TERMINOLOGIJA IR DABARTIS

Jonas KLIMAVIČIUS

WORDS AT THE CROSSROADS. I

1. Heritage and inheritance; legacy and monument, relic

The word paveldas (pãvelda, pãveldu, pãvelde) is probably a coinage by lexicographer Antanas Lelis—in his “Lithuanian and English Dictionary” (Chicago, 1915) we find: paveldas = pavaldas — inheritance (although in the reverse section inheritance — paveldėjimas, paveldėjystė, and heritage — paveldėjimas; palaikas; tėvonija), while in his “Polish and Lithuanian Dictionary” (V., 1919) dziedziczność is paveldas. A variant with a vowel change—pavaldas—may soon have proved somewhat unclear, but the adjective pavaldus — héréditaire — erblich — наследственный was still offered by Stasys Šalkauskis in his “General Terminology of Philosophy” (K., 1938) and Vilnus Peteraitis in his “Lithuanian-English Dictionary” (München, 1948)—hereditary, inheritable; in the biological sense, Petras Avižonis used pavaldumas. They did not take hold, but neither has paveldumas M and G 1982 10 28, and paveldus does not exist at all. The entire sparse, though expanded, usage of pãveldo, mostly from the interwar period, is given in the academic LKŽ IX—1. “the totality of an organism’s innate characteristics, acquired from parents, predecessors; inheritance”; 2. “legacy”; 3. “cultural or everyday-life achievements of past generations, used by later generations”: Ideological heritage DŽ. Proudly stood paveldas in both editions of the normative DŽ (1954 and 1972) as well. There, the first meaning is precisely the one listed last in the large dictionary—1. “achievements of material and spiritual culture that are passed on to later generations; legacy”: Ideological heritage. The second is biological, and in DŽ also Lysenkoist, antigenetic—2. “the totality of an organism’s innate characteristics, acquired from parents, predecessors and capable of changing under environmental conditions; inheritance.” The legal meaning “legacy” is rightly not given here. However, pãveldas had not become a term for culture or genetics either; thus the Dictionary recorded not actual, stable usage, but outdated attempts to use the word.

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In actual usage, what was alive was not the bookish ideological heritage, but legacy—3. “works, monuments, phenomena of the past”: Cultural legacy DŽ₂. Of course, legacy was judged in various ways, negatively too, for example: The dark legacy of the past fades day by day LKŽ VII.

During the years of the Revival, historian Rimantas Vebra was the first to question the legacy of culture and history: “The concept of ‘legacy’ does not entail an obligation. Both an individual and a society that has received a legacy have the option of choosing what to take from it for life ahead and what to discard” (“Vakar inės naujienos”, 1989 10 2). Yet this is supposedly destruction, contempt for experience, voluntarism—“society, in assessing the past, cannot throw anything onto history’s rubbish heap. It can only restrict or suppress certain phenomena and processes and seek their decline, while creating the most favorable conditions for the development of others, the ones it prefers. Thus, we are dealing not with a legacy, but with inheritance! Therefore, we should rely on concepts such as ‘historical inheritance,’ ‘cultural inheritance,’ and so on. The concept of ‘inheritance’ would help shape historical thinking more precisely, and the understanding that just as a child inherits its parents’ genes, society likewise inherits the genes of former generations <~>” (Ibid.). Almost the same was published five days later in “Literatūroje ir mene” (1989 10 7), except that it has inheritance of history, inheritance of culture. “Vakar inėse naujienose” also contains an “Editorial note” (I have no doubt these are remarks by linguist Regina Venckutė, patron of “Kalbos kampelis”). It briefly makes two points: 1. One can inherit not only genes but also property, and one can do all sorts of things with it: “that we have irretrievably lost so much, squandered it recklessly, is hardly the words’ fault...” Quite right, but alongside the word recklessly we must add maliciously. Martynas Purvinas speaks with precise clarity: “But the characteristic classical view stood out: the then customary division of legacy into ‘ours’ and ‘not ours’; the ‘struggle against survivals’ coincided with the strategic aims of the Soviet system: creating a new world by rejecting the old legacy” (“Kultūros barai”, 1992 7 — 8 64). 2. Better would be not inheritance but heritage: “by saying ‘cultural heritage,’ ‘heritage of history’ or ‘historical heritage,’ we would emphasize continuity and transmission more; therefore, this noun could indeed be considered the more precise word <~>”.

Thus heritage is an inherited legacy, but it too may lack an “aspect of obligation.” Consequently, the necessity of cultural heritage is not indisputably justified.

However, cultural heritage already exists. There was a little of it even 10 years before R.

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In Vėbra’s article. In the 1979 “Lithuanian-English Dictionary” by B. Piesarskas and B. Svecevičius, heritage – heritage, legacy: cultural heritage - - cultural heritage (although there is also cultural legacy – cultural heritage, legacy of the past – the heritage of the past).

Of course, the easiest thing is to install heritage administratively. And so it was done, e.g.: Lithuanian Cultural Heritage Protection Council of Kaunas L ir M 1989 48 13, Cultural Heritage Inspectorate A 1991 38 4, Cultural Heritage Center of the Monuments Management Department L ir M 1992 3 12, Heritage Reconstruction Division of the Cultural Heritage Department LA 1992 72 1. The phrase protection of cultural heritage spread most rapidly LA 1991 92 5. Of cultural heritage only heritage: heritage protection L ir M 1990 36 2, Šv 1990 19 26, LA 1990 85 4, heritage care A 1990 13 9, heritage marking LA 1990 120 4, heritage problem A 1990 13 9; even in administrative names: Heritage Care Council A 1990 13 9, Heritage Council A 1990 14 8. Perhaps following the West, cf.: Heritage Foundation (Heritage Foundation) in Washington LA 1991 91 3. <-> John Major accepted the resignation of David Mellor’s (Deividas Meloras) heritage minister LA 1992 189 2.

