individual words and found it even more difficult to construct phrases. S. Voishnis (85 years old) from Peregantsy, for example, managed to reproduce about 100 words, although among them were such “Lithuanian” words as ūžas ‘ear’, s’c’ānas ‘wall’, in v’iganu ‘in the pasture’, rēik’a rubāc vāžolu ‘one must chop down an oak’, and even kur tu g’iv’ān’īs ‘where do you live?’, kū tu darbās ‘what are you doing?’ As a child, he spoke Lithuanian only with his father (/the mother was a Belarusian/). In the villages named, there are people who claim that nobody ever spoke Lithuanian here. Claims of this kind are not always prompted by a desire to conceal the truth, but testify to the long-standing weakness of the Lithuanian tradition, and to the fact that it was sustained by a small circle of people within a narrow circle of relatives and acquaintances.

Finally, the fourth stratum in our area consists of villages where older people simply remember that their grandfathers or fathers spoke Lithuanian (Bazyls, Vintsuki, Batraki), or where they themselves were able to speak the language as children (Markovshchizna). In the other villages marked on the map-schematic (Spebki, Pashely, Yagely, Shashki, Sedliske, Lingi, Polipnitsa), the oral tradition has preserved no information about their Lithuanian linguistic past (either there was none, as in Sedliske, founded by settlers, or it can be reconstructed from onomastic data).

Thus, in the summer of 1983, in the Ramashkany area the local Lithuanian dialect was used primarily in one family, was sometimes resorted to in another, and was considered the principal language by one person; about a dozen people could converse in it with reasonable confidence. This dialect had effectively ceased to be a means of communication and was living out its final years in the memories of individuals as their passive language.

The principal language of the population throughout the area is the local Byelorussian dialect, or “prosty language.” In Birzhiniki, Konvelishki, Romutės, Kavalyevshchizna, and Germanishki, there are families in which older people usually communicate with one another in the local Polish dialect. There are no villages here in which the entire population spoke Polish, nor ever were. Most members of the older generation throughout the Ramashkany area have some command of Polish, but speak it only rarely. In general, the older generation in this area is divided into three groups according to linguistic characteristics.

The first group comprises remnants of the indigenous Lithuanian-speaking population, whose principal language is “prosty”; they have (passive, in the sense described above) command of Lithuanian and speak Polish.

The second group (the largest numerically) consists of the Byelorussian-speaking population, with varying degrees of command of Polish.

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The third group consists of people who consider themselves Polish-speaking (“linguistic Poles”); their principal language is also “prosty,” but they know Polish better and speak it more often than members of the first two groups.

Clearly, as in other parts of the Lithuanian-Slavic borderland, the Lithuanian dialect in the Ramashkany area was and is being displaced by Byelorussian; Polish, in relation to these languages, is an adstrate and does not participate in their interaction. As our collected materials show, this is generally true from the perspective of an external observer dealing with a relatively long period of time. For the speakers themselves (the internal observer), however, the mechanisms of interaction between these dialects appear somewhat different. Drawing on their judgments and observations in analyzing the dynamics of the sociolinguistic situation in the Ramashkany area, we sought to experimentally verify the principal links in a theoretical construct, as any historical reconstruction is.

3. According to accounts by residents of villages in the core area, at the beginning of the century Lithuanian was the predominant language of communication here, both for the entire older population and for the residents themselves. According to J. Smala (73 years old, Tusamantsy), a natural observer and “spontaneous sociolinguist,” / mažì ir s’ən’i žmón’əs c’ik kal’b’ėjo l’ietuv’iškai / mano_t’ėvas su móc’ina c’ik l’ietuv’iškai / āni.s gùž’iškai n’əkal’b’ėjo / s’ən’i žmón’əs...ān’i.s jāigu sus’ic’ifka təi c’ik kal’b’ėjo l’ietuv’iškai / the young and the old (people) spoke only Lithuanian; they simply did not speak Byelorussian; the old people spoke only Lithuanian when they met one another.

