LIETUVIŲ KALBOTYROS KLAUSIMAI, III LIETUVOS TSR MOKSLŲ AKADEMIJA

THE PUBLICATION OF THE ACADEMIC GRAMMAR OF THE CONTEMPORARY LATVIAN LITERARY LANGUAGE

A. SABALIAUSKAS

The development of Lithuanian and Latvian grammars over three centuries has followed very similar paths—the same twists and turns, the same dust brought in by foreign feet. Both Latvians and Lithuanians, when discussing the history of their grammars, sometimes mention that the German historian of Latvia O. Mirbach writes in his “Briefe aus und nach Kurland...” that as early as the thirteenth century Bishop Wilhelm of Modena, upon arriving in the Baltic lands, translated Donatus’s grammar, “Ars Donati grammatici urbis Romae.” Some usually say that he translated the grammar into Latvian (Semigallian), while others say it was into Prussian. Of course, neither Latvians nor Lithuanians believe these “letters,” written in a very fine style but full of fantasy, and they still date the history of their grammars to the seventeenth century. In 1644, “Manuductio ad linguam Lettonicam facilis et certa, monstrata à Joanne Georgo Rehehusen” appeared in Riga, and in 1653 “Grammatica Litvanica...in lucem edita à M. Daniele Klein Pastore Tils. Litv.” was published in Königsberg. Several more grammars in German appeared in the seventeenth century: in 1654, in Königsberg, Klein’s “Kurtze und gantz deutliche Anführung zur Littauischen Sprache,” again; in 1685, in Mitau, Heinrich Adolfi’s (Adolphi) “Erster Versuch einer kurtz verfasseten Anleitung zur Lettischen Sprache”; and in the same year, in Riga, Georg Dressel’s (Dressel) “Gantz kurtze Anleitung zur Lettischen Sprache,” among others. All these grammars, whether their title pages bear “Lettonica” or “Litvanica,” “Littauische” or “Lettische,” share the same features, bearing the clear imprint of the social and political relations of the era that produced them. Both were written in foreign languages by foreigners, mostly German clergymen, not out of love for the Latvian or Lithuanian people; nor were they intended for them, but for their fellow ministers, so that they could more effectively preach “the word of God” and obedience to those in authority to their flocks. In this respect, Lithuanians were probably only somewhat more fortunate in that the foreigners who wrote for them knew Lithuanian better. In addition, it mattered that the very first Lithuanian writings, though religious in content, were written by Lithuanians themselves and displayed a far better command of language than the first Latvian books written by Germans. We probably will not be wrong in claiming that, even up to the twentieth century, our grammars were better than the Latvian ones. D. Klein’s grammars, after all, are much more accomplished, for instance, than those of J. G. Rehehūzen and G. Dressel, while the works of August Schleicher and Friedrich Kurschat surpass those of August By-

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lenstein (Bielenstein) and other Latvian grammars of that period¹. The situation changed in the last decades. In 1922, a summit still not soon within our reach emerged in the history of Latvian grammar: Jānis Endzelīns’s “Lettische Grammatik.” In 1938, the same author’s “Latviešu valodas skaņas un formas” was published. In 1951, the Latvians published J. Endzelīns’s great grammar in Latvian, with additions; and now they have also brought out the first volume of an academic grammar of the contemporary literary language².

The appearance of this volume is the result of several years of intensive work by the staff of the Grammar Section of the Institute of Language and Literature of the Latvian SSR Academy of Sciences. The authors of the work are A. Ahero, A. Bergmanė, A. Blinkena, R. Grabis, M. Lepika, R. Melbiksė, A. Mikelsonė, T. Puorytė, M. Saulė-Sleinė. The editorial board: A. Bergmanė, R. Grabis, M. Lepika, E. Sokolas (editor in charge). The greatest burden in writing this grammar fell to R. Grabis, a distinguished cultural figure of the Latvian SSR, who not only wrote individual chapters and edited the work, but also directed the entire process of preparing the grammar. The manuscript of the grammar was completed as early as 1956. In the autumn of that year, the manuscript was discussed; in addition to staff of the Institute of Language and Literature of the Latvian SSR Academy of Sciences, the discussion was attended by university lecturers, teachers, journalists, and various other public representatives. Some Lithuanian and Estonian linguists also participated in the discussion of the manuscript, directly or indirectly. Considerable numbers of contentious questions and unresolved problems were raised in the discussion of the grammar manuscript. Among other things, the question of reforming Latvian orthography was raised very sharply. The orthographic reform, the difficult work of editing, and certain other obstacles delayed the grammar’s publication somewhat.