However... Even the heritage specialists do not know how to stress it—publicly they often say pavėldas, and even muddle it completely: paveldas – pavėlda. I wonder how they stress the quite understandably formed word paveldininkai A 1990 14 8? Vladas Drėma says: “And who came up with such a word? Paveldas like kuvelda! (Laughs.) Legacy. A sufficiently comprehensive concept” (“Literatūra ir menas”, 1990 12 01). The form is distorted, and the meaning of the concept is disregarded, e.g.: “The fourth volume of ‘The History of the Lithuanian Language’ has appeared; <->. <->. Alongside the excellent geographical ‘Atlas’ of the language, this is another brick in the heritage of historical grammar” (“Literatūra ir menas”, 1991 07 13, A. J. Greimas).

Of course, cultural heritage is also used non-administratively, and even unconventionally, e.g.: The East usually meant when contrasted with the West is the heritage of the cultures of the Middle East, which have unceasingly succeeded one another from the ancient Sumerians and Akkadians to contemporary Islam P 1990 10 110.

In general, the new usage of heritage is very broad. There are also some quite peculiar usages here. The meaning of heritage is becoming more concrete, e.g.: Manors—the cultural heritage of the feudal period LA 1990 85 4. The Old Town—a part of the heritage, <-> A 1990 13 9; and it also becomes indistinctly abstract, e.g.: Now, when political ties have weakened, it is becoming clear that we are bound by blood only through that heritage

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thanks to LA 1990 81 3; and it becomes mythologized and poetically exalted, e.g.: And do you know, it was not the feeling that faded,/ only flower petals scattered—/ you did not see your native yard yesterday,/ the grasses along the fences of Stebeikėliai,// healing both people and the Homeland,/ growing from sacred heritages—/ no one exalted them, they were trampled/ at the foundations of our strength L ir M 1990 17 10, M. Karčiauskas.

The range of meanings of heritage, as it became a term, suddenly expanded and perhaps grew broader than that of the former legacy—it now includes natural, historical, religious, economic, and other heritage: the World Heritage List currently contains 322 cultural and natural heritage sites located in 69 countries KB 1992 3 53; And what is the fate of Lithuanian heritage in Kaliningrad Region LA 1992 147 15; Our historical and ontological heritage ŠA 1991 8 1; The heritage of Lithuanian history LA 1992 229 1; The PRC is regarded as a precious heritage of the Chinese people; <-> M ir G 1990 1 14; national heritage LA 1993 139 12; ethnic heritage KmT 1989 82 1; material on the resistance heritage LA 1992 112 9; Independence on the Nemunas and Daugava—the beautiful flower of our eternal ideal—the heritage of millennia of Baltic struggles Vlt 1992 9 7; military heritage LA 1992 70 8; religious heritage LA 1992 51 3; Christian heritage Mt 1992 1 124; Catholic heritage GK 1990 15 6; Orthodox Byzantine heritage P 1990 10 111; The most precious things of our nation, such as freedom, its desire and pursuit, and a resolute commitment to truth, are the heritage of the Church GK 1990 15 6; The elders who have preserved the heritage of faith pass it on to the young LA 1993 68 5; continuity of economic heritage A 1990 44 12; economic heritage being restored Vlt 1991 6 5; Our legal heritage; <->—a panopticon of legal anachronisms LA 1992 13 7. It is clear here that the development of the meaning of heritage proceeds not along a genetic, biological line of motivation, but a social one, sometimes even producing a “testamentary” offshoot, e.g.: reclaimed the land by inheritance LA 1992 116 6.

It is characteristic that the number of instances of that heritage which might be closest to cultural heritage is probably the smallest: scientific heritage LA 1992 71 4; architectural heritage KB 1992 3 51, Rusnė’s architectural and urban heritage LA 1991 75 7; the heritage of Lithuanian poetry Mt 1992 4 80, S.Geda; heritage literature, heritage books KB 1992 1 3.

It quickly became clear what was wrong. At first, perhaps this was inevitable. But it is truly bad that the problems have not diminished over the course of three years.

1. There is an abundance of all kinds of heritage, but it has not yet taken the place of legacy assigned to it by the pioneers of heritage. Parallel to legacy

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Adopting it in the second or even fourth year shows excessive sluggishness. E.g.: heritage. “Ethnic culture, like culture as a whole, consists of historical legacy (heritage), accumulated in manuscripts and museums, as well as living tradition” LA 1991 209 9; “cultural and natural heritage”, but “natural and historical legacy,” again “historical and natural heritage” Vlt 1993 5 6, Č. Kudaba. To this day, the word legacy is also used no less often on its own: “Lithuanian cultural legacy” KB 1992 5 59; “the peasants are part of the historical nation, with a real claim to the political and cultural legacy of historical Lithuania” KB 1992 7—8 103. In some contexts, perhaps legacy will remain. In “Outline of the Concept of Lithuanian Culture” (V., 1990), where cultural heritage already appears, composer O. Balakauskas and literary scholar V. Daujotytė use the term legacy (pp. 65, 69). Usage remains as it was: “manuscript legacy” KB 1992 7—8 100; “literary legacy” P 1990 9 184; “scientific legacy” LA 1990 85 4; “KGB archival legacy” LA 1992 153 4; even “the legacy of Catholicism” LA 1993 62 5.