The overwhelming majority of the indigenous Lithuanians were bilingual and had a fluent command of the Byelorussian dialect. Today’s elderly people acquired both languages simultaneously, and it is possible that at home they heard mostly Lithuanian speech. 3. Voishnis-Valitskaya (Ramashkany) claims: / māno t’ėvai s’ìlpnėi gùž’iškai kal’b’ėjo / o_dar_anks’c’au (žmonės) n’əток’ėj gùž’iškai / ‘my parents spoke Byelorussian poorly; even earlier (people) did not know how to speak Byelorussian.’ It seems that our informants reconstruct a stage of Lithuanian monolingualism, which they themselves do not remember; its existence is confirmed, however, by the fact that, on rare occasions, the parents of today’s elderly people did not speak Byelorussian at all. B. Utkiewicz relates this: / ma_māma k’itąip n’əgal’ėjo / c’ik l’ietuv’iškai / antra kart bobùt’ė buvo v’ėdus / žmóg’ėl’is gùd’iškai jis kal’b’ėjo / iš jo mok’ināus / ‘my mother could not speak any other way, only Lithuanian; my grandmother married a second time, and her husband spoke only Byelorussian; I learned it from him.’ Individual grandmothers and women who spoke only Lithuanian at the beginning of the century were in these villages rather exceptional, since this had made such an impression on those who were then under ten years old (cf.: / mā_bobùt’ė n’əток’ėj gùd’iškai n’əi l’ank’iškai / t’ik l’ietuv’iškai / ‘my grandmother could speak neither Byelorussian nor Polish, only Lithuanian’ (A. Mukleda, born 1904, Stanishy).

For children, the principal language of the street at the beginning of the century was Byelorussian: / o tarpūsav’i vɔjkai dažn’aus’əi kal’b’ėdavo gùž’iškai / ‘and among themselves, children most often spoke Byelorussian;

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spoke in prosta (Z. Voishnis-Valitskaya). Apparently, this distribution of functions between Lithuanian and prosta was fairly stable. Polish occupied a very modest position in the villages under consideration at the beginning of the century. First and foremost, it was the language of religious worship: / spāv’əž’in ēinam pa pōl’sku / n’iekas n’əmok’ino pa l’ietuv’išku / ‘we profess our faith in Polish; no one taught in Lithuanian’ (M. Sinitskaya, Stanisnis). Polish was not used in everyday life, since / l’ānk’iškai txi iš v’iso n’iekas n’əmok’əji ‘nobody knew Polish at all’ (B. Utkevich). Interestingly, the very same grandmother of A. Mukleda, who spoke only Lithuanian, / pōt’er’us kal’b’əji l’ānk’iškai / ‘knew the catechism in Polish’. As the language of the church, Polish apparently was not a serious instrument for Polonizing the rural population.

Manor estates played a more important role in the spread of Polish, as J. Smala noted: / dvaruosā būvo pōnų daug’āus’əi l’ānk’ai / txi kur...būvo arc’āi dvarų / txi jāigu su pōnu n’əkalb’əs’i l’ānk’iškai / txi ānas tāu n’ieko n’əpad’əs / o jāigu l’ānk’iškai kalb’əs’i / to ānas v’isadōs tāu pad’əda / ot kur’iē kaimōi būvo arc’āu dvarų / c’i mūs’ijo bāik’e, kal’b’əc’ l’ānk’iškai / o kal’b’əc’ l’ānk’iškai / o štai pas mūs dōuk v’ietu i rā kur c’ik... l’ietuv’iškai n’əkalba / л’ānk’iškai c’ik / ‘in the manors, the lords were mostly Poles; where the villages were closer to the manors, if you did not speak Polish with the lord, he would not help you with anything; but if you spoke Polish, he would always help you; the villages that were closer to the manors had to stop speaking Lithuanian and speak Polish; that is why we have many places where people do not speak Lithuanian at all, only Polish’.

There were virtually no manor estates in the main area; the villages where some inhabitants consider themselves Polish-speaking either adjoined manors (Birzhinishki, Bazily) or had developed around manors (Konvé-lishki).

In former noble villages (such as Kavalyovshchizna), Polish was not the only language, or even the main one, as their inhabitants are sometimes inclined to claim. Some of the population of these villages are descendants of impoverished nobility who divided up their lands. Neither the ancestors of the impoverished nobility nor the nobility itself were ever fully Polonized, since they lived side by side with peasants.

Undoubtedly, even before the First World War, Polish was a language of high prestige for the population of the Ramashkan area. Our informants understand this clearly: / (польский) p’ar baš’n’ica pl’ito ir p’ar pōnus / kun’igai m’əl’s’c’is v’əž’ə l’ānk’iškai / ir v’əl’ žmōn’es abdāiro / pōnas graž’əi aps’ireng’is ir utar’ija pa pōl’sku ir m’əl’s’ija sau ir aš / nors aš n’ə t’ep būs’u graž’əi aps’ireng’is al’ə, pa pōl’sku utarys’u, ir aš būs’u padābnas ing’i pōnu / žmōn’es prad’ėjo ir l’ətuv’iškai pam’irc’ / prad’ėjo l’ānk’iškai txi guž’iškai kalbēc’ / ‘(Polish) spread thanks to the church and the lords; priests made people pray in Polish; and people see—the lord is well dressed and speaks Polish, and they think to themselves: me too; even if I’m not dressed as well, I’ll speak Polish, and I’ll be like the lord; people began to forget Lithuanian, began to speak Polish and prosta’ (Z. Voishnis-Valitskaya).

