TERMINOLOGIJA IR LEIDINIAI

Principles for Regulating Latvian Terminology

A monograph by Valentina Skujin(i)a (Valentina Skujiņa), a well-known linguist and terminology specialist, written at the Latvian Language Institute of the Latvian Academy of Sciences, was published in Riga last year under this title. After defending her candidate-of-philology-sciences dissertation on the formation of Latvian technical terminology in 1969, she did not stray far from Latvian terminology, continuing to investigate questions of general terminology science, while also devoting a great deal of time to practical work on regulating Latvian terminology and, more broadly, on language culture. Thus, her entire three-decade career has been devoted to Latvian terminology and Latvian language culture. For many years V. Skujinia has headed the Institute’s Terminology and Language Culture Group and, as it appears from the outside, serves as the fairly active Latvian Academy of Sciences Terminology Commission’s scientific secretary. A thorough analysis of many theoretical and practical questions of terminology in the author’s numerous scholarly publications (articles, shorter articles, scholarly papers, etc.), together with her extensive practical experience, has been brought together and summarized in the book “Principles for Regulating Latvian Terminology”¹.

The monograph’s introduction explains what a term is and what the principal requirements for it are, offers a glimpse into the history of Latvian terminology and the principles governing it, and describes how the work was written. V. Skujinia says she gained her experience by participating in about 900 meetings of various terminology commissions and analyzing about 200,000 terms from different fields that were considered at those meetings or published in terminology dictionaries. In all, the sources used for the work include 31 terminology dictionaries, 58 terminology bulletins, and 27 other publications. The conclusions of the work are based on these materials. Besides matters that are, one might say, universally familiar and accepted, the author has already made some new observations here. For example, in discussing the requirements for terms, she identifies mononymy as a requirement, in opposition to synonymy (p. 13). It is true that the requirement itself—that concepts be expressed

¹ Skujiņa V. Latviešu terminoloģijas izstrādes principi. -- Rīga: Zinātne, 1993. — 225 lpp.

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by a single term (the principle “one concept – one term”) is old, but V. Skujinia was perhaps the first to express it concisely in a single word.

The main body of the work is set out in three chapters: internal linguistic principles, principles of language relations, and non-linguistic principles. In general, the monograph is characterized by a rigorous and consistent plan; all the subsections are designated by the word aspect. Internal linguistic (intralinguistic) principles, to which the book devotes the most space (pp. 29–127), are examined in terms of lexis, semantics, phonology, morphology, word formation, and syntax. Principles concerning language relations (interlinguistic, pp. 128–184) are considered in terms of interlingual relations (borrowing of terms), the language of closest affinity, and regional relations. The non-linguistic (extralinguistic, pp. 185–197) principles alone are surveyed according to categories that the author distinguishes in her own original way: scientific validity, scholarly regulation, cooperation between specialists and linguists, harmonization of terms, society and history, and information.

Broadly speaking, the book explores almost all the major questions of terminology theory and practice, some in greater and others in lesser depth. In her discussion and conclusions, V. Skujinia relies chiefly on research into Latvian and Russian terminology. This is easy to understand, given that the monograph concerns terminology work carried out in Latvia over the past four decades (since 1946), and especially, as V. Skujinia herself writes, during the period 1961–1990, in which the author herself was a direct participant. The bibliography also mentions the works and publications of 12 Lithuanian linguists (4.5% of all works cited): articles by K. Gaivenis, J. Klimavičius, and others, and dissertation abstracts by A. Kaulakienė, A. Sabaliauskas, A. Vanagas, and others. Incidentally, A. Kaulakienė’s article “Compound Calques in Lithuanian Polytechnic Terminology,” published in Lithuanian, was apparently entered in Russian in the bibliography by mistake. On this occasion, it is perhaps worth noting that the formation and use of calques is one of the few questions from which V. Skujinia sets her book apart (pp. 130–131), not counting those that were not the subject of this monograph in the first place (the use of terms and the compilation of terminology dictionaries).

Here and there, a Lithuanian term or other fact flashes up in the book. Unfortunately, not all of them are representative. For example, on p. 130, in discussing the possibility of comparing terms and their parts across different languages, the Latvian prefix at- is said to correspond to the Russian prefix обез- and the Lithuanian nu- (atmatošana – обезволашивание – nuplaukinimas, etc.); however, such use of nu- has long not been considered an example of good usage in Lithuanian terminology

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of the language. On p. 166, it is stated that English designer, Latvian dizainers, and Russian дизайнер are rendered by Lithuanians as braižytojas and taken to correspond to Russian чертежник (the source cited is the abstract of A. Kaulakienė’s candidate-of-sciences dissertation, but that discusses a device name whose use is not recommended). In general, the book does not avoid comparisons with other languages where relevant, although this was not the author’s aim. Her goal was to present a synchronic picture of the internal state and development of Latvian terminology itself, and she has done this well.