2. In every context where cultural legacy, heritage is used, it cannot be appropriate by its very nature. It is far too rigid and clearly wrong to claim that absolutely nothing can be discarded. There is no need to discard much; things fall away seemingly of their own accord. After all, culture has stagnation, decline, even degeneration—so why call it heritage? Perhaps only to preserve examples for an exhibition of oddities and human folly. Before our eyes, an entire layer of the “culture” of social realism, along with numerous “icons” of Sovietism, vanished from our surroundings and consciousness; if they were not liked, they went for recycling, or scattered through markets and other exchanges into collections of oddities assembled by collectors around the world. They did not become heritage. Heritage exists when there is acceptance of a legacy, an heir, and confirmation of inheritance rights, when a cultural legacy participates in society’s cultural circulation. Heritage does not come to bury legacy, but only to delimit it: heritage is not the whole of a legacy, but only the legacy that has been inherited. Leonidas Žilevičius is right to write in his article “Who Will Study Russian Archives?” with the subtitle “Thoughts on Our Heritage and Legacy”: “I am not a linguist, but I believe that when speaking about our cultural heritage we cannot limit ourselves to a single word. We inherit only what our parents, grandparents, and great-grandparents left us. But if ‘friends’ or neighbours have seized inherited spiritual or material goods, and we can only look at them—and often are not even allowed to do that—I think they should be called a legacy” (“Literatūra ir menas,” 1992 04 29). He makes the distinction accordingly: General catalogue of Lithuanian heritage and removed legacy

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logue. Legacy may be somewhere unknown, undiscovered, missing, or destroyed. Heritage is inherited: a legacy that has not been destroyed, stolen, or concealed, but is safeguarded and treasured, and has an owner and a living presence. Thus there can also be heritage of a legacy; and since we must ensure that it does not decay or perish, we can also speak of passing heritage on to descendants, of heritage’s survival or the fate of heritage.

The greatest irresponsibility is the abundance of all kinds of heritage that is merely unfortunate legacy; and if we looked at it in genetic terms, as R. Vėbra proposed, it would amount to variability, mutations, degeneration: “getting rid of the legacy of totalism” A 1991 50 3; “the unenviable heritage of totalitarianism” A 1991 20 2; “suspicion is a legacy of the communist era” A 1991 20 2; “The mentality of a divided world is a legacy of communism that will continue to darken public life in Lithuania for a long time” LA 1991 75 2; “the heritage of the Soviet system” A 1991 39 3; “the burden of imperial heritage” LA 1992 236 5; “the bleak heritage of the occupation years” A 1991 53–54 3; “the cheerless heritage of the Soviet years” D 1991 38 3; “the Yalta heritage” LA 1991 87 6; “bad heritage” LA 1992 36 3; “the destructive legacy of social thought” Prsk 1991 8 498; “In Lithuania today, inert, frozen heritage is locked in struggle with a shadowy present” L ir M 1992 15 14. Nor is “restoration of destroyed heritage” appropriate. The term legacy—totalist, Soviet-era, socialist, communist—is used here too, and, for some reason, also post-communist, burdensome, and bogging one down, but less often; heritage predominates.

Conclusion: the adoption of the term “heritage” has not been smooth, and the distinction between heritage and legacy has been neither consistent nor decisive; it is unclear when the process will end.

The case of the monument is even worse. Jūratė Markevičienė was the first to urge: “<-> it would be worth abandoning the very term ‘monument,’ or at least narrowing its use. The word is not sufficiently inclusive—it denotes a memorial marker, and thus refers to only one of heritage’s functions and describes the age of a monumental object. This makes it possible to group heritage objects together with contemporary structures which, while still being formed, already represent the ‘victory of socialism’ in the aforementioned List of Monuments” (Outline of the Concept of Lithuanian Culture, p. 38).

One truth, though not stated here, might be acknowledged—a flawed system: the collective concept is legacy, and its parts are monuments. The consistent term for the parts would be remains! Yet the plural remains in standard language has unexpectedly become, for at least half its users, a word with two meanings—or even an ambiguous one: 1. “things left by the deceased; legacy” DŽ, “property left by the deceased; legacy” DŽ,; 2. “the remains of a dead person, a corpse” DŽ,; “the body of a dead person, bodily remains” DŽ,.

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“Property; legacy” DŽ,; 2. “the remains of a dead person, a corpse” DŽ,; “the body of a dead person, bodily remains” DŽ,. The first meaning (and remnant) belongs to the distinctive heritage of western Lithuania; the second is found mostly in Sovietized writing. But this was enough for the second meaning to block the first in standard language, along with the related sense, found in the writings of S. Stanevičius and S. Daukantas, of “remains of ancient culture”—a sense so well suited to legacy.

Antiquity, meaning “an old museum object,” is more closely associated with the collection of isolated remnants of a forgotten past and with unexpected discoveries; it seems even more museum-like than a monument, and, moreover, was entirely unsuited to the grandeur of demolishing the old and creating the new.

Remains, remnant did not survive, but monument is quite suitable: monuments are “witnesses to the evolution of a particular civilization or to a distinct historical event” (J. Bučas, Outline of the Concept of Lithuanian Culture, p. 43). The now most familiar sense, “memorial structure,” already found in the dictionaries of P. Ruigys and F. Kuršaitis, is not the only one. Its continuation and extension is simply the sense “remnant of the past”: cultural monuments, Stone Age monuments, monuments of antiquity, historical monuments, monuments of folk architecture, natural monuments, monuments of language, monuments of writing, literary monuments; even: the same word written with different or doubled letters is considered a phonetic and semantic monument of language J. Jurginis, Livonian Chronicles, V., 1991, p. 21. Both senses are based on the meaning found in living speech—3. “that which remains as a memento; something made, left, or given in remembrance.” “Give some apples for the monument” Skapiškis. “At least leave some apples for the monument [i.e. for the monument]” Palanga. “That old spinning wheel is our parents’ monument” Raudėnai. “I still have a monument to my mother—a kerchief” Vidiškiai (LKŽ IX).