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I’ll be like the lord; and people began to forget Lithuanian, began to speak Polish and prosta’ (Z. Voishnis-Valitskaya). It is noteworthy that, judging from this account and J. Smala’s remarks, Polish spread primarily at the expense of Lithuanian; Polish was more “tolerant” toward prosta, which is easily explained by the bilingualism of the principal speakers of Polish and, apparently, by the relative similarity of prosta and Polish. As will be shown below, even today some local residents do not consider these languages entirely different; this is due not only to their similarity, but also to the clear division of functions between them.

Generally speaking, judging by the data presented, the sociolinguistic functions of Lithuanian, Belarusian, and Polish in the villages of the present-day core area were distributed as follows:

Situation 1

Dialect/language | Generation | Family language | Language of the street (informal communication) | Language of external (official) communication | Language of religion | Language of school, administration, and army Lithuanian | Older | + | + | (+) | − | − | Younger | + | (+) | (+) | − | − Prósty (Belarusian dialect) | Older | (+) | (+) | + | − | − | Younger | (+) | + | | | Polish | Older | − | − | − | + | (+) | Younger | | | | | Russian | | − | − | − | − | +

Parentheses in the table indicate the relatively lower prevalence of a given language in the corresponding function⁴. As we can see, Lithuanian and Belarusian are contrasted in this situation as the language of the family and the language of external (official, inter-village) communication, but this contrast is not absolute, since both could serve in both of the functions indicated. For the older generation at the beginning of the century, Lithuanian was the main language of communication within the village (on the street, informally), whereas for the younger generation this function was served by prósty. Polish was contrasted with Lithuanian and prosta as the language of religion—that is, with secular languages; it was also the language of schools and small schools at churches, which were attended by children of the minor szlachta. Russian, as the state language, lay outside the framework of these contrasts, which describe the main spheres of communication among the rural population; as the language of school and the army, it also had a very insignificant

⁴Of course, the domains of use and functions of the dialects are not strictly, i.e. absolutely, demarcated; see (Sudnik, 1975, p. 124). On the social functions of language and the domains of its use, see (Shveitser, Nikolsky, 1978, pp. 90–94).

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influence on the main languages of the area, although this question requires further study.

In villages where Lithuanian is no longer spoken, the situation was somewhat different. In some of them, the old people spoke Lithuanian only among themselves. Thus, in Ramūčiai: / dz’эці ‘аварылі па б’еларуску / а старыя да старых пр’ыдуц’ ‘аворац’ па л’ітоўску / (K. Mickiewicz). K. Mickiewicz from Dainava asserts: / s’an’i’c’ik l’ietuv’iškoi kal’b’əjo i pa prostu / mano t’ənxai (tarp savęs) c’ik l’ietuv’iškai kal’b’əjo / o ing’i mus jau kal’b’əjo pa prostu / ‘the old people spoke only Lithuanian and the simple language; my parents (among themselves) spoke only Lithuanian, but they already addressed us in the simple language’. Ch. Kazak from Markovščizna relates the same thing: / ‘аварылі па л’ітоўску mój бац’ка і máтка і ўc’э / маладзіцца мы ўжо пачал’і падрастац’ / зачал’і па пол’ску... на л’ітоўск’і мы ўжо ўн’іман’ія н’э абрашчал’і / хватал’іс’а па пол’ску / пойдз’эш да кас’ц’ола / там і с тым і с тым ужо мы начн’а па пол’ску ‘аварылі’ / а па дз’эрав’энск’і як м’эжду сабой м’эсныя / то па просту / а ўжо як выйдз’эш дз’э / вас’эл’а / ужо па пол’ску /. As we can see, the informant clearly understands which language is „proper“ to speak in a given setting. His account indicates that in villages of this type the functions of Lithuanian had become restricted: as the language of the family it was displaced by the simple language, and as the language of external communication, by Polish. As a result, situation 2 emerged:

Situation 2

Dialect/language | Generation | Family language | Street language (informal communication) | Language of external (official) communication | Language of confession | Language of school, administration, army Lithuanian | Older generation | + | (+) | (+) | − | − Lithuanian | Younger generation | (+) | − | − | − | − Simple language (Belarusian dialect) | Older generation | (+) | + | + | − | − Simple language (Belarusian dialect) | Younger generation | + | + | + | − | − Polish | Older generation | − | − | − | + | (+) Polish | Younger generation | − | − | (+) | + | (+) Russian | — | − | − | − | − | +

Lithuanian was displaced from intrafamily communication in two ways. If both parents were Lithuanian, they simply stopped addressing their children in Lithuanian. This was emphasized in the accounts of virtually every informant who spoke on the subject, e.g.: / (grandfather) spoke Lithuanian / we were still little / and they would get together / so that the children wouldn’t understand / so they spoke Lithuanian / my grandmother may not have spoken grammatically / but in Lithuanian / she didn’t speak to me / I didn’t understand a single word / (V. Mickiewicz, born 1911, Bazily).