A grammar of the contemporary Latvian literary language of this scope is appearing for the first time. It is not only the first Latvian grammar of its kind, but also the first grammar of a Baltic language in general. In this grammar, the concept of the contemporary language encompasses not only the Latvian literary language of recent decades, but the entire period of the literary language’s development, from the last decades of the nineteenth century (during discussion of the grammar manuscript, some, such as Prof. J. Loja, proposed that this period begin in the mid-nineteenth century) to the present day. The grammar draws on an exceptionally rich body of linguistic material—the works of the finest Latvian writers, from the brothers R. and M. Kaudzīte, Apsīšu Jēkabs, and Rūdolfs Blaumanis to the masters of Soviet Latvian literature. Folklore, scholarly prose, and periodicals are also widely used.

Since the grammar is normative in nature, diachronic phenomena are touched on only briefly, usually only in cases where they are directly connected with particular

¹ For a description of Latvian-language grammars, cf. R. Grābis, Pārskats par 17. gadsimta latviešu valodas gramatikām. — Valodas un literatūras instituta Raksti, 5, 205—266, Rīgā, 1955; R. Grīsle, 17. gadsimta gramatikas kā latviešu valodas vēstures avots. — Valodas un literatūras instituta Raksti, 7, 245—255, Rīgā, 1958; R. Grīsle, Rēhehūzena gramatika un pret to vērstais Einhorna raksts. — Rakstu krājums, veltījums akadēmiķim profesoram dr. Jānim Endzelīnam viņa 85 dzīves un 65 darbu gadu atcerei, 479—526, Rīgā, 1959; J. Endzelīns, Latviešu valodas gramatika, 22—23, Rīgā, 1951; J. Endzelīns, Ievads baltu filoloģijā, 67—68, Rīgā, 1945; A. Bielenstein, Die lettische Sprache, 1, 20—28, Berlin, 1863; J. Niedre, Latviešu literatura, 1, 76—78, Rīgā, 1952.

² Mūsdienu latviešu literārās valodas gramatika, 1, fonētika un morfoloģija, Latvijas PSR Zinātņu Akadēmijas Izdevniecība, Rīgā, 1959, 830 psl.

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facts of the literary language. The task of treating linguistic phenomena historically was quite a complex one for the authors of the grammar. It is hardly possible, perhaps, to write a more extensive grammar of contemporary Latvian without any elements of historicism. The authors of this grammar did not avoid historicism either. Yet historicism is no discordant note in the account of contemporary language phenomena; on the contrary, it helps us understand them better. Lithuanian elements, which help shed light on particular facts of Latvian, are inseparably connected with this historicism. On this occasion, it should be noted that Lithuanian elements and questions concerning the relationship between Latvian and Lithuanian are found in many earlier grammars of Latvian, while the reflections of some authors of earlier Latvian grammars on the kinship of Lithuanian and Latvian are extremely interesting, and it is hard to resist quoting them here. As early as the eighteenth century, Gothard Friedrich Stender wrote in his grammar: “Die Lettische Sprache ist eine Schwester der Litthauischen. Ich berufe mich nicht bloß auf die Aehnlichkeit ihrer Benennung, indem Litwa, wie die Litthauer ihr Land nennen, und Latwi, wie sich die Letten nennen, ziemlich ähnlich lauten, sondern hauptsächlich auf die Uebereinstimmung beyder Sprachen… Beyde Sprachen, sowohl die Lettische als die Litthauische, sind Abstämmlinge von der Slavonischen”³. And Christoph Harder, supplementing G. F. Stender’s grammar, “explains” this question in an even more intriguing way: “Nach dieser Hypothese ließe sich nun auch wohl erklären, wie die littauische Sprache eine Schwester der lettischen seyn kann. So wie die Letten ursprünglich ein russischer Stamm waren, so waren die Littauer ein pohlnisches Volk. Noch jetzt ist die russische und pohlnische Sprache sehr verwandt: wahrscheinlich in jenen Zeiten noch mehr. Nimmt man nun an, daß irgend ein Stamm des deutschen Volks sich hier als Kolonie niederließ, so ist es ja ein geringes, auch noch weiter anzunehmen, daß diese Kolonie nicht blos längs dem Ufer der Ostsee, wo die Letten wohnen, geblieben, sondern auch tiefer ins Land zu den Littauern gegangen sey. Wo sie nun ihre Sprache mit der russischen vermischten, da entstand die lettische Sprache; wo sie solche aber mit der pohlnischen vermischten, da entstand die littauische”⁴. A. Bielenstein, who surveyed Latvian grammars in his own grammar, points out as a shortcoming of these grammars that their authors failed to compare facts of Latvian with facts of Lithuanian and Slavic (“…die fruchtbare Vergleichung mit dem Litthauischen und Slavischen meist ganz unterlässt”⁵). Of course, this shortcoming cannot be attributed to A. Bielenstein’s own grammar...

