Pranas Kniūkšta lietuvių kalbos kultūros baruose

R. VladaRskienė. Pranas whines about Lithuanian language culture in bars 331 RASUOLĖ VLADARSKIENĖ Lithuanian Language Institute Pranas kniūkšta, the long-time editor of the Lithuanian language culture publication, celebrated his 75th anniversary in the autumn of 2008. Pranas kniūkšta was born on September 24, 1933 in the village of Barzdžių, in Salantu vald, Kretinga county, into a large peasant family. He began his education at the elementary school in Skelgalve, and from 1946 he attended the secondary school in Salacgrīva, which he graduated from in 1954. Kniūkšta studied Lithuanian language and literature at Vilnius University from 1954 to 1959. This persistent and hardworking student from Žemaitija was very successful in his studies, he was interested in language science, was an active member of the Lithuanian language club, and most of his exams were rated very well. He graduated with honors in 1959. As a person with a propensity for scientific activity, he was intended to work at the Institute of Lithuanian Language and Literature, but he received a characteristic with the entry “not completely politically mature”, so he was sent to the Dieveniškiai secondary school (Salcininkai district). At first he worked as a teacher, and after a year he was the head of the teaching section. He was an active pedagogue and a good organizer of methodical work and the educational process, so he was appointed head of the methodical cabinet of the educational department of Eišiškės. 332 Languages Culture | 81 The fast-paced pedagogical career did not suppress his desire to devote himself to scientific work. In 1967, she began working at the Institute of Lithuanian Language and Literature in the current Lithuanian literary language sector. In 1971 he defended his PhD dissertation "Adjectives with suffix -inis and their grammatical synonyms", and in 1976 he published a monograph on the basis of this dissertation. Verb, meanings, grammatical synonyms. at the institute as a junior researcher, then as a senior researcher. From 1991 to 2000 he headed the language culture department at the restored Lithuanian Language Institute. Since 2002 he has been working in the institute under contract. The linguist’s research activities are diverse – he focuses mainly on current Lithuanian language usage, language culture theory and practice, language policy, and in the last couple of decades – administrative language*. works purposefully, responds to the most important needs of language practice, tries to perform every job flawlessly. Being demanding to himself and others, he principledly raises the problems of language, argumentatively proves their harm. He gained a solid basis for further research by writing the most important Lithuanian grammars: the third volume of the academic Lithuanian grammar, the grammar of the contemporary Lithuanian language, the Russian-language Гpамматика лиWhose tongue is thick. kniūkšta wrote several chapters for each of these publications. He also contributed to the preparation of the normative publication Lithuanian language spelling and punctuation. He has been working on the periodical Kalbos kultūra for the longest time – from 1971 until now, he has given it most of his strength and heart. The first acquaintance with Language Culture was in the notebook Article 13 (1967), only after starting work at the Institute of Lithuanian Language and Literature. Since 1971 he has been working more seriously: at first he helped to prepare the notebooks, later he was a member of the editorial board, compiler, editor-in-chief. he foresaw the direction of the publication, gathered the authors, meticulously edited their articles, patiently taught young colleagues to write scientific articles. As the compiler of the notebook, and later as the editor-in-chief, he cherished the principles of the publication and consistently adhered to them when writing articles himself. In the opinion of kniūkšta, the publication of language culture should raise, discuss and solve language issues that are important to all, first of all it should turn its attention to new language phenomena, research and evaluate them. ∗ The Lithuanian Language Institute published a bibliography of the linguist's works: Pranas Kniūkšta. Bibliography, Vilnius, 2008, 48 p. R. VladaRskienė. Pranas knyūkšta in Lithuanian language culture bars 333 knyūkšta articles Language culture can be divided into several groups. The most important of them, which discuss the principles of language management, raise theoretical questions of language culture. a considerable number of such considerations are in the articles dedicated to the publication itself. By writing about the works of people who have made a contribution to the language and its culture (Kazimieras Būga, Antanas Salis, Juozas Balčikonis, Kazis Ulvydas, Kazimieras Gaivenis, etc.) and their significance, the linguist also reveals his own attitude to language normative activity. The largest group consists of articles on office and administrative language, there are 25 of them. The scope of the problems examined is wide – construction and meanings of specific words and their combinations, language comments of various documents, development of Lithuanian office language. A lot was written about the names of companies, institutions and organizations, the making, abbreviation and change of literal and symbolic names was thoroughly investigated, more complicated cases of usage were explained. In addition to articles on the administrative language, there are articles on the difficult path of Lithuanian language towards becoming a state language, and later on the problems of ensuring this status, as well as on the activities of the Lithuanian language commission. He wrote a number of books on the subject, such as "The History of the English Language" (1980), "The