In mixed families, in none of the cases known to us did the Belarusian wife learn to speak Lithuanian. Moreover, women usually

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have a very negative attitude toward their husbands’ Lithuanian, rarely understand it, and always get angry when it is spoken in their presence. We observe this today; judging by the informants’ accounts, it was also so in the past. Incidentally, Belarusian men are more tolerant of their wives’ Lithuanian.

The narrowing of the functions of the Lithuanian dialect led to the strengthening of the position of the simple language, even when this narrowing resulted from an expansion of the functions of Polish. This was apparently the main mechanism of the spontaneous Belarusization of the indigenous Lithuanian-speaking population in this region.

4. The sociolinguistic situation in the Ramashkan area changed radically after the former Vilnius region and Western Belarus were annexed by Poland. It might seem that the change of state language should not have greatly affected the redistribution of the internal functions of Lithuanian and the simple dialects. However, this change marked the beginning of a period of deliberate and intensive Polonization of the local population, which inevitably affected the status and functions of the local Polish dialect, which henceforth became an effective factor in transforming the sociolinguistic “landscape” traditional to this region.

Polish was promoted and spread through three channels, two of which had also been active earlier. First of all, the church intensified its activity; secondly, after Polish-language primary schools opened and compulsory primary education was introduced, the prestige of that part of the population which had already been oriented toward Polish (some residents of noble villages, villages near churches, and so on) rose considerably. Circumstances thus developed in such a way that Lithuanian, above all, became Polish’s main “linguistic opponent.”

There were several reasons for this. First, as we already know, in situations 1 and 2 Lithuanian was an unmarked, socially “weak” language. Second, the supporters and direct agents of the policy of Polonization locally were people for whom the local simple language was, in fact, their main language. Finally, it must be taken into account that the occupation of the former Vilnius region gave rise to very tense relations between bourgeois Lithuania and Poland. Taken together, all this led to an atmosphere of exceptionally hostile attitudes toward the local Lithuanian dialect in the Ramashkan area, with very important consequences for its subsequent fate.

Our informants remember how, in the early 1930s, the notorious phrase was often heard in churches: / ʒ’i vas n’э́moka k’itʲejr c’ik ra pɔ’lsku / ‘God understands no other language, only Polish’ (Z. Voishnis-Valishka)⁵. B. Utke-

⁵ This idea began to be put into practice much earlier, as far back as the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, as evidenced by the periodical press of the time (see, for example, Viltis, 1911, No. 93 (578), which quotes the following words of a local resident from near Asava, now in Voronovo District: „Pan Jezus pa litousku nia havariu, ale pa polsku“).

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A witness recounts the period of occupation: / p’ar z’vid’əs’imt m’ətu l’ánkəi íkalə žmón’əm galvón kad l’ietuv’u kalbā īra chāmu kalbā / b’ədiev’u kalbā / maidōs d’ievas n’aiskla us’is l’ietuv’iškai / for twenty years the Poles drummed into people’s heads that Lithuanian was an uncultured language, the language of boors, the language of the godless; God would not hear a prayer in Lithuanian.

The following remarks illustrate the direct impact of political events on the situation in our area: / dz’ár’ūn’a Біł было Ко́йно / зва́ли Ка́унас / a s’ā l’áŋk’ia jau būvo Kaulāl’išk’əs (Конве́лишки) l’áŋk’išk’əi kalbā to varšav’ák’i / pal’áki значы / ну i vabaáli Ко́йна з Варшава́й / (A. Skirtun).

As the pace of Polonization increases, the older generation of residents in villages outside the main area finally abandons Lithuanian; here they readily send their children to Polish schools and themselves try to speak it as often as possible in official communication. However, the main language of these villages remains Belarusian: / and in Polish, during Polish rule, the young people spoke at such gatherings, sometimes the older people also spoke Polish / and the youth especially, if in town there / at our place, the whole meeting is held only in Polish / and at home in the usual way / and if you meet someone somewhere / conversation in Polish / with parents in the usual way in every home / in the family everything is in the usual way / (V. Mitskevich, Bazyl). Thus, situation 3 (see below) takes shape in these villages, and Polish and Belarusian prove to be in a relationship of complementary distribution. The genetic proximity of these languages, the nascent sense of Polish national identity (discussed below), as well as the tendency toward a complementary distribution of their functions gener-

