LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI, VI

LIETUVOS TSR MOKSLŲ AKADEMIJA

THE STUDY OF THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE CONTEMPORARY LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE

J. KRUOPAS

Like the literary languages of many other peoples, the Lithuanian literary language now used in the press, schools, theaters, amateur performances, various meetings, and everyday interpersonal communication is the result of a long historical development. It grew and took shape from the vernacular after the latter began to be used for belles lettres, education, science, and other cultural purposes, and after writers and linguists had worked on it grammatically and stylistically, thereby creating a literary language common to the whole nation.

The roots of the contemporary Lithuanian literary language reach back to the first Lithuanian writings, which appeared in the 16th century in connection with the Reformation movement. Before they appeared, and for some time thereafter, other languages—Old Russian, Latin, and Polish—were used in Lithuanian writing (state documents, chronicles, etc.). Although writings in these languages served the interests of the feudal lords and clergy and their sphere of use was narrow, they nevertheless had a positive influence on the country’s cultural development and on the spread of education and literacy.

For the Lithuanian people, oppressed by serfdom yet having preserved the Lithuanian language and customs, the proponents of the Reformation, and later the Catholic clergy in their struggle against the Reformation, began publishing Lithuanian religious books (catechisms, postils, hymnals, etc.). Although these religious writings were reactionary in content and served to spiritually enslave the people and uphold serfdom, under the conditions of the time, when the church dominated every sphere of human spiritual activity, they nevertheless played a major role in bringing the Lithuanian language into public life and helping the literary language take shape and develop.

The development of the Lithuanian literary language in the 16th–18th centuries was slow, and its sphere of use very limited. It was used to publish government decrees, religious books for the people, dictionaries, and a small number of attempts at belles lettres. The most striking and outstanding example of the literary language of that period is K. Donelaitis’s “Metai,” written in East Prussia on the basis of the common national language and written tradition.

At the beginning of the 19th century, when Lithuania became part of Russia and the progressive influence of Russian culture made itself felt, Lithuanian cultural and literary

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movement began, fostering the development of the literary language as well. However, difficult economic, social, and political conditions, and brutal feudal and tsarist oppression, prevented a unified Lithuanian literary language from taking shape in the first half of the 19th century. Only after the abolition of serfdom, with the faster development of capitalist relations and the rise of the national liberation movement, did the national Lithuanian language undergo intensive formation in the final decades of the 19th century and the first decades of the 20th; a unified literary language based on the southwestern western Aukštaitian dialects increasingly established itself in the press, literature, and public life. Our eminent linguists J. Jablonskis and K. Būga, as well as literary classics Žemaitė, Maironis, V. Kudirka, V. Krėvė-Mickevičius, and others, played a major role in the development and standardization of the Lithuanian literary language.

During the period of bourgeois rule, use of the literary language expanded and the influence of spelling, grammatical, and lexical norms grew. However, the country’s overall economic and cultural backwardness, the poverty of the broad working masses, and other unfavorable circumstances of the fascist regime prevented the common literary language from becoming firmly established among the masses, who continued to be forced to use dialectal colloquial speech. At the time, two opposing tendencies also manifested themselves in the standardization and cultivation of the literary language: a progressive one and a reactionary one. Our linguists J. Jablonskis and K. Būga followed the progressive line: enriching the literary language with the treasures of the vernacular (lexicon and phraseology), establishing well-founded and stable linguistic norms, and purging the language of borrowings from foreign feudal-ecclesiastical jargon and slavish calques, they fought against unjustified language corrections, unnecessary neologisms, purist tendencies, and other ills of the literary language that had taken deep root in the linguistic practice of bourgeois society. These were especially prevalent in boulevard, crime, and other philistine publications, issued in a corrupted, incorrect language. The extreme imitators of Western modernist literary movements, who senselessly formed, distorted, and combined Lithuanian words, also harmed the development of the literary language. The purist efforts of language “Lithuanizers” to banish international words from the Lithuanian literary language (e.g., elektra, telefonas, psichologas, geografija) and replace them with “ingenious” neologisms (gintra, tolkalbis, sielotyrys, žemėtyra, and so on) were likewise harmful and laughable.

