Ch. Lemcheno sukaktuvių knyga

Stasys KEINYS CH. LEMCHEN’S JUBILEE BOOK Last year, Chackelis Lemchenas, a cultivator of the fields of language, turned ninety (he was born on 21 April 1904 in Papilė, in what is now Akmenė District, a place connected in one way or another with the lives of many a language worker, beginning perhaps with Kalikstas Kasakauskis and Simonas Daukantas. Who knows, perhaps the renowned pioneers of language work from that region also inspired this son of Papilė). To mark the jubilee, the Lithuanian State Jewish Museum hastened to publish a handsome book, “Works and Aspirations,” compiled by Polina Pailis and Judita Rozina, and edited and scientifically advised by Rytis Trimonis. Before the book’s title page, beside a photograph of the jubilarian, is a review by J. Jablonskis written 70 years ago, which says, among other things: “<...> there are few students who know as much about matters of the Lithuanian language as he does <...>.” Such praise from the foremost steward of the standard language would surely be gratifying to any linguist. And Ch. Lemchenas was only twenty at the time... The book opens with E. Zingeris’s brief article “A Bridge Between Cultures,” placed before the preface. It lists Ch. Lemchenas’s works of value to Lithuanian and Jewish culture, whose long-standing intermediary is the jubilarian, and recalls his ordeals. The subsequent publications are arranged in sections. The first section of the book brings together articles about Ch. Lemchenas. It opens with a congratulatory message from Z. Zinkevičius. K. Ulvydas recalls the jubilarian’s prewar work as a Lithuanian-language teacher in Jewish gymnasiums and surveys the dictionaries he wrote and edited, as well as his educational work in language culture. A. Sabaliauskas discusses in greater detail the importance of Ch. Lemchenas’s book “The Influence of the Lithuanian Language on the Dialect of Lithuanian Jews,” while V. Vitkauskas seeks to survey all his work on language. A fine bouquet of words was offered to the jubilarian by H. D. Kacas, an associate professor at the University of Oxford, journalist G. Smoliakovas, the press 1 Works and Aspirations: On the 90th Anniversary of the Birth of Linguist Chackelis Lemchenas. - V.: Lithuanian State Jewish Museum, 1994. - 208 p. 80 worker D. Gelpernas and writer G. Kanovičius. Also included here are a poem by A. Churginas dedicated to Ch. Lemchenas and a letter from his teacher J. Lazauskas. All the contributors to this section were linguists, and in addition to other aspects of Ch. Lemchenas’s work, they mention his work as an editor and terminologist. For more than three decades, the jubilarian earned his living as an editor. Among other publications, he helped bring to fruition some of the works of Lithuanian linguistics, including the fundamental three-volume academic “Grammar of the Lithuanian Language,” as well as almost all the terminology dictionaries in various fields published by the publishing house over a quarter of a century. The linguist pursued terminological work professionally; during the first few postwar decades, he participated in virtually all work in this field, one might say, apparently often having the decisive say. At the publishing house, the dictionaries of legal, library science, geological and physical geography, physics, polytechnic, land-reclamation, chemical, literary, botanical, economic, computing, meteorological, and medical terminology edited by Ch. Lemchenas were and remain significant standardizing works in Lithuanian terminology. Almost all these dictionaries were reviewed by the Terminology Commission of the Institute of the Lithuanian Language and Literature; thus, they not only introduced standard terms but also laid the foundations for the further organization of terminology in those fields and for systematic terminological work, and indicated the general direction of such work. It is immaterial that some of the terms proposed in those dictionaries failed to take root, that a number of them were later corrected or replaced, or that some dictionaries published several decades ago have by now become outdated or dated, with new ones having appeared. They fulfilled their purpose, played a major role in standardizing terminology, and served for a long time; most still serve as the principal sources of exemplary terminology in their fields. As for terms that failed to take root, many proposals by J. Jablonskis, J. Balčikonis, and other eminent linguists likewise did not spread in the language; other words and expressions became established in their place, in some cases even corrected forms. Time brings changes. But it cannot diminish the role played by those works. Amid the bustle of the splendid jubilee celebrations, no attention was paid to the fact that two translated “Dictionaries of International Words,” prepared most recently through Ch. Lemchenas’s efforts, are also of great importance to Lithuanian terminology. 81 (1951 and 1969). They did much to establish the phonetic, accentological, and grammatical adaptation into Lithuanian of many so-called international terms included in those dictionaries, to strengthen the very foundations of that adaptation; and by generously providing Lithuanian equivalents or synonyms, they showed that it was possible to do without borrowings. And what can one say of the Russian–Lithuanian dictionaries compiled by Ch. Lemchenas himself, which served as reference books for translators of books, booklets, and articles in many different fields (as shown by the warm words in a letter to Ch. Lemchenas printed in “Darbai ir polėkiai” by J. Lazauskas, who had translated some medical book). Incidentally, for the largest of those dictionaries, the four-volume “Russian–Lithuanian Dictionary,” published in 1982–1985, Ch. Lemchenas, together with the other authors, was awarded the 1987 Lithuanian SSR State Prize for Science and Technology. That matters of terminology were of considerable concern to Ch. Lemchenas is also shown by several articles he published in the journal “Kalbos kultūra” and in newspapers. Some of the linguist, teacher, lexicographer, and terminologist’s articles on this and other subjects are also included in the book under discussion, published in his honor, in its second section (it is regrettable that most of these works are printed in abridged form, while some are omitted altogether. On such a fine occasion, it would have been very fitting to spare a few more pages and bring together all the articles scattered across various publications. Now, it will probably be necessary to wait for another, even more distinguished anniversary). One might say that scarcely had the storm of war begun when, in an article published in “Literatūra ir menas” in 1951, “On the Question of Lithuanian Scientific