Lietuvos istorijos institutas

Simonas Daukantas prepared two manuscripts of his Lithuanian translation of the Fables of Phaedrus: one in the first half of 1836 (PaP), and another ten years later in about the first half of 1846 (PaPhr). Daukantas exploited two different orthographic tactics in tapping the first manuscript (PaP) as the source for the second one (PaPhr): (1) either to substitute older orthographic peculiarities for his own more recently introduced spelling equivalents (more frequent approach), or (2) just to keep them (more seldom). (1) Habitually, Daukantas modified the features of the earlier PaP manuscript: (a) <i, î> [ẹ] → <ĩ> (Ƶînau ‘I know’ → Źĩnau); (b) [i·, i] in stems <i> → <y> (būti ‘to be’ present 3‑person form [ira ‘it is’ → yra], suffixes ‑yba, ‑ybė [prekibà ‘to the trade’ → prekybaj, narsibieje ‘in valor’ → narsybie], inf. suffix <i> → <y> [mokite ‘to teach’ → môkytĩ]); (c) in stems and endings <ai, ei> (<>, <iey>) → <aj, ej> (Ƶmaite ‘Lowlanders’ → Ƶámajtej; w eislę ‘a breed’ → wejslę); (d) [ẹi] in open endings <ij> → <ĩj> (kurij ‘which ones’ → kùrĩj); (e) [ẹi] in roots <ei> → <ie> (deina ‘a day’→ dieną) and <ei> → <ĩj> (lijpę ‘[he] ordered’ → lĩjpę); (f) instr. pl. m. endings <‑ays, ‑eys>, <‑às, ‑ès> → <‑ajs, ‑ejs> (łondeys ragays ‘[with] the pointed horns’ → łąndejs ragajs; aukuràs ‘[with] the altars’ → aukùrajs); (g) <on, om, an> (<un>) [ọn, an, ọm, am] → <ąn, ąm> (spindontiomys ‘[with] the glittering [something]’→ spindąntiomis; gełombiemys ‘[with] the baize’ → gełąmbiemis); (h) inf. ending <‑te> → <‑tĩ> (důte ‘to give’ → důtĩ); (i) būti ‘to be’ past 3‑person form bů ‘was’ → buwo; (j) dat. sg. m. and adv. Lowlanders’ endings <‑ů> [ọu] → Highlanders’ endings <‑uj> [‑ui] (skaititoiů ‘to a reader’ → skajtitojuj, pasků ‘later; afterwards’ → paskuj).

Based on a study on the Czechoslovak railways and spatial planning by the German historian Felix Konrad Jeschke, the article analyses analogous processes in the First Republic of Lithuania in several respects. On the basis of published and archival documents and historiography, the article examines the takeover of the Lithuanian railways after the First World War, the preparation and implementation of development projects during the years of statehood, and the impact of these processes on the consolidation of Lithuanian space.

The article looks into five books on religious didactics published by the Calvinists in Eisleben in 1863–1865: Atsiminimas da geroje adijnoje, Nusidawimas biedna Joniuka, Prisiwertimas grieszna żmogaus ing Diewą, Wartojmas arba meginimas patis sawę and Gromata Naszłaitela ing sawa mieła Iszganitoja, which bibliographers and historians claim to have been written by Alexander Raphael Moczulski. A textological analysis has revealed Prisiwertimas not to have been drafted by Moczulski. This is evidenced in the differences in the spelling and the language of the texts covered by the analysis, the mismatched hypernormalisms, and the specific characteristics of the edits made to Biblical quotes and hymns. Certain qualities of the language in Prisiwertimas demonstrate that, unlike Moczulski, the editor of this text was under the influence of both the subdialect of Biržai and the subdialects of the northern Panevėžys region further to the west. Furthermore, Prisiwertimas features a much larger number of unique morphological forms not recorded elsewhere, which indirectly reflect the typical truncation of the ending of the Panevėžys subdialect and the resultant uncertainty on the editor’s part with regard to how certain parts of the text were to be written. The spelling and the language of the rest of the tracts covered by the analysis have a lot in common: without a shadow of doubt, they were drafted by the same person, as likely as not Moczulski. The hypercorrections that are present in the books edited by Moczulski suggest that, just like many Calvinists of the period, he was inclined to support the norms of the traditional Kėdainiai variant, even though by then the hub of Reformer activity had relocated to Biržai. Most efforts were focused on dropping the nasal reflexes of the East Aukštaitians.

The article dwells on the events of the Great Northern War (1700–1721) related to the Duchy of Courland. It focuses on the warfare in a particular region, the border area between the Duchy of Courland and the Grand Duchy of Lithuania, from the entry of the Swedes into the

The article deals with the philological polemics that took place in the Kingdom of Prussia in the 1710s as the first discourse recorded in writing that addressed matters of using the Lithuanian language in social life, covering, among other things, aspects of the policy on language and language planning. Since the process concerning the public language had the involvement of governmental officials who acted in the name of the Prussian Church and the King, and had the authority to adopt different decisions, the Lithuanian language became an object of policy on

The article addresses the development of Liudvinavas, a town in south-eastern Lithuania, which was established by Ludwik Konstanty Pociej and was granted the Magdeburg Law in 1719, in the eighteenth century. The history of the town is analysed by discussing its location (the process of establishment) and spatial structure, the town authorities (officials, voigts, the elders of Punia), and the community of its residents (its ethnic and confessional composition).

This article investigates the variation of the third person subjunctive forms būtų ~ būt and the genitive plural forms mūsų, jūsų ~ mūs, jūs in the poetical works of Christian Donelaitis (1714–1780). Following an introduction into the formal principles of Donelaitis’s poetry delineating the basic prosodic schema and rules of its hexametrical verse, the investigation turns to a detailed prosodic and syntactic survey of the distribution of the variant forms būtų ~ būt and mūsų, jūsų ~ mūs, jūs. The findings of this survey reveal that the distribution of the variant forms essentially relies on the prosodic rules of Donelaitis’ hexametrical verse and the basic rules of Lithuanian grammar (prosody and especially syntax). Observations on the syntactic level allow for the assumption that, in spite of its dependence on the prosody of hexametrical verse, the distribution of the variant forms būtų ~ būt, mūsų, jūsų ~ mūs, jūs in Donelaitis’ poetical works could reflect a more original distribution that not only applied to hexametrical poetry but to Lithuanian in general (be it natural discourse/ prose or poetry). This motivates further comparative research that should also take into account the relevant Lithuanian dialect material.