Iš Valstybinės lietuvių kalbos komisijos veiklos

FROM THE ACTIVITIES OF THE STATE COMMISSION OF THE LITHUANIAN LANGUAGE (Prepared on the basis of the 2015 report of the Language Commission) LANGUAGE PROGRAMMES The main aims and objectives of the activities of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language (hereinafter, the Language Commission) are implemented through language programmes. Under the 2006–2015 Programme for the Standardisation, Use, Development and Dissemination of the State Language, 32 projects were carried out in 2015. A new subsite for the Language Consultation Bank was created on the Language Commission’s website. The Bank of Terms of the Republic of Lithuania was supplemented with almost 15,000 term entries. The Centre for Scientific and Encyclopaedia Publishing created an electronic database for volumes in the World Place Names dictionary series: World Place Names, volumes Asia (Afghanistan–United Arab Emirates) and Asia (Cambodia–Vietnam). At Vilnius University, the descriptions of proficiency levels in Lithuanian as a foreign language—Breakthrough, Waystage, Threshold and Vantage—were updated. At the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, work was completed on the scholarly edition of the oldest church book in Lithuania (the 1599–1621 Joniškis baptism register). A collection of scholarly articles, Problems of the History of Language and Dialectology 4, and Kazimieras Garšva’s monograph, The Lithuanian Dialects of Latvia, accompanied by a compact disc, were published. Support continued for the teaching of language for specific purposes at higher education institutions, research projects, state language courses for Lithuanian residents whose native language is not Lithuanian, and the preparation and publication of thematic pages in the journal Native Language. A total of 550 Lithuanian studies publications in 38 titles were purchased for higher education institutions and public libraries. Under the 2011–2020 Programme for Research into the Functioning and Change of Standard Lithuanian, Dialects and Other Language Varieties, 15 projects were carried out. Several particularly relevant research projects begun in previous years continued to examine contemporary language, standard language, and the interaction and change of dialects and other language varieties. Vilnius University supplemented the electronic research resource Historical Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language. Klaipėda University completed the expansion of the Database of Maritime Terminology in Use. The Institute of the Lithuanian Language prepared the publication Valerijus Čekmonas: Language Interaction in Lithuania. A total of 68 Lithuanian studies publications in 3 titles were purchased for higher education institutions and public libraries. BENDRINĖ KALBA 89 (2016) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351–7204 JŪRATĖ PALIONYTĖ. Iš Valstybinės lietuvių kalbos komisijos veiklos | 2 LEGAL PROTECTION OF THE STATE LANGUAGE Proposals were submitted to the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania to clarify certain concepts and their definitions, as well as the wording of several articles, in the draft Constitutional Law on the State Language of the Republic of Lithuania. The proposal of the Research Council of Lithuania that the draft Constitutional Law on the State Language provide for the possibility of Lithuanian researchers submitting the scientific part of the documentation for research funding applications only in English was not supported. At the request of the Committee on Legal Affairs and Law Enforcement of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania, the Language Commission submitted its opinion on draft Law No. XIIP-1653(2) of the Republic of Lithuania on the Spelling of Names and Surnames in Documents. In assessing the draft, the Language Commission adhered to the same positions set out in its opinion on draft laws No. XIIP-1653 and No. XIIP-1675 of the Republic of Lithuania on the Spelling of Names and Surnames in Documents, submitted to the Seimas at the end of 2014: the names and surnames of citizens of the Republic of Lithuania must be written in Lithuanian characters in personal documents, although certain exceptions may be made in response to the needs of society and citizens. Such exceptions are proposed for persons who have acquired citizenship of the Republic of Lithuania: their names and surnames could be entered in personal documents issued by the Republic of Lithuania in Latin characters, in accordance with the source document (a personal document issued by another state); exceptions are also proposed for citizens of the Republic of Lithuania who marry foreign nationals and take their surnames, and for the children of such spouses. To encourage the development of Lithuanian terminology, the Ministry of Education and Science and the Research Council of Lithuania were invited to recognize the preparation of explanatory terminology dictionaries in various fields of science as research work and to incorporate this provision into the Methodology for the Assessment of Research (Artistic) Work of Research and Higher Education Institutions. The National Courts Administration was provided with provisions on the use of personal names in court documents, formulated by summarizing discussions at interinstitutional meetings held by the Language Commission. A new Programme for the Use, Standardization and Dissemination of the State Language for 2016–2018 was prepared. STANDARDIZATION AND EXPERT ACTIVITIES In 2015, the Language Commission held 8 meetings and its expert subcommittees held 87 meetings. Approximately 260 expert opinions were prepared on the correctness of personal names, place names, names of institutions, words and phrases, and on the interpretation of the meanings of words and sentences, among other matters. 