Situation 3

Dialect/language | Generation | Language of the family | Language of the street (informal communication) | Language of external (official) communication | Language of religion | Language of school, administration, army Lithuanian | Older | — | — | — | — | — | Younger | — | — | — | — | — Simple (Belarusian dialect) | Older | + | + | (+) | — | — | Younger | + | + | + | — | — Polish | Older | — | + | (+) | + | + | Younger | — | + | + | + | +

brought about the idea of the fundamental identity of these languages. In other words, situation 3 bears the clear beginnings of diglossia⁷. It is possible that spontaneous diglossia of this kind was precisely what protected the Belarusian dialect from its complete

⁷ О понятии диглоссии см.: (Успенский, 1983, с. 3—8).

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вытеснения польским на территории балто-славянского пограничья (Вярэнич, 1973, с. 5—22).

In substance, this situation is considerably more complex than its schematic representation. The loss of sociolinguistic functions by Lithuanian did not mean that it immediately disappeared; Belarusian continued to be widely used as a language of external communication, with only a tendency toward its restriction, and so on. The diagram describes a kind of “average” state, revealed to an observer who takes into account the main trends in its development; it seems to anticipate a possible future. Most importantly, one should again note that the policy of Polonization profoundly affected the position of the Lithuanian dialect, but had not yet affected the Belarusian dialect, which retained practically all of its former positions and may even have strengthened them within the emerging diglossia.

In villages in the main zone, the sociolinguistic situation was more complex. Since practically everyone here spoke Lithuanian, the spread of Polish could not immediately lead to the formation of situation 3. Moreover, the first Lithuanian primary schools and reading clubs, organized by visiting members of educational societies, were opening there at this time.

Familiarity with Lithuanian writing, the literary language, and elements of national culture led to a genuine upsurge in national consciousness in these villages. In the words of V. Mukleda (Stanitsa), / ikˈi trˈizdˈesˈimtu mˈėtu pas mūs čˈa. būvo maža (lenkų) / būvo lˈietuvˈu / bˈet mˈes dar nˈэ sugalvóyom kas tai rȯjškˈa. lˈietuvˈэi / ‘until the thirties there were few (Poles) here; there were Lithuanians, but we did not yet understand what Lithuanians meant.’ The emergence of Lithuanian national consciousness was an undeniable challenge and counterweight to the policy of Polonization. The Polish administration understood it this way, persecuting the activities of Lithuanian educational institutions, with all the consequences that followed (all the elderly readily tell how, in the reading rooms, / lˈaŋkai láŋgus gùrino / ‘the Poles smashed the windows’); the local inhabitants themselves understood it this way too: / alˈэ mus̩ pˈərsˈəkˈojo už tai / kad̩ mˈэs vˈištum lˈaŋkais / alˈэ nˈэi̯ čˈas nˈэi̯ šˈas / šˈэimō tˈэvas lˈietuvˈiškai kalba / motkà... vˈiša šˈэimà / ‘but they persecuted us so that we would become Poles, but we were neither this nor that: in the family the father speaks Lithuanian, the mother... the whole family.’ By 1937, Lithuanian schools had been closed, / alˈэ jaunˈimas jau prˈilˈipom... / jau mūs nˈэ prˈvˈэrs imˈį lˈaŋku / ‘but we young people had already taken to it... they will no longer turn us into Poles’ (V. Mukleda).

The clash between the processes of Polonization and the emergence of Lithuanian national consciousness led to a deep division in village society. Some accepted the official line and began to abandon the use of Lithuanian—at least in public—which gave rise to the basic elements of situation 3 in the villages concerned. Another part of the population actively resisted Polonization,

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having felt themselves to be Lithuanians: / m’iest’ėl’i pasród’is’i kat l’ietùv’ji buvo g’ėda / sarmatà /…/ o |kāp ac’s’idār’a (mokyklos) suv’ėjnam pas v’ėnu k’ìtu / sustójom / sāvo rat’āl’i padārom ir kalbam l’ietùv’iškai / tai k’ìc’i p’ištzai(s) bād’ė / to l’ic’v’ni ps’a, krėf ich / ‘in the small town, to show oneself to be Lithuanian was a shame, a disgrace;... and when the (schools) opened, we would gather together, make our own little circle, and speak Lithuanian; while others still point fingers—those Lithuanians, damn them’ (B. Mukleda). In Ramashkantsy and other villages, according to this same informant, / iau... buvo p’э l’ankù / b’ėt l’ietùv’u / ‘there were already... not Poles, but Lithuanians.’

The retreat of the Lithuanian language did not lead to the emergence of a fundamentally new situation, but meant a modification of situation 1: Prostý remained its principal language of communication, Lithuanian became the language of the school (alongside Polish), and Polish somewhat expanded its functions, “breaking into” the sphere of external communication (situation 1a).