History of English Language" (1982), "The History of English Language" (1983), "The History of English Language" (1984), and "The History of English Language" (1987). separately should be mentioned the cycle of articles on the suffix -inis adjectives. The publication of language culture is one of the most important tribunes of the linguist. In total, he wrote 90 shorter or longer articles for this publication, which is almost a third of all his articles published in the press. We hope that this number will continue to increase every year. knyūkštas was always drawn to literature, more precisely – to means of linguistic expression. He wrote articles on the language of writers and poets, read papers at conferences, and in 1981 published the book Rašytojas ir žodis. When examining the language of writers, a linguist tries to combine literary and linguistic understanding of language. and he himself is a good master of the word, especially likes to show it during various events, attracting listeners with convincing and visual language, often speaking in Žemaitija. working on the normative work of the language, knyūkšta is always in the midst of the most relevant events. In 1987–1991 he was the secretary of the Lithuanian Language Commission, and in 1992–1999 he was a member of the State Lithuanian Language Commission of the Seimas of the Republic of Lithuania. made great efforts to ensure that the status of the Lithuanian language as the state language was established not only legally but also practically. He prepared the 334 Languages Culture | 81 Words Use and Writing” (1995), which were approved as official documents by the language commission. In 1990 he published a booklet in Lithuanian, Polish and Russian Vilnius kraštas ir lietuvių kalba, based on his experience in Dieveniškiai and Eišiškės. Rules for the Formation of Company Names (1992) and their appendix “Names of relatives of names”. constantly takes care of the correctness of the public language, is an active member of the Vilnius City Municipality’s State Language Affairs Public Commission. in the work of language standardization, the book acknowledges the primacy of living language over artificial systematic rules. He warns his colleagues of the danger of over-normalization: “when we work on language management, we must leave room for language freedom. Variations of norms and their gradual change must be recognized, major (true) and minor (codification) errors must be distinguished, different requirements for different areas of language use and styles, prestigious and simple common language, ideal language norms and common language use must be recognized” (The purpose of language management is to develop language. for more than a couple of decades has been studying and standardizing Lithuanian administrative language. as an expert evaluates the language of draft documents, writes language expertise for courts, speaks in seminars on clerical language issues. The most important works in this field are the Office Language Tips prepared with the help of collaborators (there have been 5 editions of the book and the sixth – online) and the summarizing monograph Administrative Language and its Use (2005). While working on scientific and language normative work, he did not forget about school matters either: “Life after school requires laying the foundations of language and developing the reasoning that a person once received from the family and environment. Gone are the days when the main task of a teacher was to teach how to read, write and understand grammar. Now it is necessary to teach the language itself” (Lithuanian language and school, Literatūra ir menas, October 15, 1988). Perfectly aware of the great responsibility of the school in developing the language culture of society, the linguist could not remain aside. In 1983, he prepared the Lithuanian language teaching dictionary of spelling and pronunciation (with A. Lyberis). This educational tool has been revised and supplemented 10 times. another popular, repeatedly reprinted, for pupils and their favorite publication is the Lithuanian Language Handbook. kniūkšta composed it and wrote three chapters. R. VladaRskienė. Pranas kniūkšta Lithuanian language culture bars 335 linguist published scientific articles on language culture, sociolinguistics, fictional language, administrative language in the works of the Academy of Sciences, Lithuanian linguistics issues, etc. The most important of them are included in the collection of articles Language use and management. kniūkšta strives to spread language norms as widely as possible, to explain them thoroughly to ordinary language users, therefore he published many articles on topical issues of language management and policy in various newspapers (Tiesa, Tarybinis mokytojas, Lietuvos aidas, Lietuvos žinios, Literatūra ir menas, Savivaldybių žinios, etc.), magazines (Mūsų kalba, Gimtoji kalba, Gimtasis žodis, etc.), published several booklets for the public: Įstaigų, įmonių ir organizacijų pavadinimai (2004), Viešieji užrašai: po dokumentus ir Vilnius gatvės pasižiūrėjus (2006), Naujosios skyrybų taisyklės. What they give and what we need to understand ourselves (2007), News on the rules of drafting documents. Corrections and corrections (2007). kniūkšta constantly emphasizes that the work of linguistics must be based on practice, that the most relevant phenomena must be examined first. constant efforts to harmonize language theory, practice and the needs of users have led to the fact that the works of the linguist are valuable not only for linguistics, but also necessary for society, as evidenced by the repeated (and not once) publications of the works prepared by Kniūkšta. On the occasion of this beautiful anniversary, I would like to wish the strong, significant work done by Žemaitija new ambitions, creative energy and strong health.