While pretending to defend Lithuanian culture, the Lithuanian bourgeoisie was in fact indifferent to the needs of the native language and paid little attention to the concerns of the literary language. Language culture was chiefly the concern of individual linguists, writers, and other cultural workers, who sought to make the Lithuanian literary language rich, expressive, and understandable to everyone.

A new stage in the development of the Lithuanian literary language began with the restoration of the Soviet system in Lithuania. Along with the social and cultural revolution and profound changes in every sphere of life, the intensive development and enrichment of the Lithuanian literary language also began, as did its purification of obsolete words and expressions.

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During the Soviet period, the functions of the social literary language expanded considerably. The introduction of compulsory primary education and the eradication of illiteracy, secondary and higher education that was free and accessible to all, the publication of political, literary, scientific, and other works in huge print runs, the extraordinary spread of amateur arts, theaters, radio, television, various meetings, and other means of collective communication paved the way for the literary language to reach the broad masses of working people and enter the linguistic practice of the whole nation. In the Soviet years, the lexicon of the Lithuanian literary language changed most substantially. Many new words appeared in it, reflecting socialist ideology, social order, and culture.¹

Drawing on the lexicon of Russian and other peoples, thousands of calques were created that accurately express the content of the corresponding concepts without violating the word-formation rules of Lithuanian. A particularly large number of terms were formed in science, technology, the economy, production, and other fields (e.g., superstructure, Komsomol, five-year plan, workday, farm accounting, output, collective farm, social structure, self-criticism). Since Lithuanian and Russian have many identical or analogous word-formation patterns, the creation of precise and correct calques from Russian is one of the most productive ways of enriching the literary language’s lexicon. For example, life developing at a rapid pace, as well as the influence of Russian, greatly stimulated the creation of new words with these suffixes: -ininkas (chain operator, poultry farmer, cement worker, motor-transport worker, combine operator...), -ystė (membership, all-powerful rule, grain growing, flax growing...), -umas (employment, purposefulness, collectivism, equality, tam asoliškumas), -ietis (collective-farm worker, šešupietis, pergalietis, inkarietis...), -tuvas (mixer, crusher, deflector, limiter, sorter...), -iklis, -eklis (scraper, emitter, threader, marker...), and so on. These are mostly names for new professions, occupations, production tools, members of various collectives, new abstract concepts, and other things. The suffix -istas (metal worker, radio operator, tank crewman...) is also used more widely. Russian adjectives with the suffixes -nij, -skij greatly expanded the formation of Lithuanian adjectives with -inis (collective-farm, production, publishing-house, medical, general-purpose...).

In the Soviet years, the formation of not only prefixed and suffixed words but also compounds intensified considerably. They were formed not only according to old word-formation patterns (breakwater, oil pipeline, dynamometer, peat research, multi-loom operator, stump remover, travel pass, counter...), but also according to new, potentially possible word-formation types (aeronuotauka, gerošvyturys...; autocracy, plenary rule...; mutual exchange, self-education, self-discipline...; communal life, comrade-in-arms...; employment, distinctiveness...). Various abbreviations are widely used (USSR, Lithuanian SSR...; Komsomol, trade union, agitation center...), as are compound full words (Marxism-Leninism, ideological-political, club-reading room...). The lexicon was also supplemented by borrowings, especially international words taken from Russian (Bolshevik, artel, cosmonaut, combine harvester...).

¹ See A. Lyberis and K. Ulvydas, The enrichment of the lexicon of the Lithuanian literary language during the years of the Soviet system, “Literature and Language,” vol. 3, Vilnius, 1958, pp. 31—110.

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Considerable changes also occurred in word semantics. Many terms in philosophy, politics, and social life acquired new meanings corresponding to Marxist-Leninist ideology. Some familiar words began to be used in a broader sense (to implement, to struggle, high...).

