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To the most lexicological terminologist, Jonas Klimavičius – 80
AUŠRA RIMKUTĖ-GANUSAUSKIENĖ
Kauno kolegija
Eighty years ago, on November 26, 1938, Jonas Klimavičius was born in Suvalkija, one of those linguists known and valued not only by fellow linguists, editors, and stylists, but also by the general public. Doctor of the Humanities, linguist, terminologist, lexicologist, terminographer, lexicographer, language standardizer, promoter of language culture, editor, member of editorial boards, translator, consultant, author, expert, reviewer, poet...—these are just a few of the descriptions that fit J. Klimavičius and his diverse and extensive scholarly work. His 80th birthday is an excellent occasion to discuss the life and work of this exceptionally industrious and devoted linguist.
The jubilarian’s parents owned five hectares of land in Geruliškė village, Marijampolė district. Three other children were growing up in the family. From the age of six, he was cared for and sent to school by his aunt Marija and her husband, the Muraškauskas family from Varakiškė village,
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in Vilkaviškis district. He attended Višakiškė Primary School, graduated from Pilviškiai Secondary School in 1956, and enrolled at what was then the Vilnius Pedagogical Institute to study Lithuanian language and literature. After receiving his higher education diploma with distinction, in 1961 he began working at the Institute of the Lithuanian Language (then the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature). “Kazimieras Kuzavinis fortunately steered me toward linguistics,” J. Klimavičius has written and spoken about his teacher on more than one occasion (Klimavičius 2005: 7). His linguistic work was interrupted for almost two years, however—in the autumn of 1961, the young scholar was called up for compulsory military service. While he was still serving, his first publication appeared in print on March 1, 1962—a review of Literatūros mokslo terminų žodynėlio. “Twenty months were cut out of the beginning of my scholarly life”; this is how the jubilarian recalls the start of his career as a linguist (www.lki.lt).
For seven years, from 1963 to the end of 1970, encouraged by Jonas Kruopas, he worked with other lexicographers on the text of the large academic Lietuvių kalbos žodyno. “It is exhausting work, but also a multifaceted school of language, a true laboratory” (Klimavičius 2005: 7). This work remained with the linguist later as well: “Lietuvių kalbos žodynas (vols. 1–20, 1941–2002) is both a sacred thing to me and my foremost source of linguistic data” (Klimavičius 2005: 7). J. Klimavičius coauthored volumes VIII (1970), IX (1973), X (1976), XIV (1986), and XV (1991)—writing approximately 270 pages in all. He also contributed substantially to the second edition of volume II (1969), preparing more than 400 pages. As his work shows, Lietuvių kalbos žodynas is an essential source of linguistic data for the scholar.
Along with others, J. Klimavičius also contributed to some editions of the Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos žodyno; he was a member of the editorial board for the third (1993) and fourth (2000) editions, as well as the electronic edition published in 2002.
In 1971, the linguist began working in the Terminology Group. “I ended up there like an exile, but I took root—and later, even when invited, I did not return: I sensed that a lot could be done for the language through terminology” (www.lki.lt). Thus began his practical scholarly work in terminology: first in the Terminology Department of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language, later at the Terminology Centre, and also at the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language from 1994 to 2002, followed by its Terminology Subcommission (until 2012). A terminologist’s work, like a lexicologist’s, is difficult and exhausting. There are many topics and problems. It is probably impossible even to count the articles and shorter pieces written, terminology dictionaries and glossaries compiled, standards assessed, reviews written, and consultations provided (as early as 2008
in the published Bibliographic Index we find more than a thousand different entries1). The carefully and competently written notes improved the quality of more than one publication. These works consumed many an hour, even a day, of free time that could have been spent with loved ones.
But let us return to the beginning of his scholarly career. From 1967 to 1970, J. Klimavičius pursued postgraduate studies (what was then called doctoral studies). He did not complete his candidate’s dissertation, International Words in Contemporary Lithuanian, in time, although he had written a great deal—more than two hundred pages. The topic was very complex and broad. “He devoted too much attention to the theoretical part and to the history of international words in the Lithuanian language,” his personnel file states (Bibliographic Index 2008: 11). He continued to take an interest in international words later on: in 2010, together with colleagues Irena Ermanye, Violeta Černe, and Lijana Puziniene, he published A School Dictionary of International Words. In the book’s introduction, “International Words in the Lithuanian Language,” J. Klimavičius wrote that there is no uniform understanding of international words in Europe; he discussed published dictionaries of international words and proposed a definition of the term. He successfully defended his dissertation on December 14, 1993. But its topic was entirely different: The System of Land-Reclamation Terms. In his dissertation, the scholar examined not so much scientific systems of concepts as the linguistic-semantic microsystems of terms, discussing them from both terminological and lexicographic perspectives.
