On the LKŽ words įmislė and įžastis
1. The word įmislė (LKŽ IV 68: įmislė? (orig. įmiesle) sf. occasion, opportunity) is taken from the short story “Aplankymas seniuko” (1853) by the writer and didactician Petras Gomalevskis. Here it is used twice—in the singular accusative and plural genitive forms: o vienok rejk cze pasymyslity, nes cze turem gera imiesle ant pagelbiema artyma; … žmones jeszka tokiu imieslu, idant par dawymą pagalbas artymui, galėtum padauginty gerus darbus sawa… (p. 40). The author explained this word in a footnote in Polish: okazya, that is, opportunity, pretext, occasion.
P. Gomalevskis’s word imiesle is clearly a Latvianism; cf. Latvian iemēls ‘reproach; pretext’; K. Mülenbach, in his dictionary (ME II 44), also gives the form iemesle ‘reason’, from the written source “Lat-golas Wôrds.” P. Gomalevskis did not use this word by chance. Having served for quite a long time in Latgale, in Ilūkste, he undoubtedly encountered Latvian continually and may well have learned some of it. The word’s form in his short story may reflect dialectal pronunciation, since a considerable number of Latvian dialects in that region pronounce a long i instead of ie, and the diphthong ie instead of the narrow ē (Rudzīte, 1964, p. 273, 281 ff.). Restoring the word as it would appear in standard Latvian, we get iemēslē ‘reproach; pretext’. The word iemēls, with a long root ē, is also attested in Latvian: iemēls² from Nigranda (see ME II 45).
Since P. Gomalevskis represented the long ī with the letter i (cf. his idant ~ y dant), this word should be restored in our language as ymislė, that is, in its dialectal form (but hardly in the form of standard Latvian: iemēslē).
2. LKŽ IV 282 gives the word įžastis (: įžastis, -ies sf (?) S. Dauk. ‘cause’), which, as the LKŽ citation file shows, is taken from a sentence in S. Daukantas’s “Lietuvos istorija,” published in the USA: Vienok visoje toje Lenkų ūkės namkarėje Lietuvių giminės namie lindoję; negal žinote ižasties to jų ramumo, turėjo būti ar didei nuvarge dabar, minavotose Gudų karėse, ar patys nekibinamais nenorėjo be lyzciaus karės pradėti (Lietuvos istorija, 1893, p. 134).
In the manuscript of “Istorijos žemaitiškos” held in the Manuscript Department of the Library of the Institute of Lithuanian Language and Literature, the quoted sentence reads as follows in the original: Wienog wisso to mumkarie Lankų ukes, Lethuwi gimines numei lindoię negal žinote ižasteis (viršuj šio žodžio paaiškinta: liczaatis — B. V.) to iu rumuma, turieję bute ar dide nuwarge dabar mundotose Gudu karėse, ar patys nekibynamis nenorieję be licziaus karęs pradiete (Istorije Žemaytyszka, lp. 60). As we can see, the word įžastis, used in the sense of ‘cause’, differs in spelling from the form given in the LKŽ. The word is spelled this way not only in “Istorijoje žemaitiškoje,” but also in the manuscript of S. Daukantas’s translation of J. Kampė’s short story; cf. Js turieje ižasti wilteis, iog krasztas amerikôs nefoley turieje bute (Rubinatio Pelužės Giwenimas, p. 180).
Since the word įžastis is written identically twice, and not in the same work, there seems to be no reason to doubt its existence or its graphic form. The LKŽ variant įžaistis is another matter: to date, it has been recorded only in the aforementioned publication by S. Daukantas. It remains unclear which manuscript of “Istorijos žemaitiškos” was used in publishing this work, but it is unlikely to have been, as has been conjectured, the copy of it recently discovered in Leningrad (Žilevičius, 1983), where in the quoted sentence, instead of this word
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