Thus the meaning of cultural monument can be very broad, not necessarily, as J. Markevičienė claims with reference to UNESCO, “individual objects of value,” rather than “complexes,” “territories,” and so on (Outline of the Concept of Lithuanian Culture, p. 38). J. Bučas is entirely justified in writing alongside this: “a monument of the nation’s agrarian culture is a historically evolved rural landscape” (Ibid., p. 42). He too draws on an international source, but one that asserts the opposite: “The 1964 International Charter for the Conservation and Restoration of Monuments and Sites, adopted in Venice, states that the concept of a cultural monument includes both an individual work and urban- or rural-type complexes, <~>” (Ibid., p. 43). This is also the approach in the draft Law of the Republic of Lithuania on the Protection of Cultural Values: Article 24. Protection and management of territories—cultural monuments D 1992 8 7.

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J. Markevičienė’s argument that the term monument is unsuitable because some people have been appalled by monuments and because contemporary society does not always consider cultural objects worthy of attention is raised precisely when these “monuments” can be dispensed with. But would it then be an argument? Her other argument, almost the opposite, is that “this term presupposes a specific kind of museum protection, which could not and was not applied either to landscapes or to cities” (Ibid., p. 38). A couple of years later, the point is developed further: “Thus, ‘monumentalization’ is a fairly good way of separating people from their past, of making cultural heritage alien to them. After all, a traditional environment turned into an exhibit in a museum or panopticon can arouse only curiosity, wonder, or emotion, like anything that is dead. But it cannot inspire love, which requires life” (“Literatūra ir menas,” 1992 01 18). This is true; however, people were also separated from the past by the selection and classification of the legacy and its conversion into a museum-like, catalogued collection—not by the term monument, but by the fact that, as J. Markevičienė herself rightly says, “the roots of traditions were cut off” (Outline of the Concept of Lithuanian Culture, p. 38).

Of course, one is free to abandon monument; one could perhaps find other reasons, as well as certain linguistic arguments—the development of the meanings of the word monument is not linear or sequential, but branched and contradictory: in living speech, monument also has meanings that are not at all “monumental”—4. “sign, trace”: Those cottages have collapsed; not a trace of them remains Gruzdžiai (also Salamiestis, Kupiškis, Žiobiškis); 5. “someone or something that has retained only a very slight resemblance to itself (said of a person, animal, or small object that has become very emaciated or dilapidated)” Plateliai, Alsėdžiai, Šatės, Salantai (LKŽ IX).

But what has been proposed and tried in place of monuments? A thousand-and-first bore: bureaucratic heritage objects LKKM 38, J. Markevičienė; material objects of cultural heritage L ir M 1992 3 8, J. Markevičienė. More humane, but equally cumbersome, two-word expressions include heritage assets LKKM 38, as well as 42, 43, J. Bučas, though only some of these are monuments, while others are not: And all of these are cultural heritage assets, most of which have monument status and are protected by the state Ibid. 42; granting monument status to a heritage asset Ibid. 43; there is also monumental value Ibid. 43, 44, and the levels, types, kinds, and groups of cultural heritage<-> monumental value Ibid. 45.

Even after a couple of years, with a heritage studies section now established at the Lithuanian Scientists’ Union, we ourselves are still unclear about “what should be called an inheritance, what heritage, what is a cultural object, what should be recognized as a cultural asset, what

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to call a monument-protection object and what a heritage-protection object?” (Jurgis Bučas. The Object of Heritage Protection: A Brief History of the Concept of Monument. — “Literatūra ir menas,” 1992 02 22), although even protection of the past is mentioned [and the title of J. Markevičienė’s theses is Cultural Heritage (Protection of the Living Environment) LKKM 37]. And heritage assets here are not entirely clear either—perhaps a coherent system, as opposed to individual monuments, perhaps selected heritage objects: what needs protection is not the legacy in general, but heritage assets as an integrated territorial system (a legacy is what the past leaves us; heritage is what is legally due to us; heritage assets are what we select from our heritage and hold as our cultural identity (=identity). Here, too, cultural monument—an outstanding, representative, prestigious cultural asset, more than a cultural object—is not entirely rejected; it is only argued that “far more and more diverse values of the past need to be protected than the present-day concept of a monument prescribes.”

There should be no such confusion of terms, and the way out is clear. J. Markevičienė, writing about coinages in L and M 1992 3 8, could have arrived at that solution consistently. In fact, cultural studies and various related fields consistently use the whole little system of terms borrowed from linguistics—coinage, borrowing, derivative, e.g.: Advocates of coinages in the old town also rely on several lines from ICOMOS’s international charter for the conservation of historic towns VN 1988 295 2. First, Lithuania, upon becoming a monarchy, would immediately emphasize that it is not a coinage, nor even a state dating from the beginning of the 20th century LA 1990 87 6. We make use mostly of borrowed concepts (there are some fine exceptions), although, as it turns out, those borrowings are not always of good quality L and M 1983 46 6. <--> contrasting with any derivatives and behavior approved at the time was associated with opposition to socialist ideology KB 1988 9 32. <--> modernity <--> as a derivative of openness and pluralism derivative KB 1993 2--3 106. Veldinys was used in J. Baronas’s 1932 “Russian-Lithuanian Dictionary” as a synonym for heritage (наследство — parents’ inheritance, palakai, liktinė, veldinys, veldėmė, paveldas), while in S. Šalkauskis’s 1938 “General Philosophical Terminology” it appears alongside the aforementioned adjective subordinate in place of the customary heritage (veldinys — héritage – Erbe, Erbschaft — наследство, although not only in the general philosophical sense but also in a quite specific, non-philosophical sense: A hereditary disease is an unfortunate inheritance), in contemporary normative lexicography it is given a meaning, “inherited property, inheritance,” DŽ₁ (DŽ₂ – and “vel-” which is taken from an unknown usage (or perhaps J. Baronas’s dictionary?) but is not used in law

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dim”), about two decades ago it gained a firm place as a term in linguistics (K. Būga used veldėme; others later used inherited word, inherited vocabulary).

