Archivum Lithuanicum

Two of Simonas Daukantas’s (1793–1864) important manuscripts were intended directly for his friend Mikalojus Akelaitis (1829–1887): Notes on Nesselmann’s Dictionary (PNŽ) and Lithuanian Orthography (LKR). In addition, Notes on Laurynas Ivinskis’s 1859 Calendar (PaIK) were also directly connected to Akelaitis’s projects. Daukantas wrote two of these texts (PNŽ and PaIK) in 1858–1859, when he and Akelaitis lived at the Svirlaukis estate (Courland, today Latvia) of doctor Petras Smuglevičius. He compiled the third text later, in Samogitia (Lowland Lithuania), obviously after 1859, most probably during the last period of his life in Papilė (1861–1864). Akelaitis was a driver of Daukantas’s philological thought, an inspirer, and a creator of intellectual context. These three manuscripts of Daukantas might appear as a result of a symbolic Svirlaukis academy of the two friends. Under Akelaitis’s influence, in about 1858– 1859, Daukantas returned to his abandoned manuscript of the Great Polish–Lithuanian Dictionary (DLL, 1852[3]–1855) and significantly supplemented its letter <N> section, wrote long comments to the dictionary of Nesselmann (PNŽ), and reviewed the language of Ivinskis’s 1859 calendar (PaIK). Ultimately, in his later letter, Daukantas wrote various comments on Lithuanian orthography, mostly explaining his perspective. Still, at the very end of his life, Daukantas might have aligned one orthographic feature with the pamphlets published by Akelaitis. Daukantas used to mark some endings as <‑a> (<‑ja>), but then in Papilė (1861–1864) he switched to the West Highland Lithuanian variant <‑o> (<‑jo>), which, among others, was typically used by Akelaitis.