Words associated with the old bourgeois order and ideology passed into the passive vocabulary (sir, policeman, county chief...).

Soviet life enriched not only the lexicon of the literary language but also its syntax, phraseology, and stylistics. New syntactic constructions, expressions, and phraseological units appeared in the language, borrowed from colloquial speech and dialects or translated from Russian and other languages. Most syntactic innovations can be found in the periodical press and works of fiction. Some of them (depending on, irrespective of something; in accordance with the previous resolution; to take (adopt) appropriate measures; to emulate the leaders...), like well-formed new words, became established in the literary language; others, which did not conform to the rules of Lithuanian syntax (as a result of; exploitation of man by man...), were replaced by correct syntactic constructions (the result of that, consequence, because of that; exploitation of man by man...), while a third group (to act upon; correspondence to...) is undergoing a trial period. Their prevalence in the language, their conformity with the rules of Lithuanian syntax and its developmental tendencies, their relationship to parallel constructions in use, and so forth are being studied today.

It should also be noted that the development and enrichment of the literary language are reflected in the stylistic differentiation of linguistic means of expression and in the formation of features of linguistic styles. The language of belles-lettres has expanded most and developed distinctively across various genres, achieving a high level of mastery in poetry and prose.

Alongside the extensive Soviet press, journalistic language developed greatly, characterized by abundant, distinctive phraseology, short and persuasive headlines, clear and lively presentation of ideas, and other features reflecting the creative enthusiasm, dynamism, and struggle of Soviet people in building communism.

The rapid development of Soviet science considerably enriched the terminology and specialized phraseology of individual branches of science and technology, and encouraged the formation and enrichment of the scientific style of the literary language.

The Russian language, the most developed and richest language and the interethnic language of all Soviet peoples, has a major positive influence on the development of the Lithuanian literary language.

Baltic and Slavic linguistic ties reach back to the distant past; these Indo-European languages share numerous lexical and grammatical features. The political, cultural, and literary ties between the Lithuanian and Russian peoples have old and deep roots, and Russian has therefore exerted and continues to exert a very strong influence on Lithuanian. Over the centuries, many words were borrowed from Russian or other Slavic languages and became firmly established in the Lithuanian literary language (book, cucumber, tin, donkey, barrel, whip, church, bad, pancake, etc.). In recent decades, many international terms have been taken from Russian, or numerous Russian words and expressions have been translated, enriching the Lithuanian language

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lexicon and phraseology. The Russian language strongly stimulates and activates the formation of Lithuanian words, mobilizing the language’s internal resources in the search for Lithuanian substitutes for Russian words and syntactic constructions. In some cases, suitable Lithuanian equivalents for Russian words or expressions are not found immediately; uncreative, unsuccessful calques also occur, which are gradually replaced by more appropriate forms that do not conflict with the laws of the Lithuanian language. By learning one’s mother tongue and Russian well, knowing the common and differing ways in which the two languages form, combine, and use words, and making creative use of the rich Russian literary, scientific, technical, and other literature, it is always possible to devise good equivalents that do not violate the norms of the Lithuanian literary language and to enrich the expressive resources of the literary language with them.

Thus, the socialist system created the most favorable conditions for the development and flourishing of the Lithuanian literary language. During the Soviet period, the social functions and sphere of use of the literary language expanded, the influence of the literary norm grew stronger, and the lexicon and phraseology were considerably enriched. As the most important means of communication, the Lithuanian literary language can now meet all the needs of the Lithuanian socialist nation in the social, cultural, literary, and other spheres of life.

What are the prospects for the further development of the Lithuanian literary language?

With the beginning of the expanded construction of communism, whose guidelines were set out in the new CPSU Program, the development of our country’s national languages is becoming still more intensive, comprehensive, and purposeful. The Program states that “in the future as well, the free development of the languages of the peoples of the USSR must be ensured, along with complete freedom for every citizen of the USSR to speak, raise and educate their children in any language, without granting any privileges or imposing any restrictions, and without compelling anyone to use one language or another. Under conditions of the fraternal friendship and mutual trust of peoples, national languages develop on the basis of equality and mutual enrichment².