Even before the dissertation defense, in 1992, J. Klimavičius prepared the book Terminology Corrections together with Kazimieras Gaivenis, Angele Kaulakiene, and Stasys Keinis. In it, “the criteria and principles for standardizing terminology came into focus, and the book attracted several alternative reviews” (Rosinas 2008: 29).
A highly productive period of terminology research began with the scholarly journal Terminology. At first, the jubilarian was a member of the editorial board of the journal’s first issue (the first issue appeared under the title Terminology Furrows); from 1995 he became deputy executive editor, and from 2001 to 2008 he served as editor-in-chief. The linguist has mentioned more than once that editing took a great deal of time and energy.
The author of these lines had the opportunity to prepare for publication a major work—a collection of articles published in scholarly journals, Works on Lexicology and Terminology: Norm and History, which appeared in 2005. Here J. Klimavičius reveals himself as both a lexicologist and a terminologist. Above all, he was concerned to explain, at least in basic terms, a fundamental question: what is the vocabulary of the standard language? In the book, he consistently combined historical and normative approaches to research. He paid particular attention to the systematic nature of vocabulary and terminology. This collection of articles is one of the go-to books for terminologists, especially those of the younger generation.
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“I was drawn most of all to the wonderful and mysterious world of words; within its boundless expanse, my scholarly activity took shape across many branches. It all came about through circumstances (the bondage of collective projects—voluntary, of course, out of a sense of duty), temperament (drive and curiosity), and fate—the example of the Teacher, as well as of Jonas Jablonskis and especially Kazimieras Būga. Yet what probably united those many branches was a credo – theoria cum praxis, perhaps more precisely, practice with theory: theory that says nothing about the speaking person sometimes seems fruitless, unable to fertilize practice—sterile; while practice without theory is either altogether impossible or leads only down blind alleys. The normative and educational aspects, without the research aspect, are levers without a fulcrum,” the scholar writes in the preface to the book Works on Lexicology and Terminology: Norm and History (Klimavičius 2005: 7).
Throughout all those years devoted to the Lithuanian language, beginning with the first publication mentioned above, in The Soviet Teacher in 1962, J. Klimavičius published not only numerous scholarly articles in specialist academic journals—Questions of Lithuanian Linguistics (Acta Linguistica Lithuanica), Linguistics, Baltistica, Language Culture (Standard Language), Terminology—but also many more popular articles in publications devoted to language culture and education, such as Our Language, Mother Tongue, Native Word, and others. This is precisely why he is so well known to editors, stylists, and language specialists. Many pieces of advice, corrections, and suggestions were directed specifically at them. As he himself once wrote: “I took up the third part of the language-culture program I had devised in my youth [1) to develop what is one’s own, 2) to create what is new, 3) to review the old—to revise it]. I release neologisms into the world; some have taken root” (www.lki.lt). “In keeping with my credo, I did not elevate every publication to the rank of recognized scholarship—theory must always be there, but it need not necessarily be displayed up front. J. Jablonskis and K. Būga never displayed it; theory can be like a lining,” the linguist himself wrote about his work. And then there were the radio and television language segments (nearly a whole day’s worth of talking)...
The major terminology dictionaries for which J. Klimavičius served as terminologist should be mentioned separately: Dictionary of Medical Terms (1980, with K. Gaivenis), Dictionary of Electrical Engineering Terms (1999), Clothing Dictionary: Lithuanian–English–German–French–Russian Clothing Dictionary (2002), Dictionary of Construction Terms (2002), Encyclopedic Dictionary of Artillery (2004), Dictionary of Physics Terms: in Lithuanian, English, French, German, and Russian (2007), Explanatory Dictionary of Wood Terms: 3020 Terms in Lithuanian, English, German, French, and Russian (2014), Encyclopedic Dictionary of Lithuanian Ethnography (2015), and many others.