Terminology,” Ch. Lemchenas drew public attention to the need to attend to the terminology of various fields and urged the establishment of a permanent, expert terminology commission to organize this work. In an article published in “Kalbos kultūra” in 1963, “Verbal Nouns with the Suffix -(i)acija,” attention was drawn to the fact that so-called international terms containing the suffix -(i)acija/-icija differ, at least somewhat, in meaning in some cases from the corresponding verbal derivatives with the suffix -imas. The article “Several Questions of Term Formation” (1961), after briefly reviewing what had been and was being done, raises the central issue of terminological work: “when creating new terms or regulating old ones, it is especially important to observe the laws and rules of the language- 82 “system” (p. 55); it defends adjectives formed with the suffix -inis, -ė and used in compound terms, demonstrates their functional correspondence with the definite forms of adjectives, and discusses several other matters. It should be said here that the reviewers of the chemistry dictionary, criticized in the article for considering divmolekulinis an improperly formed word, were nevertheless right. The author of the article was unable to convince readers, using either examples from the outdated DŽ (1954) or even the hand-operated sewing machines mentioned by J. Jablonskis, that it is equally acceptable to say, for example, both blue-eyed and a blue-eyed girl, that J. Balčikonis was needlessly objecting to asyndetic sentences, and that linguists could successfully use some disyllabic words (not necessarily only those they had coined themselves, disyllabic words). The laws of language that must be observed in terminological work do not support such words of mixed formation. This is mentioned here because such terms are still used and even new ones are being coined. There is even more to dispute in the claims about certain terms made in the article “On Certain Questions of Terminology,” written with A. Šuminas (1967). In this article, the authors take issue with both medical practitioners and their linguistic collaborator A. Kučinskaitė for seeking Lithuanian synonyms for so-called international medical terms. The argument repeatedly made in this article—that a Lithuanian speaker will find a Lithuanian word harder to understand than a borrowing—is strange, very strange. One cannot possibly agree with the authors’ fundamental position that it is not worth creating native equivalents alongside even well-established so-called international terms. The poor student, for whom the article expresses concern because he would have to learn all those terms, would find it even easier if medical practitioners used only Latin terms. Then there would be no need to learn them in Lithuanian at all—not even the international ones! After all, however one looks at it, the language of medical practitioners, as another prominent cultural figure, A. Žirgulys, aptly observed, bears all the hallmarks of jargon. So those who have set out to make it even somewhat more Lithuanian should be supported, encouraged, and, when necessary, advised on how best to do so. Excessive “internationalization” of a language is harmful. It is right for a Lithuanian speaker to want and strive for their language to be Lithuanian. The third section of “Darbai ir pokalbiai” consists of Ch. Lemchenas’s works on Jewish language and culture. Undoubtedly, the most significant of these is the study— 83 —“The Influence of the Lithuanian Language on the Dialect of Lithuanian Jews,” published in 1970 in a print run of 1,000 copies. Now only excerpts from this important work are printed here (again, in 1,000 copies!), unfortunately. Yet, a quarter of a century later, it would have been so fitting to reprint this entire study, indispensable to both Jewish and Lithuanian linguistics, timeless and unique of its kind, a treasury of facts that gave the writer of these lines an opportunity to reflect once again on words from the native dialect of the Curonian Lagoon region. Next (sections IV and V) come Ch. Lemchenas’s articles on cultural matters and his translations; also printed is his 1966 petition to the USSR authorities in defense of publisher Antanas Kniūkšta. The sixth section of the book consists of a bibliography of Ch. Lemchenas’s works and literature about him. It lists the books written by the honoree (15 published in all), articles (25 listed here), translations (27 publications), edited works (24 books), and a substantial collection of various publications in which he is discussed or, apparently, at least mentioned, along with his works. The bibliography will undoubtedly need to be supplemented. A glance at the subsection on edited works will show that readers will miss the 1958 “Dictionary of Physics Terms” and A. Novodvorskis’s “English–Lithuanian Polytechnical Dictionary,” as well as the large “Dictionary of Physics Terms” published in 1979. The translated “Dictionaries of International Words” published in 1951 and 1969 are also not mentioned here. It is easy to find further additions for the section on literature about the honoree. The book concludes with dates from Ch. Lemchenas’s life and career, printed in Lithuanian, English, and Jewish (Yiddish), together with notes by the editors. The publication includes a modest selection of photographs from the life of Ch. Lemchenas and his family. Since a substantial part of the book is devoted to matters of language, it is hard to resist mentioning one linguistic oddity. One article about the honoree puts it this way: “The esteemed Ch. Lemchenas lived out with dignity the years allotted to him by the Almighty. Much was accomplished, the work was fruitful, he learned and taught others” (p. 28). Without the slightest doubt that the honoree will continue to live no less well, the phrase “taught others” seemed strange. Eastern Aukštaitians, who are best at using such participles, would normally use the nominative case of the object here; they call out in a very fine, often repeated expression: 84 and A. Baranauskas: “The old forests were loved, many a song was composed; all those songs of our fathers were learned” (emphasis mine. – S.K.). Thus, not only was one taught, but others too were taught, but one was taught and others taught! Could this be the beginning of new errors in the use of non-standard-gender forms, or perhaps a Samogitian’s revenge on the Aukštaitians, who keep making mistakes when using denominative adjectives? To conclude, it is truly a pleasure to celebrate the anniversary of this distinguished figure in language and culture and to wish him many more distinguished anniversaries. On this occasion, it was a pleasure to read the interesting, tastefully prepared, and well-published book “Darbai ir polėkiai”. 85