In this regard, our Soviet linguists need to pay special attention to the study of the most pressing language problems connected with the further development of Soviet science and everyday language practice. The most important of these were mentioned in the report³ by Academician L. Ilchov, Secretary of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, at the session of the General Assembly of the USSR Academy of Sciences on October 19, 1962, during the discussion of the tasks of developing the social sciences in the period of building expanded communism, namely: language and society; language and thought; national literary languages and dialects; the development and mutual enrichment of national languages; ways of bringing national languages and cultures closer together in our country; as well as questions of terminology, language culture, and others. All these diverse, wide-ranging, and complex problems must be studied in a planned, organized, systematic, and thorough manner, so that Soviet linguistics can take a leading position in all branches of linguistics and become as closely connected as possible with the multilingual language practice of the period of building expanded communism.

² Tarybų Sąjungos Komunistų Partijos Programa, Vilnius, 1961, p. 93.

³ See “Kommunistas,” 1962, No. 12, pp. 26—27.

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One of the most pressing contemporary problems, studied collectively and in a coordinated manner on an all-Union scale, is the patterns of development of national languages in connection with the development of socialist nations. Soviet Lithuanian linguists are also engaged in studying this problem, seeking to identify the patterns governing the further development of the Lithuanian language and to contribute to the enrichment and standardization of the literary language and to the improvement of language culture.

In studying the development of the Lithuanian literary language under the conditions of the expanded construction of communism, attention must be paid to the further expansion of the social functions of language; the enrichment of the lexicon, syntactic constructions, and phraseology; stylistic differentiation of the language; standardization of the literary language; and the interaction of Lithuanian with the languages of other Soviet peoples, especially neighboring ones. These are the main directions in which the Lithuanian language will develop in the near future under conditions of free development, interaction, and mutual enrichment of national languages.

There is no doubt that the Lithuanian literary language will continue to exert a strong influence on spoken dialects and will gain an even firmer foothold in every sphere of activity of the Lithuanian nation and throughout language practice. Under the influence of the literary language, dialects will gradually level out and lose their distinctive phonetic, grammatical, and lexical differences, while the literary language will be enriched with individual dialect words, constructions, and expressions. In view of the intensifying interaction between the literary language and spoken dialects, it would be useful for our linguists to clarify which dialect features are disappearing most rapidly and which persist longer; how dialect pronunciation, accentuation, word formation and inflection, syntactic constructions, and vocabulary affect the literary language; how to accelerate the influence of the literary norm on spoken dialects; what stylistic functions surviving dialect elements may have; and so on.

The rapid advance of life and new achievements in the construction of communist society will continue to enrich the lexicon of the Lithuanian literary language with new words and terms, as well as new word-formation patterns. In connection with the development of science and technology, which has acquired an international character, our language will in the future gain still more international terms, forming a common lexical fund for all peoples and helping them communicate better with one another. The task of our lexicographers and lexicologists is to record this new vocabulary, study it and, where suitable forms are found, present them for general use in explanatory and specialist dictionaries.

The system of syntactic means of expression will also continue to develop. For example, one may surmise that in cases where parallel case-based (older) and prepositional (newer) word combinations exist (e.g., three times in a day — three times per day; to turn into what — to turn into what; to renounce what — to renounce from what, etc.), the use of prepositional constructions will grow. It seems that such locatives will continue to make their way into the literary language, as in: we have lost a prominent figure in his person; the work survived in manuscript; won in the race; in the course of centuries; in a number of cases; to find oneself in the minority, and so on. These expressions show that the use of the locative is becoming increasingly widespread.