And that is not all. The jubilarian continues to work productively to this day, without respite. Yet he also makes time for his hobbies, especially writing and translating poetry—activities that are less well known. He simply writes under a pseudonym. In 2008, a collection of intellectual poetry signed under the pseudonym Klemensas Gerulis Žvaigždės kritimas was published. After this collection, he presented a gift for the jubilee of Lithuania’s name: a 20-part hymn, Tūkstantmetė Lietuva (2011). Under the same pseudonym he signed the poetic hymn Trys kryžkelės: tautos rūpintojėlio Jono Aisčio (2012), the poetry booklet Arti gimti ir amžini (2016), and the selection of sonnets, hymns, legends, paraphrases, and poems Gyvoji amžių Lietuva (2018). One can only guess how many more stanzas remain unpublished and are being written... Perhaps because of his fondness for creative writing, J. Klimavičius’s scholarly articles are recognizable by their individual style: rich language, rare words, neologisms, varied metaphors, and other artistic devices. He likes to make sharp, ironic remarks, present many meticulously gathered linguistic facts and details, and quite often invites his readers to think things through with him and draw generalizations and conclusions.
I first met Dr. J. Klimavičius in 2004 at the Terminology Centre of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language. After completing my bachelor’s studies at Vilnius Pedagogical University, I began working as a senior laboratory assistant at the Terminology Centre; a year later, I became a junior researcher. From the very beginning of my work at the Institute, J. Klimavičius and I shared an office. This was where the friendship between a Samogitian woman and a rational Suvalkian began to take root. At the time, the editor-in-chief of the journal Terminologija struck me as very demanding, somewhat reserved and somewhat mysterious, always writing something and deeply focused, yet possessed of a wonderful sense of humor and fond of surprising his colleagues with his own poems, especially on birthdays. From the very beginning of my work at the Institute, I felt J. Klimavičius’s paternal support, especially when I was writing my first scholarly articles. To this day, I remember how impatiently and anxiously (just like my other young colleagues, truth be told) I awaited the reviews of my first article for the journal Terminologijos, especially the editor’s. His comments, advice, and reprimands were very important to me. J. Klimavičius read every article carefully (more than once!), edited it thoroughly, and freely offered comments and suggestions. I remember clearly the autumn of 2007, when I asked J. Klimavičius to be my academic supervisor. He agreed. With patient, fatherly care and professional guidance, he supported me throughout my doctoral studies. The many hours spent reading my dissertation manuscript were the greatest education I could have received. In 2011, I successfully defended my dissertation, 1883–1916 m. katekiz-
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mų religijos terminija. Thus, J. Klimavičius also had a part in nurturing the small community of terminologists.
I also had the opportunity to work with the jubilarian on the Terminology Subcommittee of the State Commission of the Lithuanian Language. Here, young terminologists could see how much time the scholar devoted to considering terminological dictionaries, standards, and other texts, and so had an excellent opportunity to learn. J. Klimavičius always came prepared, having examined every term and every definition, and with an opinion of his own. His firm, principled opinions did not always please his colleagues, but they were well founded and clear, and rarely changed.
It is not easy to speak about Dr. Jonas Klimavičius—the best description of the jubilarian is his work. His works speak for themselves. Nearly six decades devoted to language, and to meticulous and consistent work in linguistic scholarship and practice. Without the work he has done, we would certainly be much poorer. And knowing that his drawers are full of materials and drafts, and his head full of ideas, we can look forward to more than one interesting and valuable work. So, on the occasion of this wonderful anniversary, I would like to wish him good health and strength as he continues to work for the benefit of his native language.
Many happy returns, Teacher!
LITERATŪRA
Balašaitis A. 2012: Kalbininkai ir poezija. – Mokslas ir gyvenimas 1, 13–15.
Dr. Jonas Klimavičius. – Lietuvių kalbos instituto tinklalapis, www.lki.lt. Prieiga per internetą: http://old.lki.lt/LKI_LT/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=186&Itemid=1 (žiūrėta 2018-09-03).
Jonas Klimavičius: bibliografijos rodyklė, Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas, 2008.
Klimavičius J. 1993: Melioracijos terminų sistema. Humanitarinių mokslų kalbotyros krypties daktaro disertacijos tezės, Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos institutas.
Klimavičius J. 2005: Leksikologijos ir terminologijos darbai: norma ir istorija, Vilnius: Lietuvių kalbos instituto leidykla.
Mokyklinis tarptautinių žodžių žodynas, Kaunas: Šviesa, 2010.
Pupkis A. 2005: Kalbos kultūros studijos, Vilnius: Gimtasisi žodis, 256–257.
Rosinas A. 2008: Žymus gimtojo žodžio tyrėjas. – Gimtoji kalba 2, 29–31.
Umbrasas A. 2008: Jonas Klimavičius – leksikologiškiausias terminologas. – Kalbos kultūra 81, 336–339.
Gauta 2018-09-04
Aušra Rimkutė-Ganusauskienė Kauno kolegija Pramonės g. 20, 50468 Kaunas E. paštas [email protected]