Situation 1a

Dialect/language | Generation | Language of the family | Language of street (informal) communication | Language of external (formal) communication | Language of confession | Language of school, administration, army Lithuanian | Older | + | + | – | – | (+) Lithuanian | Younger | + | (+) | – | – | (+) Prostý (Belarusian dialect) | Older | (+) | + | + | – | – Prostý (Belarusian dialect) | Younger | (+) | + | + | – | – Polish | Older | – | – | – | + | + Polish | Younger | – | – | (+) | + | +

In fact, this situation is described by Z. Voishnis-Valitskaya: / kар atāj l’ankai mok’ìklos buvo / l’ank’ìškos / ir v’ìsus vaikùs l’ank’ìškai mok’ìno / o namō atēina su t’ėvais l’otuv’ìškai kalba / o išėina mok’ìklon l’ank’ìškai / o tarpūsav’i vaikài dažn’aus’ėi kal’b’ėdavo guž’ìško / ‘when the Poles came, the schools were Polish; and all the children were taught in Polish; at home they would speak Lithuanian with their parents, and when they went to school, they spoke Polish; among themselves, the children most often spoke Prostý.’

The emergence of Lithuanian national self-consciousness and acquaintance with the literary Lithuanian language were of enormous importance for the Ramashkan dialect. All inhabitants of this area who speak Lithuanian today completed two or three grades of a Lithuanian school, attended Lithuanian reading rooms, and had relatives who went to work in Vilnius; now many of them have close “kinship” ties with Lithuania, some subscribe to Lithuanian periodicals and read literature. Many words were borrowed from the literary language into the dialect, while quite a few dialect words acquired new, literary meanings. The literary language had no profound influence on the phonetics and morphology of the dialect

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but the majority of our informants can, when necessary, make their speech somewhat more “literary” in this respect as well.

5. The years of the Second World War were decisive for the fate of the local Lithuanian dialect and, consequently, for the sociolinguistic situation in the area as a whole. As is well known, detachments of Polish nationalists—the “White Partisans”—operated in these parts. People well remember their hostile actions against the local population. Literally all the informants spoke about this; we give just one such account: / p’ɛ kãga l’áŋkai labái blogái su l’ietuv’ɛis ɛl’g’ɛs’i / bal’t’ɛi bùvo l’ãŋkų partizanai / labái kaŋk’ino ir mùš’ɛ ir v’isa at’ímde iš l’ɛtuv’ų / pas mùs v’ísus rùbus at’ɛ-mɛ /... / gal’ù sak’íc’ kat kɔžnunɛkc’ atɛina ir kɔžnu nɛkc’ ko toi rɛ́ida pajímc’ / ir dar pr’igɛž’ina ir mùša ir šaudo / su l’ɛtuv’ɛis t’ɛp dãr’ɛ /... / nurož’in’ɛjo kurã nušáuž’ic’ kurã apr’ɛiŋk’c’ su kurù ir kas padar’íc’ p’il’ack’is kùn’igas / ‘during the war the Poles treated the Lithuanians very badly; there were Polish White Partisans; they greatly tormented and beat the Lithuanians and took everything from them; they took all our clothes;... I can say that every night they came and found something to take; and they also frightened us, beat us, and shot at us. That is how they treated the Lithuanians; the priest Pillyatsky would indicate whom to shoot, whom to rob, and what to do with each person’ (from Germanishki) (Z. Voishnis-Valitskaya).

During the war, therefore, / kurɛ́i dar ir mok’ɛjo l’ietuv’ɛškai kalb’c’ / t’ai iš’žad’ɛjo / šɛk’ɛ kat aš n’ɛmókiu ir aš n’ɛ l’ietuv’is / daũk tók’u bùvo žmon’ų / ‘those who still knew how to speak Lithuanian renounced it; they said, “I don’t know how, and I’m not Lithuanian”; there were many such people’ (Z. Voishnis-Valitskaya).

Consequently, situation type 3 took shape in the Lithuanian villages of the core area, with the difference that Lithuanian, as it lost its functions, became a passive language, while Polish, under the conditions of the Hitlerite occupation, could not expand its sphere of use.

