Lietuvos istorijos institutas

In 1846, Simonas Daukantas (1793–1864) published his translation of Cornelius Nepos’ Lives of Eminent Commanders (in Lithuanian Giwatas Didiujû Karwaidû, GDKs) at Christian Hintze’s printing press in St Petersburg. This study analyses the orthography in GDKs. There was a previous translation of the book by Daukantas in around 1834 (about 12 years earlier), and most of it survives in the shape of a copy by an anonymous hand. The book was printed from a later manuscript that did not survive. It is obvious that Daukantas had the earlier translation in front of him while preparing the publication. But even if he copied some features of his old orthography, he also often changed the orthography according to his later altered preferences. Another book by Daukantas published the same year (1846) was Pasakas Phedro (PaPhs), a translation of The Fables of Phaedrus. The manuscript of PaPhs was prepared in Daukantas’ own quite renewed orthography (compared to his older manuscript of the same fables Pasakas Padraus from the first half of 1836).

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).

Simonas Daukantas (1793–1864) moved to St Petersburg in 1835. Impermanence and competition of variants were typical for his orthography. During the four initial years in that city, Daukantas managed to shape at least two consecutive distinct Lithuanian orthographies of his own: (1) of the Beginning Years in St Petersburg (1835–1836) and (2) of his First Printed Books (ca. the 2nd half of 1836 to 1838). This study analyzes Daukantas’s third period of significant orthographic transformations during his residency in St Petersburg— a prolonged four-year phase of orthographic modifications that can be termed the Orthographic Switch of Proverbs (ca. 1838–1841), since the change was best reflected in the draft lists of proverbs. The major orthographic data was collected from Daukantas’s manuscript Margumynai (Miscellanea, p. 156–166, LLTIBR: f. 1 – SD 27) and printed book Abecieła Lîjtuwiû- Kalnienû ir Żiamajtiû Kałbos (The Primer of the Lithuanian Language—of Highlanders and of Lowlanders, St Petersburg, 1842). The most significant modifications within the Orthographic Switch of Proverbs were these:Orthography of Daukantas’s First Printed Books (ca. second half of

The first book by Simonas Daukantas, PRASMĄ ŁOTINÛ KAŁBOS (Grammar of Latin), was published by St Petersburg publisher Christian Hintze in 1837 (in Lithuanian). Daukantas did not use the grapheme <I> in any of his Lithuanian manuscripts, only <J>. At that time, it was assumed that while setting the text, the typesetters would expand the single <J> grapheme into two—<I> and <J>. The tactics they applied in setting (interpreting) the grapheme <J> in Daukantas’s manuscript for Lithuanian words divides the text of the Grammar of Latin into four segments: (1) <J‑> (Jwardes) pp. 1–20; (2) <I‑ > (Iwardes) pp. 21–87;(3) <J‑> (Judum) pp. 88–94; (4) <I‑ > (Iungînes), and <J‑> (Jungînę) pp. 95–126(117). Judging by the three different styles of rendering and transforming <J‑>, there might have been at least three different typesetters involved in this work. Moreover, the typesetters not only rendered and transformed the capital <J‑> into two other capital letters, sometimes they also substituted <J‑> for the lowercase letters <i‑ or j‑>. The first and the third typesetter most probably exploited analogous tactics: the first typesetter in the first segment possibly both stayed with Daukantas’s <J‑> and transformed it into the lower case letter <j‑> (jems; he set neither <I‑ > nor <i‑>); the third typesetter in the fourth segment possibly split Daukantas’s <J‑> into <I‑ > and <J‑> interchangeably and likewise into <i‑> (iems) and <j‑> (jèms). The diversity in interpretations of Daukantas’s <J‑> in the Grammar of Latin, occasionally erroneous, leads to the assumption that Hintze’s typesetters in St Petersburg did not speak Lithuanian. There was no easy way for them to make informed choices about the expected graphemes. Printed outside of Lithuania, Daukantas’s Grammar of Latin suffered additional variation due to the ignorance of the typesetters. Latin words used by Daukantas also began with the capital <J‑> when needed (one surviving page of a Daukantas manuscript “Apsirikimai” [Errata] confirms this, e.g. Jnfinitivus). Throughout the entire book, the typesetters consistently transformed it into <I‑ > (Infinitivus)— this was the usual way of representing Latin spellings. This means that the typesetters were well aware of Latin printing conventions, in contrast to Lithuanian ones. The Errata of the Grammar of Latin were most probably set by two different typesetters as well—probably by the first and the second, since on p. 129 the letter <J‑> was always (6×) used, even in the Latin words (in contrast to the expectation), and on p. 130(119)— only <I‑ > (7×). In certain cases, the typesetters reversed the direction of substitution: they turned the lowercase letters into their upper case equivalents <i, j> → <I, J> (ISPAUSTE, PARSERGIEJEMAA). But since Daukantas made an obvious distinction in the lowercase letters <i> and <j>, it was not difficult for the typesetters to represent them rather accurately. They even used the capital grapheme <Î> (PÎRMOJE) with the circumflex diacritic, which was alien to Daukantas due to his preference for <J‑> that might never attract a circumflex. The typesetters must have interpreted <î> → <Î> themselves.