Thus, the collective concept is cultural heritage, and the individual unit is veldinys (LKŽ IX gives the rare variant paveldinys). Veldinys is much better than the non-systematic perėminys, “something that is taken over, appropriated”; Christianity’s borrowings from other religions Dž. Veldinys would also replace this plural use of inheritance: Having begun to read poetry and prose in this way, you are amazed at how many such inheritances there are—telegrams about the primordial worldview, how many prophecies and archetypal images, brought from the distant past into our days ŠA 1992 16 7.

General conclusions: The restructuring of this group of terms was begun without sufficient thought, carried out unsystematically, awkwardly and sluggishly, and left unfinished almost halfway through. It is hardly reasonable to believe that words, if considered more precise, can resolve the difficulties of practical work. Nevertheless, the work already begun should be completed decisively, after more careful consideration.

2. Work in progress and work undertaken; output and completed work; rental produce, etc.

The neologism įdarbis is a calque of Russian /задел./; its form is not quite identical, and it is better. įdarbis first appears in the 1966 “Russian-Lithuanian Dictionary of Economic Terms.” Although įdirbis is still absent from the 1967 general “Russian-Lithuanian Dictionary”: задел — 1. econ. production started; 2. reserve, surplus, excess; 3.<->. The 1982 “Russian-Lithuanian Dictionary” already includes it, but still with descriptive synonyms: задел — work in progress, production started; a reserve of started production [semi-finished goods].

Russian задел is already recorded in the 1790 academic dictionary, but its usage has still not become firmly established: the 17-volume dictionary of 1955 defines it as 1. “work pushed forward, enabling subsequent operations to be improved without interruption”; 2. “a reserve of semi-finished goods and blanks,” whereas the 4-volume dictionary of 1985 gives 1. “work begun and advanced, which must be continued”; 2. “what has been made in reserve, rather than for current production.” Encyclopedic dictionaries of terms nevertheless state clearly that it is a set quantity (norm) of unfinished production or intermediate construction work, necessary to carry out subsequent work continuously and without hindrance—not some kind of stored-up

2—880

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atsargos (Политехнический словарь.М., 1989). Antra vertus, įsidėmėtina, kad 1955 m. 17-tomyje 3aдeл žymimas spec., o 1985 m. 4-tomyje – jau šnek. – tai jau daugiareikšmiškumui ir reikšmės neapibrėžtumui plati dirva.

And in Lithuanian, too, in general standard lexicography, work accomplished is immediately explained not as specialized or economic work, but as “work begun, advanced, and to be continued further” DŽ₂. Thus, here work accomplished is something like “the initial part of production or work,” rather than “unfinished or intermediate production.” That is precisely how it was used then, when usage was still very rare: < > we are putting at least 20 percent of the living space into use, thereby laying a sound foundation T 1985 136 2. At the beginning of the national revival, work accomplished, largely through the efforts of one active economist, spread in a figurative, vague sense and provoked a reaction from linguists. In the old days people really did say I’ve got something done, I have a start, a little beginning (and a good beginning is half the work), and now, unexpectedly, energetic people latch onto the flashy work accomplished, often having merely overheard it already used as a fixed term, without even knowing it was a term. There may be nothing good in it, nor much foolishness, but it was certainly irritating and vague. Yet there is no reason to think, as Vytautas Būda does (“Gimtoji kalba,” 1990 8–9 26), that work accomplished here is displacing experience, or that experience must push out the intruding work accomplished. For they are very different things: one can have plenty of experience, but not a jot of work accomplished. Work accomplished is already a result of work.

The peak of įdirbis usage has meanwhile passed, and įdirbis has become less common; another problem, however, is that it is often used ungrammatically: įdirbis į politiką, kultūrą TV 1993 01 27. Here the meaning may be closer to that of figurative contribution. It should be politikos, kultūros įdirbis (“įdirbis in politics, culture”) or someone’s indėlis į politiką, kultūrą.

For lovers of expressive language and seekers of lexical resources, and also bearing in mind the risk of paronymy, I should recall another similar word, included even in DŽ₁ and DŽ₂: įdarbis, meaning “entry into employment”: “Here, with the linen, the employment itself, and when he comes, he calls her to go mushroom-picking” Klovainiai. “She came to visit, as if on purpose, right in the middle of the hiring season” Kaltinėnai. LKŽ IV also records įdarbis from Girkalnis and Gružiai. Without doubt, it is related to įdirbti, sense 3, reflexive: “to plunge into, become engrossed in work”: “Once he gets down to work, he won’t even go to eat” Bartninkai. “He has worked hard indeed to investigate and understand this matter” Jablonskis (LKŽ II₂).

Thus įdarbis is the work itself, the process, while įdirbis is its result, its quantity. Somewhat different from įdirbis is išdirbis in the sense of a total quantity: “the amount of work completed, output; what has been produced; finished production.” It also differs from the polysemous word, now obsolete except in dialects or written texts

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the word išdarbis (išdarbė). In dialects, its most common and potentially useful meaning for the standard language is that of quality—sense 4: “method or quality of workmanship”: “These ploughshares are of poor workmanship” Alksnėnai. “They pay according to the quality of the work: do a better job and you’ll get more, do a worse job and you’ll get less” Joniškėlis (LKŽ IV).