³ Lettische Grammatik, verfasset von Gotthard Friedrich Stender..., Zweyte Auflage... 9—10, Mitau, 1783. (The Latvian language is a sister of Lithuanian. I base this not only on the similarity of their names—that Litwa, as the Lithuanians call their country, and Latwi, as the Latvians call themselves, sound quite alike—but above all on the correspondence between the two languages... Both languages, Latvian as well as Lithuanian, are descendants of the Slavic languages.)

⁴ Notes and additions to the Latvian grammar of the Reverend Provost Stender, by Christoph Harder, second and enlarged edition, 10—11, Mitau, 1809.

(According to this hypothesis, one might also explain how the Lithuanian language can be a sister of Latvian. Just as the Latvians were originally a Russian tribe, so the Lithuanians were a Polish people. Even today Russian and Polish are closely related languages; in those days, they were probably even more closely related. If one assumes that some tribe of the German people settled here as a colony, it is not much of a stretch to suppose that this colony remained not only along the shore of the Baltic Sea, where the Latvians live, but also moved farther inland among the Lithuanians. Where they mixed their language with Russian, the Latvian language arose; where they mixed it with Polish, the Lithuanian language arose.)

⁵ A. Bielenstein, Die lettische Sprache, 1, 28, Berlin, 1863.

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fault, since, as the Latvian philologist Krišjānis Ancytis aptly observed, he wrote his grammar with A. Schleicher’s Lithuanian grammar on his desk⁶. We find many Lithuanian elements in J. Endzelīns and K. Mühlenbachs’ Latvian textbook, which went through thirteen editions (“Latviešu valodas mācība”); needless to say, they are also found in J. Endzelīns’ comprehensive Latvian grammar, from which K. Būga urged “his compatriots” to learn their native Lithuanian⁷. Nor are Lithuanian examples absent from the academic grammar of contemporary Latvian literary language. These examples highlight the distinctive features of Latvian, and some Latvian phenomena—for example, the division of verbs in the third group of the first conjugation—would simply be impossible to understand without Lithuanian examples. The examples are chosen very well, and accent patterns are marked (only a few words have been “shortchanged”: missingis (p. 120), brīnas (p. 249), antaras (p. 460), daugiau (p. 709).

The phonetics section of the grammar is relatively short—just fifty-five pages (pp. 17—71). Yet it presents the features of contemporary literary Latvian phonetics very concisely and clearly, with a broad readership in mind and avoiding excessive use of diagrams and charts. In describing sound articulation, the authors drew on Associate Professor A. Laua’s experimental study “The Phonetic-Phonological System of Contemporary Latvian Literary Language” (“Mūsdienu latviešu literārās valodas fonētiski fonoloģiskā sistēma”).