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New participial and adverbial constructions, parenthetical, subordinating, and other word combinations and sentences are emerging. The use of nominalizing constructions, consisting of verbs and verbal nouns with the suffix -imas (-ymas), is becoming particularly active, e.g.: to issue a stern condemnation of idlers and shirkers; to prepare for the chemical eradication of weeds; to instill in soldiers boundless devotion to the Motherland and the Communist Party; to organize the drying of grain; to improve the utilization of machinery, and so on.

In the development of Lithuanian phonetics and morphology, a process of ending reduction, various changes in stress, and certain other phenomena can be observed. All these aspects of language development must be carefully monitored, studied, and used to cultivate the literary language. The intensive development of the language, the influence of dialects and other fraternal languages on Lithuanian literary language, and the new phenomena consequently emerging in language practice oblige our linguists to take still greater care over the standardization of the literary language: to assess in one way or another everything that appears new in the language, to review, supplement, and refine existing norms in specific cases, and actively and purposefully to influence language practice.

In observing and studying the development of contemporary Lithuanian literary language, it is important to investigate its interaction with the languages of other Soviet peoples, especially neighboring ones. Ongoing linguistic contacts occur in mixed communities and factories, where speakers of different languages meet every day, in border districts, and elsewhere. Fiction, scholarly and technical literature, joint meetings, conferences, and other forms of communication among representatives of fraternal Soviet peoples play a major role in relations between languages. In the ongoing and increasingly intensive relations among Soviet peoples, Russian serves as the common language of communication and mutual understanding. It enables the multilingual peoples of our vast country not only to communicate with one another but also to share the most significant achievements of Soviet and world culture. Russian is a powerful means of developing and enriching national cultures. Moreover, through Russian, which has today become one of the most widely spoken languages in the world, the literary and cultural achievements of the Soviet peoples become accessible to all humanity. This is most clearly demonstrated by translations of Lithuanian literary classics into Russian, which opens a path for them to the wider world. Soviet people, as well as progressive groups in foreign countries, learn Russian with affection and respect; it helps peoples draw closer, exchange cultural values, and unite their efforts in the struggle for human progress and peace throughout the world. The Leninist principle of voluntary learning of Russian is clearly formulated in the CPSU Program: “The process of voluntarily learning Russian alongside one’s native language that takes place in life has a positive significance, since it helps people exchange experience and enables every nation and nationality to share in the cultural achievements of all other peoples of the USSR and in world culture. Russian has in fact become the common language of interethnic communication and cooperation among all the peoples of the USSR⁴.”

⁴ Tarybų Sąjungos Komunistų Partijos Programa, Vilnius, 1961, p. 93.

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The growing role of Russian in communication among the Soviet peoples in no way means that the use of national languages is being infringed or restricted, or that they are threatened with forced assimilation. This cannot happen in the Soviet country, where Leninist national policy is consistently implemented. The CPSU Program guarantees the continued free use and development of national languages on the basis of equality and mutual enrichment.

Russian has played and continues to play an important role in the development of national languages. With its oldest written traditions and as the richest interethnic literary language, it is an inexhaustible source of words and expressions from which all national languages, especially those with more recent written traditions, draw the terms and phraseology they need. Many new words and syntactic constructions are being created on the model of Russian. It helps reveal and creatively employ the potential expressive resources of national languages (possible models for word formation and combination, ways of constructing sentences, etc.). This was illustrated with concrete examples in the discussion of the development of Lithuanian literary language during the Soviet years. In the future, the influence of Russian on the development of Lithuanian will be even greater, since all the inhabitants of the republic will learn and use Russian well, and bilingualism (and often multilingualism) will become commonplace in our society.

When several languages are used, their interaction increases, especially the influence of the interethnic language. The task of linguists is to carefully observe and study how bilingualism (multilingualism) manifests itself under the conditions of our life, how the process of mutual enrichment and convergence of languages unfolds, what forms the influence of Russian takes, and what its results are. This should enrich with new perspectives, material, and conclusions the traditional study of the problem of Balto-Slavic linguistic relations, which continues to receive considerable attention in Soviet linguistics. In the future, contemporary linguistic relations between the Baltic and Slavic languages must be examined more broadly and in greater depth.