V. Skujinia’s book is truly rich in content, offering readers opportunities to think and reflect for themselves, to consider unclear or insufficiently studied questions of terminology together with the author, and sometimes even to disagree. The author is consistently objective, avoids empty verbiage, is able to present her ideas concisely, and explains everything clearly. The requirements of terminology and scholarly language are meticulously observed in the monograph. For greater clarity and comprehensibility, some matters are also presented in diagrams (the classification of special vocabulary, the relationship between the general vocabulary of a language and terminology, etc.).

Reading the book gives the impression that, in terms of linguistic structure, Latvian terminology differs considerably from Lithuanian terminology. Some Latvian terms seem to have considerably more complex forms; in Latvian, word combinations (multiword terms) are readily replaced by compounds. In a number of cases, such compounds would simply be impossible in Lithuanian, as with terminology terms such as defiskoptermins “hyphenated term (a term written with a hyphen),” hibrīdtermins “hybrid term,” inicialsaliktenis “abbreviation,” salikteņtermins “compound term,” strupinājumsāliktenis “truncated word, shortening,” termina kontekstmedīkarība “term’s independence from context,” termin-darinājums “derived term,” termindarināšana “term formation,” terminelements “constituent of a term,” vardkoptermins “multiword term,” and so forth. In these tendencies, Latvian terminology is more like German terminology than that of its closest relative, Lithuanian.

Some theoretical questions are also understood differently in Latvian terminology. In addition to the morphological word-formation methods familiar to us (formation with suffixes, endings, prefixes, and compounds), V. Skujinia also regards as methods of term formation conversion (the transfer of words or forms into another part of speech, usually nominalization and adjectivization in terminology), separation (the author’s term for back-formation, or retrograde formation, which is not used at all in the formation of Lithuanian terms), and appellativization (the conversion of a proper name into a common noun, for example, Oms → oms “ohm,” and even

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Rainis → rainistika, Vatmana papīrs→ vatman papīrs “vatmanas,” p. 100). In Lithuanian linguistics, it is unusual to speak seriously of forming verb names directly from nouns (bypassing the verb), while nevertheless also adding a verb suffix, as, for example, some ciematošana “settlement-ization” is supposedly derived from ciemats “settlement” directly with the verbal suffix -o- and the nominal suffix -šana (p. 84); or, in Lithuanian linguistics, the coincidence of the masculine form of an adjective and a noun, such as Latvian fakultatīvs (p. 98; in Lithuanian these words have been adapted differently -- fakultatyvus and fakultatyvas), is considered a matter of grammatical adaptation of a borrowing, not conversion (but this is not considered a matter of derivation by endings).

There is no doubt that this valuable book has benefited not only linguists, Latvian terminology organizers and users in various fields, and language-culture professionals, to whom the author dedicated it (pp. 4, 25), but also Latvian linguistics itself and general terminology studies. The more such thorough studies of the terminology of individual languages there are, the stronger and more scientific general terminology theory will be. Without such studies of individual languages, it would appear to be a collection of requirements, rules, and claims that are artificial and imposed on languages from outside, and that mostly do not accord with the actual life and usage of languages. The study of terms and systems in individual languages, of language relationships, and ultimately of the influence of non-linguistic factors usually makes it clear that these requirements and rules cannot under any circumstances be absolutized. Terminology, like language itself, is a living, changing phenomenon; its change is even more noticeable than that of many other parts of the language system and, moreover, depends more on the deliberate actions of people. All this is beautifully evident in V. Skujinė’s book as well. Thus, the pleasure of reading “Principles of Latvian Terminology Organization” turned into joy at the success of our neighbors’ terminology and of our dear colleague.

St. KEINYS

The language of abstracts in “Lietuvos fizikos rinkinys”

“Lietuvos fizikos rinkinys,” whose thirtieth anniversary was commemorated two years ago, is read by physicists and specialists in other fields of science not only in Lithuania but also abroad. Articles in it are published in Russian or English

¹ Užpalis K. „Lietuvos fizikos rinkinio“ ištakos// Fizikų žinios. 1991. Nr. 1. P. 18-19.

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