Terminologas Stasys Keinys

The Lithuanian Language AUŠRA RIMKUTĖ Institute celebrated the ww 70th anniversary of the famous Lithuanian terminologist Stasys Keinys on September 20, 2006. A beautiful anniversary is an opportunity to commemorate the life and work of an extremely hard-working linguist. Stasys Keinys was born on September 20, 1936 in the village of Pakalupis in Viekšniai village of Mažeikiai district. In 1954, he finished high school. He studied Lithuanian language and literature at the Faculty of History and Philology of Vilnius State University (now Vilnius University) from 1954 to 1959. After graduating, he began working at the Institute of Lithuanian Language and Literature. The Institute of St. Kenis was invited by the famous Lithuanian linguist Jonas Kruopas, who organized the work of language science and terminology. This invitation was fatal for St. Kane. A few years later, he joined the University of Vilnius. From 1966 to 1975, St. Keinys worked at the Kaunas Western Faculty of Vilnius University. In 1968, he successfully defended his PhD dissertation (nostricated in 1993) entitled „Types of construction of Lithuanian monosyllabic terms“, and in 1975 he was awarded the title of associate 246 Aušra Rimkutė | Terminologist Stasys Keinys professor. In 1974, J. Kruopa invited St. Caine to return to the Institute of Lithuanian Language and Literature. He's coming back forever. He returns to his favourite work of lexicography and terminology. The years at the St. Caine Institute were the most creative for him. From 1976 to 1992 he was the Vice-Chairman of the Presidium of the Terminology Council of the Lithuanian Academy of Sciences. He headed the Department of Contemporary Lithuanian Literary Language (1987-1989) and later the Department of Language Culture and Terminology (1989-1991). Besides all this, St. Keinys — an excellent teacher — taught at the Kaunas Western Faculty of Vilnius State University, Šiauliai Pedagogical Institute, Vytautas the Great University, and still works at the Lithuanian Studies Faculty of Vilnius Pedagogical University. The Lithuanian Language and Literature specialization teaches morphology of the current Lithuanian language, word formation to bachelors, terminology to masters and doctoral students, language usage and normalization to masters students. He supervises coursework, diploma, bachelor and master thesis, doctoral committees and doctoral students, is invited as an official opponent of theses. It is hardly possible to briefly cover all the diversity of his scientific work... We can distinguish the following main areas of scientific activity — word formation, morphology, terminology and lexicography. The work of St. Cain's lexicography is very important. He is the chief editor of the third (1993), fourth (2000) and fifth (2003) revised and supplemented editions of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language Dictionary. In 2002, the fourth edition of the Contemporary Lithuanian Language Dictionary was published on CD, and in 2003 it was made available on the Internet. The computerized fifth edition of the dictionary is intended for schools. At the Infobalt 2004 exhibition this dictionary was chosen as the best Lithuanian lexicographic publication, and at the end of 2005 St. Kane was awarded the Language (Felicia) Prize for the computer version of the dictionary. During more than four decades of active scientific and pedagogical work, many valuable scientific articles, reviews of scientific publications, and books on language and terminology issues have been published: in Terminologijos abėcėlė (1980) the theoretical foundations of Lithuanian terminology are laid out, in Bendrosios lietuvių kalbos žodžių daryba (1999) a brief description of nominative language parts is presented, in the thematic collection of the linguist’s published terminology works over four decades (1966-2005) published in 2005, Contemporary Lithuanian Terminology, the topics of the Lithuanian terminology of the second half of the 20th century and the beginning of the 21st century are discussed —both more general, theoretical and practical — about individual terms or their groups, the use and presentation of terms. St. Kane was the editor-in-- chief of the first issue of the scientific journal Terminologija. In 1994, the magazine was renamed to The Journal of the American Medical Association. Even then, in the preface to the reader, the linguist wrote that “The Ways of Terminology—this publication was named so not by chance. It is expected that those lines will be followed by all those who need, care and value the terms of the Lithuanian scientific language and its core” (Terminologijos vagos 1994: 7). St. Keinys also devotes a lot of time to practical terminology management work. He has reviewed, corrected and edited many dictionaries of terms in various fields of science, a considerable number of terminology standards. It is necessary to mention the dictionaries of terms prepared with co-authors. These include the first Lithuanian explanatory dictionary of terminology of the glossary (1990) prepared together with Kazimieras Gaivenis, the Railwayman- ’s dictionary (1992), the Russian-Lithuanian railway transport dictionary (1997), the dictionary of social security terms (1999), the dictionary of radio electronics terms (2000), the explanatory dictionary of railway transport terms (2006) and others. St. Caine devoted much attention to the standardization of railway terminology. It is like a desire to continue the work of his father, who worked for a long time “at the railway”, but in a slightly different way... The Minister of Transport of the Republic of Lithuania appreciated the work of the creator and standardizer of Lithuanian railway terms. He was awarded the Order of St. John the Baptist. And that's not all. St. Caine's work is best illustrated by the Bibliographic Index (2006), which consists of over 600 entries. The linguist works productively, without rest —he continues to write articles, prepare books, dictionaries, teach students, supervise their work. It is not easy to talk about St. Keinis, one of the most famous Lithuanian terminologists. He does not lack the Žemaičių stubbornness, principle, agnum and endless diligence. But working with St. Kane is good and enjoyable. I would like to conclude with a quotation from his collection of articles on terminology: “The work of education, development and maintenance of terminology, as of common language in general, is unfinished. There will never be a day when all the terminology will be finalized and acceptable to everyone without reservation. If this were to happen, it would mean that not day but eternal night has come, that not only the language but also the people who use it no longer exist, so no one needs Lithuanian terminology anymore. Until the sun of language and terminology has not set (and it will never set for us!), it is necessary to cultivate the tree of terminology together with the language, carefully, devotedly, with knowledge. As long as there are creative, freshly, unconventionally thinking people, as long as there is real science, as long as there is progress, as long as there is a change in terms and their understanding, a 248 Aušra Rimkutė | Terminologist Stasys Keinys certain variation is an inevitable thing. This should be understood by everyone, because it is a sign of terminology vitality. In living people, not only language, but also terminology is alive” (Keinys 2005: 227). The fact that Lithuanian terminology is alive is a great merit of the terminologist Stasys Keinis. This is evident from his extensive activities and abundance of works. Rejoicing in the contribution of Jubiliejus to Lithuanian terminology (as well as word formation, morphology and lexicography), let us wish him strength and health on the occasion of this beautiful anniversary, working on unfinished terminology works, and continuing to successfully grow the terminology tree. Ad multos anos! LKE 1999: Encyclopedia of the Lithuanian Language, Vilnius. Keinys St. 2005: Contemporary Lithuanian Terminology, Vilnius. 1994: Terminology, Vilnius. Received 2006-12-03 Lithuanian Language Institute P. Vileišio g. 5, LT-10308 Vilnius E-mail [email protected] Terminology | 2006 | 13 249 Aušra RIMKUTĖ