Kalbininko Algirdo Sabaliausko garbinga sukaktis

Mr. ZINKEVIČIUS. Honourable anniversary of the linguist Algirdas Sabaliauskas 367 ZIGMAS ZINKEVIČIUS CALVINIST ALGIRDO SABALIAUSKO On July 26, 2009, Professor Algirdas Sabaliauskas, a distinguished Lithuanian linguist, correspondent member of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences, author of numerous scientific and science-popularizing books and articles (his list of works comprises about two thousand bibliographical units!), awarded with two Orders of the Grand Duke Gediminas of Lithuania, a doctor of sciences with habilitation, turned 80 years old. He was born in Marijampole. In 1948, he graduated from Rygiškiai Jono (now Rygiškiai Jono) High School. Among his teachers was the Lithuanian linguist Jonas Kalbelka, whom Jubiliejus met again while studying Lithuanian studies at Vilnius University, where he was most interested in the history of the Lithuanian language. He remembered the young man with greedy eyes in the front bench carefully noting every thought the teacher said. He was actively involved in the Lithuanian language club and was elected its president. At the meetings he read reports on athematic verbs (the topic of his future diploma thesis) and the consonant root of nouns. An important event was a visit to Riga with a lower-year student, who later became a well-known Lithuanian language researcher, Jon Kazlauskas. Then black met with the great Latvian 368 LANGUAGE CULTURE | 82 with the linguist Janis Endzelynas. All this encouraged A. Sabaliauskas to take an interest in Latvian studies. He learned well the Latvian language. Later he translated several books of Latvian writers into Lithuanian and was elected a foreign member of the Latvian MA. In 1953, during his last year at the university, he began working at the Institute of Lithuanian Language and Literature, with which he later associated his entire life. He graduated from the Institute with a doctorate (then called a postgraduate degree), wrote and defended the candidate and later the doctorate (now habilitation) theses. He worked in the Department of Language History and Dialectology all the time – he went from junior research associate to senior researcher; From 1997 to 2000 he was the director of the restored Lithuanian Language Institute. He has done a great deal of research on the history of Lithuanian words. He has published numerous articles and major studies on this subject. His doctoral dissertation was on the origin of agricultural plant names in the Baltic languages (1958), and his habilitation thesis was on the study of the lexicon of the Baltic languages (1975). He published three major studies in this field: The Development of the Lithuanian Language Lexicon, The Names of Domestic Animals in the Baltic Languages and The History of Livestock Terminology in the Baltic Languages. In 1990, he published a comprehensive work on Lithuanian language lexicon. He was interested in Baltic borrowings and baltisms in other languages and studied them. The second area of work of A. Sabaliauskas, to which he devoted a lot of time and energy, was the history of the study of the Lithuanian language and the Baltic languages in general. He published numerous articles and articles on this topic, summarized everything in the two-volume work The History of Lithuanian Language Research: Volume I – until 1940 (published in 1979), Volume II – 1940–1980 (published in 1982). It is the most comprehensive and best history of Lithuanian and Baltic linguistics in general. The author was awarded a State Prize for it. A third book is currently being written, which will review the research on the Lithuanian (Baltic) language in recent decades, carried out after 1980. All this is supplemented by the booklets: Baltų kalbų tyrinėjimai (1986) and Rytų slavų kalbininkai lituanistikos baruose (1990, with Jon Palionis), as well as the popular ones – Kaip tyrinta lietuvių kalba (1984), Mes baltai (1986, 22002, English translation We, the Balts, 1993). He has published numerous articles in this field in Lithuania and abroad: about Lithuanian language researchers, research institutions, organizations, important Lithuanian and Baltic studies publications, events, especially in encyclopedic publications (in the Lithuanian Language Encyclopedia (1999) alone there are as many as 563!). This gives us the right to call Algirdas Sabaliauskas the Nestor of Lithuanian linguistics, the most famous popularizer of Lithuanian studies. What does it mean to participate in such a foreign publication as Lexicon Grammaticorum: Who‘s Who in the History of World Linguistics (Tübingen, 1996; member of the editorial board). Mr. ZINKEVIČIUS. 369 As the greatest popularizer of Lithuanian language science, Algirdas Sabaliauskas published numerous articles of a different popularization nature and published books of interest to the public: Words Travel (1962, 21993), Words Tell (1965), Words Come to Life (1967, 21980, 32000, English translation 1973; Japanese linguist Ikuo Murata translated individual chapters of this book into Japanese!), A Hundred Language Riddles (1970, 22001). In 1994, he published another booklet for young learners, telling about the origin of words – Where do they come from? All this expanded people’s horizons, popularized the Lithuanian language and Lithuania abroad, raised the self-esteem of Lithuanians themselves, showed interest in the Lithuanian language in the wider world. Jubiliatas also accomplished considerable work in other fields of Lithuanian language science, for example, with Kazis Morkūnas he studied the language of the inhabitants of the Curonian Spit, wrote about practical Lithuanian language matters, published articles on language culture, spelling, morphology. He actively participated in the language section of the Lithuanian History Society at Vilnius University. His important series of lectures on television about the origin of Lithuanian words, Lithuanian language researchers, etc. He contributed to the preparation and editing of collective works. Since the founding of the scientific journal Baltistica (1965) he has been a member of its editorial board. He is one of the authors of the book Vladimiras Toporovas ir Lietuva. He was a member of various philological, bibliographical publications editorial boards, all kinds of councils, committees, commissions. He was involved in organizing the Baltic Conferences. He served as the president of the Lithuanian State Examinations Commission at Vilnius Pedagogical University (formerly the Institute) for about 30 years. He gave lectures to future teachers of Lithuanian language and literature, as well as to the general public. Algirdas Sabaliauskas has the most contacts with foreign colleagues of all Lithuanian linguists. The author of these lines was fortunate to communicate with Jubiliatus for more than 50 years. It's enough time to get to know the person well. We never forget our trip to Tartu in 1975 to congratulate our friend, Estonian linguist Paulius Ariste, on his 70th anniversary, our trip to France in 1986 to visit the famous Lithuanian scientist, one of the founders of semiotics, Algirdas Greimas, our frequent communication with our sincere Lithuanian friend, the great Russian linguist Vladimir Toporov, etc. In some cases, I had to convince myself of Jubiliatos sincerity, goodwill, friendliness. It remains only to wish Him good health and creative energy so that He can finish all that He has planned to do.