Another, different dialectal term is žemės išdarbis, “renting (or leasing) land on a sharecropping basis, as though in return for work in repayment”; its opposite is nuodarbė, “letting out for payment or work in repayment” (in the Samogitian dialect, nuodarbė – nūdarbė also means “work, the fruit of work.” “Whose work is that chest?” Šimkāčiai, LKŽ VII) and—together with nuodarbis (including dialectal variants)—means “working the land, carrying out fieldwork.” Nuodarbis also means “success in work”; there is also the adjective nuodarbūs, 1. “favorable, suitable for work”: nuodarbūs metai, nuodarbi vasara; 2. “quick at work, working as one should,” and the corresponding adverb nuodarbiai, “properly, neatly, consistently, through to the end,” as well as the written form nuodarbiui, which has the specialized, necessary meaning “for work performed, on a piecework basis.” “They pay by the piece” (LKŽ VII; nuodarbis, nuodarbūs and nuodarbiai are also listed in DŽ₁ and DŽ₂).

Here we see how closely folk and scholarly terminology are connected, how many resources the living dialects offer, and what unexpected possibilities—useful for terminology—the characteristic Lithuanian alternation of root vowels provides.

3. Neither black-and-white, nor monochrome, nor color

When color photography began to spread, the films were color too. Although in fact films are not colored; they only become so after development. The same is true of photographic paper. The opposite of “color,” ~colored—whether of film, paper, or a photograph, as well as of cinematography, a motion picture, a slide, a copy, or a copying or duplicating device—is most appropriately non-color, ~colored, not ordinary, ~ordinary. This is how it is most often used, though the ordinary form is often used incorrectly: non-color (=non-colored) cinema KV 1992 43 1; copying: color (=colored) and non-color (=non-colored) LA 1992 251 6.

For some reason, things changed in the age of television. LTE XI gets it right: color and non-color (monochrome) television, but then comes the muddle: color and, unfortunately, non-color-image (monochrome) television. By primitive logic, here too a color television is not at all

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color, while a non-color television was insistently called a color one by journalists for a very long time—the blue screen (perhaps the blue screen was used by chance, VN 1984 225 3) [various attempts were made to distinguish it from a cinema screen: large and small screens L 1981 37 7; the blue (television) screen and the large (cinema) screen T 1983 294 4; the large cinema mirror and the small video screens KmT 1987 185 2; S. Valiulis, the home screen KV 1977 33 1]. The naming of the kinescope caused even greater confusion. FTŽ, which gives color and non-color television, unfortunately writes color kinescope. LTE V has the tolerable kinescope for color television, and the wholly unsuitable kinescope for black-and-white television. PolŽ. gets everything right: color and non-color television, color television set, color and non-color kinescope. NŪE is entirely consistent too: color and non-color television set (90, 92), color (91) and non-color (90) kinescope [only the non-definite forms are used incorrectly: color reversal photographic film, color negative film, and non-color negative and reversal photographic film 412; color and non-color paper 413; color and ordinary photographs 412]. According to the simplest logic of language and common sense, the kinescope and set are named for the kind of image they show: color and non-color. If our sense of language cannot manage this simple matter, then not only these words but language itself is at a very bleak crossroads. If a color television set or kinescope is hard to understand, then many things will trip us up and bewilder us—hard and soft water, a hard and soft cow (and in Eastern Aukštaitian a cow “flows”—hence one “lets the cow go”), a horse with hard jaws, a pig that is hard to fatten, hard wheat to thresh, rich soil, a rich joke, speaking richly, high interest, dry wine (i.e. sharp, astringent—German herber Wein), dry borscht (made without meat), a dry fast (without milk too), a dry Mass (without Communion—see F. Rablė. Gargantiua ir Pantagriuelis/Vert. D. Urbas. V., 1970, p. 591, 826), a dry law, a dry result, a dry drowning victim (“one who first faints, then suddenly sinks. Because of spasms of the vocal cords, water does not enter their lungs” NŪE 251), warm color, cold weapon, loud hall, fast road, live flesh, live weight, slaughter weight,... And have doctors, journalists, and translators nearly wiped out deep sleep? How many users of scientific terminology could say what light sleep is? [light 9. “restless, sensitive, alert (of sleep)” LKŽ V]. And are to lose or sleep through a cow, a hayfork, eye drops, rat poison really so unlike bee venom? And trees explode?

Newspapers are a real jumble: color and non-color-image tele-

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vision T 1990 43 4; color- and black-and-white-image television sets, “black-and-white” “Šileliai” LR 1990 44 1; a black-and-white image VŽ 1990 18 2; a black-and-white photograph VN 1990 38 1, A 1990 35 8, L ir M 1990 30 3, R 1990 259 2; black-and-white photographs LA 1992 243 3; black-and-white lithographs SMD 1993 76; even black-and-white and colorless cinema TMkt 1978 62 4; black-and-white image Ašr 1990 10 30 (and the “black white” style of video clips there too—that’s the real problem!).

Black and white is sheer nonsense. It is like darkly light, redly blue... An animal that is black with white is black-and-white patterned (white with black is white-and-black patterned) (dialect kė́ršas); a bay animal with white is bay-and-white patterned, gray (that is, light, dark, or bluish gray) with white is gray-and-white patterned; brown with white is brown-and-white patterned; white with mixed dark hairs is roan (figuratively, “rather old”) [reddish roan or grayish, greenish is frost-colored, ~a]. A bird or dog that is black with white or white with black is pied, although pied has a broader meaning too: “of various colors” (a bird with spots, finely mottled, is speckled). It is troubling that now perhaps only songs still have dappled pigeons, while dog breeders, especially amateurs, keep writing marble Great Dane, black-and-white Russian spaniel, black-and-white collie puppies.