6. After the Great Patriotic War, all the conditions arose for restoring situations of types 1 and 2 in the Ramashkan area, in which the functions of the coexisting dialects would not be sharply demarcated and the principal language for each population group would serve to define its ethnicity. But the events of previous years had not passed without leaving a trace. Lithuanian became not an ethnicity-defining language, but simply a language used by a small proportion of the older-age population. The number of local residents who considered themselves Polish-speaking decreased considerably after part of the population was “repatriated” to Poland. For this reason, Polish too became practically a passive language of the older generation of residents in all spheres except the confessional one. As a result, situation 4 took shape, and we are now observing its “advanced” variant:

4. 1880

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Ситуация 4

Dialect/language

Generation

Family language

Language of the street (informal communication)

Language of external (official) communication

Language of confession

Language of school, administration, army

Lithuanian

Older generation

((+))

−

−

−

−

Younger generation

−

Belarusian

Older generation

+

+

+

−

−

Younger generation

+

+

+

−

(+)

Polish

Older generation

((+))

−

(+)

+

−

Younger generation

−

−

−

((+))

−

Russian

Старшее

−

−

((+))

−

((+))

Младшее

−

−

(+)

−

+

Local residents’ attitudes toward the languages known to them are determined not only by tradition and the domains in which they are used, but also by the fact that, in official documents, practically all residents of the area are listed as Poles. It is now difficult to determine the motives for this ethnic identification, but it is clear that it has no linguistic basis. Our Lithuanian informants explain very hesitantly why they were called (or called themselves?) Poles. The other groups of residents are convinced that they are Poles because they are Catholics. Be that as it may, the population’s ethnic (self-)identification as Poles in this area apparently represents a significant outcome of the Polonizing tendencies of an earlier period.

The local name for the Lithuanian population is žygunai; they have no self-designation. According to them, Lithuanians in Vilnius and farther north speak „pa žmùdsku“ (i.e., Samogitian). In the local Lithuanian dialect, people dud’ėna (dud’ana) or, less often, ùtar’ija. Nowadays, kalbà ‘speaks’ and kalbà ‘language’ mean ‘speaks Lithuanian’ and ‘Lithuanian language’ to most of our informants; previously, this word was used only in the expression põt’ər’-us kal’b’əc’ ‘to recite the catechism’. Our informants describe the traditional Lithuanian dialect as a “corrupted” language: / pas mùs kalbà suga’ž’inta / ‘our language is corrupted’; / mús kalbà iš patvorõs kok’õs / ‘our language is some kind of language from under a fence’ (J. Smala); this is undoubtedly the result of their acquaintance with standard Lithuanian. A positive attitude toward the Lithuanian dialect is found among all those who attended a Lithuanian school and currently have relatives in Lithuania (most often children or grandchildren), read Lithuanian, and take an interest in Lithuania’s cultural life. These people constitute a kind of local “intelligentsia.”

Those who do not speak Lithuanian unanimously describe it as “брьткі ідзьк”; as mentioned above, wives in mixed families protest when their husbands speak (or try to speak) Lithuanian. Children in such families generally understand no Lithuanian at all.

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A negative attitude toward the local Belarusian dialect is found among virtually all population groups, but it manifests itself to varying degrees and for different reasons.

Those who consider themselves Polish-speaking, that is, who know Polish but use simple language predominantly in everyday life, interpret simple as / pól’sk’i m’əšany z b’əloruśk’im, although they may acknowledge that it / v’əncei podobny na b’əlaruśki / (village of Berzhiny). The less Polish they speak, the more they doubt the validity of this characterization of simple. / i atkúda ez’ájułys’ taki jåzyk / — one of our informants wondered. Then, after thinking it over, he answered himself: / pól’ski am pal’akáy, b’elarúski ad b’elarúsay, a prósty — ad l’udz’ej / (village of Berzhiny). The Polish-speaking population tends to draw a sharp distinction between Polish and simple according to the domains in which they are used: / l’uz’i n’ə xco žėbu po prostu do n’ix muv’ili v kos’c’ele / n’əxco do ks’onga gádae’ tak jak do króvy / (village of Konvelishki).

The local Lithuanian-speaking population describes “speaking simple” with the words / dūd’ən’c’ gùž’škai /. A gudas, on the other hand, is / n’ə jis l’ánkas n’əi l’ietùv’u n’əi… jis pác n’əž’ino / ‘neither a Pole nor a Lithuanian, nor… he himself doesn’t know’; / jië doku-mėntosa rašos…v’is’ l’ankai rašos / o jiė_g’i v’isai n’əi p’ir’k’on kal’b’ėk l’ánk’škai / jiė n’əmókə / ‘in the documents they are all recorded as Poles, but he can’t speak a single word of Polish’ (lit. ‘don’t speak Polish to them even in the house,’ i.e., don’t even greet them in Polish).