29 were assessed BENDRINĖ KALBA 89 (2016) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 JŪRATĖ PALIONYTĖ. Iš Valstybinės lietuvių kalbos komisijos veiklos | 3 names of residential areas, approximately 380 street names; the Address Register was informed of the accentual features of 17 newly registered residential-area names. Approximately 200 questions concerning personal names were examined, mostly regarding the formation and alteration of surnames and the giving or changing of given names. Terminology. At meetings of the Terminology Subcommittee, 1,605 terminology entries from legal acts (mostly drafts) and other documents were considered, as were terminology queries submitted by European Union institutions through the single-window system (34 terms), nine manuscript terminology dictionaries, one draft Lithuanian terminology standard, 1,643 Lithuanian biological nomenclature names, and other matters. The review of version 4.4 of the European thesaurus Eurovoc focused on terms in the fields of transport and documentation. At meetings of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language, nine terminology dictionaries, three dictionary supplements, and two terminology standards were approved; 1,287 terminology entries (197 sets of terminology entries) were endorsed. These were terms from legal acts in areas overseen by state institutions, including the environment, energy, finance, defence, culture, social protection, law, transport, communications, the economy, health, public safety, agriculture, fisheries and food, among others. More than 300 consultations on terminology and the replacement of foreign words were provided by email and telephone. Those consulted included translators, editors, and terminologists from European Union institutions, as well as civil servants from Lithuanian institutions, employees of private organisations, and other interested parties. A resolution was adopted amending the Rules for the Evaluation of Terminology Dictionaries, along with a resolution recorded in the minutes amending the General Requirements for the Compilation of Terminology Dictionaries, and recommendations on the names of certain plants, amphibians, and molluscs. During the year, 1,287 endorsed terminology entries (197 sets of terminology entries) and 10 recommended terminology entries (one set of terminology entries), used or proposed for use in legal acts or other documents, were published in the Terminology Bank of the Republic of Lithuania (http://terminai.vlkk.lt). In addition, 1,120 Lithuanian biological nomenclature names recommended by resolutions recorded in the minutes of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language were added to the Bank. The Bank was supplemented with entries from the Explanatory Dictionary of Electrical Engineering and Electronics Product Terms, the electronic Lithuanian–English and English–Lithuanian Psychoanalysis Glossary, the Explanatory Dictionary of Timber Terms, the Explanatory Dictionary of Clothing Terms, the Dictionary of Linguodidactics Terms, the Explanatory Dictionary of NATO Terms, and the Explanatory Dictionary of NATO Medical Terms AMedP-13(A), as well as terms from 29 terminology standards (5,372 terminology entries). BENDRINĖ KALBA 89 (2016) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 JŪRATĖ PALIONYTĖ. Iš Valstybinės lietuvių kalbos komisijos veiklos | 4 Personal Names and Place Names. The Names Subcommittee considered issues of current interest to citizens concerning the normative status of given names and changes to surnames, and discussed dialectal name forms and the core of the Lithuanian name stock. It considered a Recommended List of Frequent Names of Baltic Origin. At joint meetings of the Names and Grammar Subcommittees, they discussed material prepared by the European Union institutions’ working group of Lithuanian translation specialists on “The Practice of Using Personal Names from Other Languages and Problems in Translating EU Documents into Lithuanian.” A draft of the Provisions on the Grammatical Adaptation of Personal Names from Other Languages was prepared. Lexis. The recommended List of Equivalents for Foreign Words was supplemented. The Dictionary Subcommittee considered reviews and the entries themselves for the letters B, Č, D, E, F, and Z in the Dictionary of Standard Lithuanian. Grammar. The Grammar Subcommittee considered the gender of indeclinable nouns of foreign origin with the stressed ending -ė (ateljė, foje, esė, turnė, etc.). It approved the provision in the Grammar of Contemporary Lithuanian and the 2002 book Language Advice, Grammatical Forms and Their Use, that such nouns should be avoided with masculine-gender words. The Subcommittee also considered the assessment of morphological variants of certain nominal forms (akmenio, smailas, kuom, etc.); such variants are to be regarded as inadvisable and should not be included in the Dictionary of Standard Lithuanian. It began considering the results of a study into how Lithuanian syntax standards and recommendations (set out in the case booklet of Language Advice) relate to contemporary usage. At meetings of the interim “Translation Guide” Subcommittee, the final version of the section Cases and Prepositions, Cases, in Part II of the Translation Guide for European Union Institutions was considered. Stress and Accentuation. Taking into account data from research on accentuation tendencies, the Pronunciation and Accentuation Subcommittee began reviewing its accentuation