And some journalists’ eyes turn black and white into a fashionable cliché: “But this black-and-white courtyard, like something from a photographic plate, has a peculiar charm for me” LR 1990 30 2—perhaps it is graphic, or simply variegated, gray? “Black-and-white” understanding of the historical period since 1918 T 1990 216 3—perhaps one-sided, categorical, unscientific, superficial? Equally incorrect and fashionable is newly old: <-> a familiar portrait of the newly old ruling class in post-communist countries LA 1992 168 7. Though at least a correct form does occur: An old new empire is in the air LA 1992 165 5. <-> flattery of the old new authorities is revived LA 1992 253 4 [These arise from the paradox (the good) new is the forgotten (the good) old; incidentally, this is often semantically distorted beyond recognition: new is well-forgotten old, novelty is well-forgotten antiquity see “Gimtoji kalba,” 1991 10 12]. Equally incorrect are the currently fashionable reddish brown (brownish red) or whitish red. This semantic and existential abracadabra would be grammatically correct as red browns (brown reds), white red, though highly unusual.

Even the white-black squares of chess and checkers, R 1990 93 6, must be black and white.

Flags and pennants are just as thoughtlessly and foolishly named: blue-yellow VN 1990 188–189 4, LR 1990 184 1; red-black

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LR 1990 184 1, red and blue LA 1991 252 6, white and red LA 1991 200 3, white and blue KV 1992 51 3, white and yellow LA 1992 204 3. Let us get this firmly into our heads, although it should already be perfectly clear: such adverbial combinations with adjectives express shades, not combinations of colors. Shades of the kind described here by these combinations cannot exist.

It is also written with a hyphen or dash: a white-and-red flag A 1991 415, white-and-red — white flag LA 1992 60 1, red — white — green LA 1993 29 9. This is also how combinations of colors in clothing or uniforms are expressed: Skirts <~>. These color combinations are popular: black-and-white, blue-and-white, green-and-red, sorrel-colored (=of sorrel or brine⟧)-green, purple-and-green, and so on. Rytų Lietuva, V., 1992, p. 167. Art historians also write without hyphens: There is no doubt that the sheet’s decorative force is highly evident. The harmony of black, white, and red is fundamental in itself LA 1993 14 16.

The 1938 Constitution of Lithuania states: National colors—yellow—green—red (quoted from: Lietuvos valstybės konstitucijos. V., 1989, p. 59). The current Constitution of the Republic of Lithuania (V., 1993), unfortunately, has an unusual form: The colors of the State flag are y e l l o w, g r e e n, r e d (p. 13). The rules in “Lietuvių kalbos rašybos ir skyrybos” (V., 1992), pp. 54–58, allow a h y p h e n here, although the examples are thematically ungrouped, one-sided, and inadequate—as they contain no combinations of flag colors or other colors, or various mixtures (e.g., mosaic oak-ash-mahogany parquet, apple-currant-cranberry juice, linden-blossom-mint tea). Writing without conjunctions or separators is appropriate only for fixed paired expressions: morning and evening, day and night, great and small, a tall father.

To be fair, 60 years ago, in the very first issue of “Gimtoji kalba” (1933 1 12), the question of whether a Russian-Lithuanian dictionary was correct was answered in the affirmative. But the argument is weak. It relies on the combination black-red, whose primary meaning is “red through blackness” [thus a shade; for this sense of pro, see pro IV 1. “indicating a partial quality of an object” LKŽ X; one also says red shows through the black, ~a], in an unusual, accidental sense of “black and red in color,” and also on the compound a black-red kerchief, “with black and red checks.” This is an unusual usage, merely an instance of use, an occurrence. LKŽ IV juodraudonis means only “dark red.” The respondent himself writes idiomatically—with black and red checks, not black-red. And the dictionary has long been Russian-Lithuanian, not Russianly Lithuanian.

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4. Važis Is Not a Cart

What is a važis? It seems a strange question—whatever one travels in or hauls with is a važis, supposedly a cart. That is how one stumbles, of course, over something not entirely straightforward. That would be half the trouble—can anyone know and be able to do everything? The real trouble is forgetting the proverb: if you don’t know, don’t say it; ask.

Thus it is written, perhaps in the hope of “shortening” the language: So the horses return. <~>. Happy, during his holiday, to have had a ride with a horse in a sleigh or a važis, and to have gone riding T 1976 75 4. <~> morning važiai set off, carrying kefir to the shop A 1990 39 8. It is no secret that every group has hardworking, conscientious, and talented people who “pull the whole važis” Ibid. 6. From the forms tu -inių (rytmetinių važiu!), and these inappropriate quotation marks, I infer carelessness with language. But even a poet makes mistakes and misleads children: Having harnessed the važis,/ The gray mare./ Sister Elenytė/ Set out on her way K. Kubilinskas. Mažųjų metai. V., 1972, p. 319. The translator is mistaken: Ah, if only he had seen the praetor’s važis, high up,/ rolling down the middle of the road, amid dust, wearing Jupiter’s robe/ splendidly—Juvenal. Satires/ Trans. A. Bendorūtė. V., 1983, p. 77. Greece is full of lies: that across the Hellespont there once was/ a straight bridge made of ships, and that važiai could speed across on them Ibid. 82.

An eastern Aukštaitian would laugh and be astonished, but let us open DŽ: važis (2), važys (4)—“fine holiday sleighs with seats.” Well, imagine that! Let us remember: čiužus važis. Let us turn to poetry: Snowflakes twine. The bells call out./ Like smoke, the boundless plains!/ The little važelis sings of marguerites/ In the frosty plain by the fields./ Snowflakes twine. The bells call out A. Jasmantas. Poezija. V., 1992, p. 38.