Morphology begins with a substantial chapter on word formation. In this chapter (pp. 75—374), following some introductory remarks, noun suffixes are examined, with suffixal endings treated separately (-a, -e, -is), as are the suffixes of international words. The formation of nouns with prefixes and semi-prefixes (puspriedēkļiem), as well as compound nouns, is surveyed. The formation of adjectives and verbs is then treated separately. There are no separate chapters on the formation of other parts of speech; questions of their formation are discussed in the relevant sections on those parts of speech. The chapter on parts of speech (vārdu šķiras) (pp. 375—815) treats, in turn, the noun, adjective, numeral, pronoun, verb, adverb, preposition, conjunction, particles, and interjection (izsauksmes vārds).

Although these chapters discuss phenomena of contemporary Latvian, researchers of other languages will also find many interesting facts here. Linguists specializing in Lithuanian will find particularly valuable material in this book, since many of the phenomena are entirely analogous to facts of Lithuanian, while those that are wholly foreign to Lithuanian are also very interesting. Both kinds of phenomena vividly illustrate the independent development of two closely related languages and the main trends of that development.

Not being a specialist in Latvian, it is difficult to criticize the authors on any specific points concerning the structure of the work or the arrangement of its material, let alone individual linguistic facts. Here we will point out only one or two minor details that caught our attention while reading the pages of this work.

⁶ K. Ancytis, Kādas valodnieciskas polemikas simtgadu piemiņai,—Rakstu krājums, veltījums akadēmiķim profesoram dr. Jānim Endzelīnam viņa 85 dzīves ir 65 darbo gadu atcerei, 303, Rīgā, 1959.

⁷ K. Būga, Nation and Word, 1, 423—424, Kaunas, 1923.

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On p. 44, the formulation concerning the use of narrow e, ė is not entirely precise: “...vedu (no senāka vežu), metu (no senāka mešu) u. c.” The reader may understand that Latvian vedu < vežu, and thus du < žu, and so on.

On p. 106, in discussing nouns with the suffix -enis, the word ķermenis is also given, with the explanation that it is a loanword from Old Prussian (ķermens). A reader less familiar with the history of Latvian may think that Latvians received this word from the Prussians, whereas it was introduced into Latvian by Atis Kronvalds (1837–1875), several centuries after the extinction of the Prussian language.

On p. 424 it is stated that the word (the underlying noun) from which the adjective pilns derives is obsolete, whereas p. 155 says: “piltuvis (blakus verbam pilt ar nozīmi „kļūt pilnam“). Thus, the relationship between the words pilns and pilt is quite unclear.

Lithuanian visas should be accented visas, not visas (p. 531), while Old Prussian vissa would more correctly be written vissa (p. 531).

It should be written visų geriausias, not visų—geriausias (p. 465).

Lat. jā-, by means of which the necessity mood (vaizdžibas izteiksme) is formed, is, in J. Endzelīns’s opinion⁸, most likely (perhaps!) the old common form of the genitive and ablative of an io-stem pronoun, rather than of the genitive and dative, as stated in the grammar (p. 615).

On p. 704, it may perhaps be claimed too boldly that the adverb vakar derives from the singular locative⁹.

It is also quite unclear why several editions of certain literary monuments are cited in the text of the grammar, for example: Kaudz. 1 — Mērnieku laiki, Rīgā, 1913; Kaudz. 2 — Mērnieku laiki, Rīgā, 1949; Kaudz. 3 — Mērnieku laiki, Rīgā, 1954, or V. L. 3 — Zvejnieka dēls, Rīgā, 1947; V. L. 12 — Zvejnieka dēls, Rīgā, 1956, and so on. In each case, one edition must be the most authentic and should be cited.

Latvian-language specialists, who welcomed the new grammar with great interest, will no doubt examine it carefully, highlight its strengths, point out its shortcomings, and identify inaccuracies. Yet even now it can be said that the work in question is a highly significant page in the history of Latvian grammars, and that the modest authors of this grammar, whose names appear only in small type and not even on the title page, deserve very positive recognition.

⁸ J. Endzelīns, A Grammar of the Latvian Language, 886, Riga, 1951.

⁹ Cf. K. Būga, Rinktiniai raštai, edited by Z. Zinkevičius, 2, 183, Vilnius, 1959; K. Ulvydas, Lietuvių kalbotyros klausimai, 2, 82, Vilnius, 1959.