Simonas Daukantas (1793–1864) introduced the letter <î> for his Lowland Lithuanian dialectal vowel [ẹ] first in gen. sg. m. flexion—from page 44 of his manuscript Historya Justina (HJ; 1834 and / or later); cf. brolî ‘(of) brother’. Approximately from page 142, the grapheme <‑î> in that particular flexion began dominating (as a morphological signifier). Then, approximately on page 242, Daukantas started to denote <‑î> more intensely in other endings as well: in instr. sg. f., iness., nom., and acc. sg. This way he began altering the morphological signifier into a phonetic one (wilontî; kapusî; essantî; diedî). Such phonetic marking of <‑î> flexions became preponderant (in gen. sg. m., iness., and instr. sg. f.) in the latest written part of HJ (in prefaces on pages 1–12) and the layer of later corrections. Further Daukantas started introducing the phonetic <î> [ẹ] more frequently into the stems of the words as well (cf. gîr; kîmiù). Daukantas decided to place the circumflex <ˆ> on the letter <‑i> in the open flexion most probably due to the influence of the Lithuanian texts in East Prussia that contained this diacritic in closed gen. sg. f. flexions on other letters (cf. Daukantas’s HJ <‑ês, ‑ôs>: isz baimês ‘because of fear’; Grecijôs ‘[of] Greece’; weczôs ukês ‘[of] old state [country]’). Sermons (Postilla) by Mikalojus Daukša (1599) could have also had some secondary influence on Daukantas’s decision to select <î>, but Daukša was mostly using <î> in the stem position, while Daukantas began introducing <î> in the endings. The initial usage of the grapheme <î> by Daukantas presupposes such approximate sequence of three manuscripts: (1) HJ pp. 13–400; (2) HJ corrections and writing of HJ prefaces on pp. 1–12; (3) Jstoriję Justinaus (JJ); and (4) Pasakas Pdraus (PaP). Most probably Daukantas chose the letter <î> at the beginning of his stay in St. Petersburg (the end of 1834 and somewhat later). The grapheme is absent from his manuscripts of the Rīga period (before the summer of 1834).

The archive of the Franciscan monastery in Kretinga has preserved many documents of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. Certain papers in these documents contain prominent manufacturers’ stamps, and their comparison to such stamps in the manuscripts of Leo Tolstoy (1828–1910) made it possible to determine the time of compilation of Great Polish-Lithuanian Dictionary by Simonas Daukantas (1793–1864) more precisely. The stamp “ФАБРИКИ № ... АРИСТАРХОВА” of Daukantas’s dictionary was also used by Tolstoy most probably starting from 1852, especially since 1853, and in the monastery of Kretinga—since 1853. Such dating suggests that the Great Polish-Lithuanian Dictionary may have been started in 1853, although more cautious judgment would make it 1852. In such way, it is safe to claim that the Great Polish-Lithuanian Dictionary by Simonas Daukantas can be carefully dated 1852–1856 (certain corrections also appeared in 1857–1858).