Incidentally, the Dictionary should have added the label dial.—a dialect word, or more precisely eastern Aukštaitian—a word of the eastern Aukštaitian dialect (its range is approximate, since data are still lacking: the “Atlas of the Lithuanian Language” maps only names for work sleighs, and the volume of the “Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language” covering the letter V has not yet appeared). It has not become established in standard language, and using it is risky—it may not be understood, for example: Some will sew bedspreads, others will make ornate važiai and carts LA 1990 47 3. The compiler and the Dictionary—under the word drabstinė—give a single, but unsuitable, illustration: They ride in a važis, splattering mud. Unless during the thaw, toward spring. Nor can one trust a newspaper that writes in November about riding in a važelis.

Now, having been surprised, let us come to our senses: a važis is a “sleigh”—but surely sleighs have runners! And in the area where “runners” are called lenkės (between

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Joniškis and Rokiškis, from Latvia to Rozalimas, Raguvõs, Šimonys), one travels by sleigh. Thus, entirely as expected — sleigh!

And what about a cart? Some say cart, while others say wheels; in one place, wheel, elsewhere wagon (the Latvians are very consistent: “cart, wheels” is rati, “wheel” is rienis). According to the “Atlas of the Lithuanian Language,” cart is used in the interfluve of the Nemunas and Neris (except for the upper Merkys and its left bank) and on the left bank of the Nemunas, and from the mouth of the Dubysa also along a fairly narrow strip on the right bank as far as Klaipėda. In the rest of the area, wheels is predominant, but not continuously: there are tiny enclaves where it alternates with cart, or even isolated pockets of the latter. In those areas, cart usually means not a four-wheeled vehicle, but its “body” (the expression sleigh cart is also used in this sense) or its load—the cargo (similarly, in Dubičiai, the contents of the cart are called rātine); an empty one is called vežėčia in Eastern Aukštaitian (vežėtys), but again not just any one—usually a particular type, especially a work vehicle, most often a manure cart (a hay cart is wheels; in Marcinkonys, rātinos; a fine, light one, rateliai). In the wheels region there are also more names, unfortunately, they are not Lithuanian. Wheels in the cart area also occurs, but only in phraseology.

Does wheels sound odd to anyone? Let them consult LKŽ XI; they will find something even odder—a singular wheel or little wheel, wheel, little wheel means... “bicycle.”

And not everywhere in Lithuania is there a wagon wheel; there is also a turning wheel (rarely turning wheel) — much narrower in distribution than wheels, but its southern boundary is nearby (Kintai-Šilutė-Juknaičiai-Žemaičių Naumiestis-Žvingiai-Veliuona), after which it turns north and winds considerably (Surviliškis-Ramygala -Steigviliai-Pasvalys-Biržai- Nemunėlio Radviliškis). Folklore may also contain a jumble: Rolling wheels, roll, little wheels, roll, little turning wheels Luokė (record by the ethnographic ensemble “Patal kiau vakarone”). It spins like the last of the turning wheels — might sound strange to someone who has not heard it? The turning wheel of a spinning wheel, the Samogitian spinning wheel, rātinis, rātinas — strange too. And yet even the wheel of a spinning wheel might not appeal even to some international terminology code. Yet all this is familiar, genuine, and firmly rooted in living speech. Of course, in a standard-language dictionary, turning wheels should be marked dial.; turning wheels is also unsuitable in an explanation of wheels. One can be glad that wheelwright is explained more cautiously as “a maker of wheels and wooden wagon parts.” By the way, sleighs too…

How did this come about? Apparently, travel by a runner vehicle (by sleigh, also by sled, dialectal ragėmis, rāgutėmis,...) was undertaken, by a wheeled vehicle (by wheels) — rolled along, trundled, while on turning wheels, it rolled along. Then, over time, this system changed, and the new one is heterogeneous. But it holds firmly, and no one is allowed to arbitrarily alter or mix the language data. The sleigh is a sleigh, and it is sacred.

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Abbreviations

I. Dictionaries, encyclopedias, books

DŽ₁ — Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian. V., 1954

DŽ₂ — Dictionary of Contemporary Lithuanian. V., 1972

FTŽ₂ — Dictionary of Physics Terms. V., 1979

LKKM — Outline of the Concept of Lithuanian Culture. V., 1990

LKŽ — Dictionary of the Lithuanian Language. V., Vol. 2, 1969. Vol. 4, 1957. Vol. 5, 1959. Vol. 7, 1966. Vol. 9, 1973. Vol. 10, 1976. Vol. 11, 1978

LTE — Lithuanian Soviet Encyclopedia. V., Vol. 5, 1979. Vol. 11, 1983

NŪE — Household Encyclopedia. V., 1987

PolŽ₂ — Polytechnic Dictionary. V., 1984

II. Periodical Press

A -- “Atgimimas”

Ašr -- “Aušrinė”

D -- “Dienovidis”

GK -- “Native Land”

KB -- “Culture”

KmT -- “Komsomol Truth”

KV -- “Kalba Vilnius”

LA -- “Lithuanian Echo”

L ir M -- “Literatūra ir menas”

LR -- “Lietuvos rytas”

M ir G -- “Mokslas ir gyvenimas”

Mt -- “Metai”

P -- “Pergalė”

Prsk -- “Proskyna”

R -- “Respublika”

SMD -- “7 Days of Art”

ŠA -- “Northern Athens”

T -- “Truth”

TMkt -- “Soviet Teacher”

TV -- Television

Vlt -- “Hope”

VN -- “Evening News”

VŽ -- “Vilnius News”

The numerals indicate years, issue numbers, and pages (TV -- date)

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