Local residents who speak only simple tend to draw a fairly clear distinction between simple and literary Belarusian—the language of the school, radio, central and district newspapers, and television. In my observations, this distinction is based less on linguistic facts than on the very fact of (self-)identification as Poles. In a confidential conversation, they may admit: / jakija мы pal’aki / мы i na pól’sku не ўме́ем / (village of Garmanischki). They may characterize local Polish as “simple Polish,” emphasizing that local Poles, too, are not real Poles, but specifically local ones. According to C. Kazak (Markovshchizna), / na pól’sku (поляки) jak ‘аворац’ / мы не раз’б’аром / (они) na mazúrsку ‘аворац’ /.

As we can see, attitudes toward local dialects correlate quite closely with their functional load and degree of prevalence. The Lithuanian dialect—the least widespread and least functionally loaded—is negatively marked by most residents of the area, that is, it is entirely devoid of prestige. Simple is undoubtedly positively marked in relation to Lithuanian, but is clearly not a high-prestige language. Polish aspires to this position in the prestige hierarchy, but its standing has clearly been undermined by its narrow domain of use and much lower prevalence than simple. Thus, simple is not only the most widespread and most functionally loaded language in the area; in the system of prestige evaluations, it also occupies the most secure position, being neutral.

4°

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1 — villages where there are Lithuanian-speaking families and several people who speak Lithuanian

2 — villages where there are individuals who speak Lithuanian

3 — villages where some elderly people remember Lithuanian words and can say individual phrases in Lithuanian

4 — villages where there are some older people who have difficulty recalling individual Lithuanian words

5 — villages where older people remember that their parents or grandparents spoke Lithuanian

6 — villages where, within the memory of the older generation, Lithuanian was spoken

7 — villages where there are individual families in which Polish is spoken

8 — villages where individual residents speak Polish relatively fluently

9 — churches

At the same time, we emphasize that the absolute lack of prestige of the Lithuanian dialect is due not so much to its relations with Belarusian (the common language) as to the fact that both Lithuanian and Belarusian turned out to be

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They were contrasted with the more prestigious Polish language (especially in the recent past). For this reason, both natural and deliberate Polonization led primarily to a weakening of the Lithuanian dialect’s position; however, it was the Belarusian vernacular that spread and strengthened its position above all, and which, in situation 3, began to be interpreted as a sociolinguistically functional style of Polish.

It seems that studying the dynamics of the sociolinguistic situation in individual micro-areas of the Lithuanian-Belarusian borderland will help not only to reconstruct more realistically the linguistic history of this zone as a whole, but will also serve as a kind of laboratory in which to observe vividly the most intimate mechanisms of language interaction, as well as the processes by which ethnic self-awareness takes shape.

* * *

Study of the dialects of the Ramashkany area continued during the summer expeditions of 1984 and 1985. In addition to the article’s author, the expeditions included VSU students T. Voishnis, V. Charnayte, G. Chernayte (who defended diploma theses in 1986 based on the materials they had collected), E. Lekarkina, E. Kalvenayte, and Candidate of Philological Sciences L. Grumadene, a research fellow at the Institute of Language and Literature of the Academy of Sciences of the Lithuanian SSR. We sincerely thank N. I. Yoskevich, First Secretary of the Voronovo District Party Committee, and N. A. Popylin, Secretary of the District Committee, for their help in organizing these expeditions.

The Lithuanian dialect of the Ramashkany area is living out its final years. A. Mukleda, B. Utkewich, and S. Dudovich died in 1983–1985; Y. Smala grew old and has practically stopped speaking Lithuanian; Z. Voishnis-Vapitskaya speaks Lithuanian ever less often, since she lives almost permanently in the village of Lashaki; the youngest speaker of the Ramashkany dialect, V. Voishnis, turned 55 in 1986, and speaks Lithuanian reluctantly and with difficulty. Lithuanian speech is still heard occasionally only in the family of Z. and A. Voishnis (Ramashkany).

In most villages of the area (except Peragantsy and Naviyanka), there are practically no young people. It is therefore an urgent task to study the local Belarusian dialect, which arose on a Lithuanian substrate, and the remnants of Polish speech.

V. ČEKMONAS

FUNCTIONING OF LANGUAGES AND BILINGUALISM

(Based on the Ramaškoniai dialects)

Abstract

The article describes the sociolinguistic situation in the area of Voronovo (Varenavo) District in the northeastern part of the Byelorussian SSR and, on the basis of residents’ accounts, reconstructs the history of this situation over the past 100–150 years. It demonstrates that the spread of the Polish language was the main cause of the decline of the local Lithuanian dialect.

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V. ČEKMONAS

FUNCTIONING OF LANGUAGES AND BILINGUALISM

Summary

The sociolinguistic situation in the north-eastern part of the Voronovo District of the Byelorussian SSR is described, its history during the last 100—150 years is reconstructed. The author's considerations on the spreading of the Polish dialect as the main cause of vanishing of the traditional Lithuanian dialect in this area are presented.

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