Thus, the joint construction of communism, the fraternal cooperation of the Soviet peoples, the further rapid development of socialist nations’ cultures, their interaction and convergence create favorable conditions for the development of national languages and for the growth of shared interethnic vocabulary, phraseology, and other linguistic resources. In this connection, Soviet Lithuanian linguists must devote particular attention to studying contemporary Lithuanian and its development. Only by thoroughly and comprehensively investigating the development of the Lithuanian language during the period of expanded communist construction and establishing the patterns of its further development will it be possible to guide language practice correctly, raise the level of language culture, and make language an effective instrument for building communist society.

Vilnius

SOME QUESTIONS OF THE DEVELOPMENT AND STUDY OF THE MODERN LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE

Й. КРУОПАС

S u m m a r y

The modern Lithuanian literary language is rooted in an old literary tradition, but it took shape as a national literary language only at the end of the 19th century and the beginning of the 20th. During this period, the orthography and the phonetic and grammatical systems of the Lithuanian literary language were standardized, and its vocabulary and phraseology grew. After the Lithuanian people embarked on the path of socialism, the Lithuanian literary language began to develop, become enriched, and improve intensively and comprehensively. Characteristic features of its development include: expansion of its social functions and sphere of use; stronger influence of the literary norm on dialectal and colloquial speech, and the convergence of everyday communication with the literary language; enrichment of vocabulary, semantics, phraseology, and syntax with new words and syntactic constructions; and clearer stylistic differentiation of linguistic means.

The Russian language exerts a great influence on the development of the modern Lithuanian literary language, serving as the language of interethnic communication and cooperation among all the peoples of the USSR and as a powerful instrument for the mutual exchange of cultural values among them. As a more developed, richer, and more widely used language in the world, Russian serves as one of the principal sources for the enrichment and further development of the literary languages of the peoples of the USSR.

Since the Slavic and Baltic (Lithuanian, Latvian, and Old Prussian) languages are very closely related and share much in their vocabulary and grammatical structure, and since Slavic-Baltic linguistic, cultural, literary, and other ties have deep roots, Russian has played and continues to play a particularly prominent role in the development of the Lithuanian literary language.

In the Soviet era, Russian words and expressions are continuously calqued. Russian stimulates and activates word formation using the resources of the native language and mobilizes its internal resources to create necessary words and terms. The Lithuanian language is also enriched by calqued Russian syntactic constructions, phraseological units, expressions, and so on.

A characteristic feature of the current state of the Lithuanian literary language is the abundance of parallel words, terms, forms, and constructions originating from different Lithuanian dialects

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of the language, the old literary tradition, or borrowed from other languages and sometimes artificially created. The study of various kinds of parallel forms, their semantic and stylistic differentiation, and the selection of one of the parallel variants as the norm for general use—all this is one of the tasks involved in standardizing the Lithuanian literary language.

Further work on standardizing the Lithuanian literary language is highly relevant for a number of other reasons as well.

The process of rapidly replenishing the vocabulary, phraseology, and other linguistic resources also draws constant attention to questions of standardizing the Lithuanian language, prompting the study of new phenomena and trends in language development, the review of existing norms, and the introduction of appropriate additions, clarifications, and corrections in the course of further work on standardizing the Lithuanian literary language.

The modern Lithuanian literary language is used in all spheres of life and activity of the Lithuanian socialist nation. In the Soviet era, it attained a high level of development and became the heritage of the entire Lithuanian people. Its further development will proceed along the lines of growing interconnection with Russian and the other fraternal languages of the peoples of the USSR, further expansion of its social functions, and enrichment of its vocabulary, phraseology, syntax, and stylistics.

The study of the закономерности of the development of the modern Lithuanian literary language in connection with the development of the Lithuanian socialist nation is one of the principal tasks facing Lithuanian linguists.