recommendations. Proposals to refine the accentuation standards for certain nouns, adjectives, and adverbs were considered. Problematic issues concerning common and proper words were also considered, and there was discussion about the pitch accent of the stressed diphthongs el, er, eu in international words. Textbook Evaluation. The Textbook Evaluation Subcommittee considered 14 manuscripts for general education textbooks, comprising 16 books in total (two textbooks were in two parts). Six books were immediately awarded a mark certifying linguistic correctness, three books were returned to publishers for revision, and seven were manuscripts of textbooks being reissued, for which only comments were provided. Since 30 April 2015, the Textbook Evaluation Subcommittee of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language has also evaluated the language of higher-education textbook manuscripts. The Subcommittee evaluated four higher-education BENDRINĖ KALBA 89 (2016) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 JŪRATĖ PALIONYTĖ. Iš Valstybinės lietuvių kalbos komisijos veiklos | 5 the language of textbook manuscripts: the language of one textbook did not meet the requirements for correctness, while that of three textbooks met them only in part. OTHER ACTIVITIES During the year, about 38,400 language consultations were provided, including about 16,480 online and about 22,000 by telephone. The State Enterprise Centre of Registers received 17,431 consultations through a dedicated electronic system concerning the compliance of the names of legal entities with the norms of standard Lithuanian. The Language Consultation Bank’s database was supplemented with 452 new entries during the year (it now contains over 12,000 headwords). On 13 January 2015, the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences presented a study conducted by the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language on the Lithuanian language in doctoral studies. It was found that, at some higher education institutions, the requirement in the Regulations on Doctoral Studies concerning the correctness of dissertation language is implemented only in part. An assessment of the language of 714 doctoral dissertation summaries found that 17 percent did not meet the requirements for correctness, while 31 percent met them only in part. Based on the findings of studies of the language used in higher education textbooks, master’s theses, and doctoral dissertation summaries, the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language submitted proposals to the Ministry of Education and Science and the Research Council of Lithuania on ensuring the correctness of Lithuanian in research. The State Commission of the Lithuanian Language held two seminars for editors of higher education textbooks on “Current Issues in Editing Research Publications” and a seminar on terminology. The seminars addressed current issues of spelling, punctuation, syntax, and terminology, and included discussions and consultations on editing higher education textbooks. The Subcommission on Language Technologies considered five project proposals from various institutions and organizations and submitted them to the Ministry of Transport and Communications of the Republic of Lithuania, proposing that they be included in the list of projects funded under the 2014–2020 Programme for the Development of the Information Society, “Digital Agenda of the Republic of Lithuania.” The projects concern the creation of a Lithuanian-language digital environment, the development of language technologies and resources, and the accessibility and dissemination of electronic language services. A new version (3.0) of the “Palemonas” font was published on the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language website VLKK.lt. On 5 February 2015, the Committee on Education, Science and Culture and the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language held a conference in the Seimas entitled “The Twentieth Anniversary of the Law on the State Language.” The State Commission of the Lithuanian Language was one of the organizers of the joint international conference of the Lithuanian Terminology Forum (LTF) and the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, held on 4–5 June, entitled “Scientific, Administrative and Educational Levels of Terminology” (together with the European Commission’s Directorate-General for Translation BENDRINĖ KALBA 89 (2016) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204 JŪRATĖ PALIONYTĖ. Iš Valstybinės lietuvių kalbos komisijos veiklos | 6 the Directorate-General’s Lithuanian Language Department, the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, the Council of the European Union, and the Office of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania). The National Dictation Contest was held for the eighth time. The State Commission of the Lithuanian Language is one of the partners of the contest’s organizer, the public institution Pilietinės minties institutas. Assistance was provided to the organizers of the national student competition “Clean Language – Clear Mind.” On October 7–9, Daiva Vaišnienė, Chair of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language, attended the 13th annual conference of the European Federation of National Institutions for Language (EFNIL) in Helsinki. The conference focused primarily on administrative language, which should be clearly understandable to citizens, straightforward, concise, and correct. Received 2016 12 23 JŪRATĖ PALIONYTĖ State Commission of the Lithuanian Language Gedimino Ave. 60, LT-01110 Vilnius [email protected] BENDRINĖ KALBA 89 (2016) www.bendrinekalba.lt ISSN 2351-7204