Evaluation of language policy in Lithuania

In order to assess whether the language policy implemented in Lithuania corresponds to the expectations of the language users, they were asked to provide their opinion as part of the sociolinguistic survey Cities and Languages. The total reluctance to learn languages was rather surprising: only one in five residents of cities expressed a desire to learn various languages. The fact that 14% of very young people consider themselves first and foremost citizens of the world and Europeans can only be seen as a manifestation of globalisation. The most surprising result of this survey is that half of all respondents would like their children to attend bilingual i.e. Lithuanian/English schools. Separate language policies are developed for the languages used in Lithuania. A common integrated programme which contains a forecast of the prospects of all languages more actively used in Lithuania and a vision on an integral language policy is required

Public opinion and language policy

The paper sets out to examine if the present language policy responds to the society's needs. A conclusion is made that presently Lithuania has no general policy of all languages used in the country; it only has a certain attitude formed towards the state Lithuanian language and legal basis established for the state Lithuanian language. Any other language can adopt some parts of the laws or decrees of the Government. As shown by the results of a representative sociolinguistic research Language Usage and National Identity in the Cities and Towns of Lithuania (Cities and Languages), the situation does not respond to the needs of the society and the changing life. Presently, issues of using and teaching English are of special importance. A search for a better job determines that the society manifests an increased need to learn English; however, there is neither adequate plan of measures to be implemented nor resources; there are no qualified specialists either. The society's request that bilingual learning/teaching should be started at secondary schools has been rather unexpected

Dialects across three parts of the ethnic region of Dzūkija

Analysis of survey data on the use of dialects has shown that in this respect three significantly different parts can be distinguished in Dzūkija: 1) the Dzūkian area including the towns of Alytus, Varėna, Druskininkai, and Lazdijai; 2) a multilingual area including Lentvaris, Trakai, Vievis, Nemenčinė, Pabradė, Šalčininkai, Grigiškės, Elektrėnai and Eišiškės; and 3) the Aukštaitian area including Ignalina, Švenčionys, and Švenčionėliai. In the region of Dzūkija as a whole, dialects are little-used when communicating with parents (cf. 8% in Dzūkija with the country average of 20.78%). However, the Dzūkian area, with its 19.43% of respondents who admit using dialects, is very similar to the national average. Residents in the multilingual area of the region use dialects very rarely: only 4.27% speak their native dialect when communicating with parents. Unexpectedly, in terms of dialect use this part of Dzūkija appears to be similar to the Aukštaitian area rather than to the Dzūkian. Such tendency could possibly be accounted for by the fact that the majority of surveyed respondents have parents who lived in the soviet times when the use of dialects was discouraged and more prominence was given to the standard language which was generally associated with higher education. The data on the choice of the most common dialect is particularly informative as it indicates which dialect is commonly used in the area, even if the respondents themselves do not use it. Respondents from the Dzūkian area mostly choose Dzūkian as the most common dialect (75.49%); in the Aukštaitian area, the Aukštaitian dialect is considered to be most common (81.94%); finally, in the multilingual area, one fourth of the respondents (24.59%) did not know which dialect to indicate as most probably none of them is commonly used.The significant difference between the large number of respondents who could single out a common dialect and those few who admitted that they used their dialect with parents can be explained in the following manner: as a common dialect, the respondents usually indicated the dialect that they hear around them, irrespectively of the fact how frequently or rarely it may happen, so this question merely provides qualitative data. In contrast, the question about communication with parents provides quantitative results because all answers pertain to individual respondents. Over a half of respondents (61.02%) consider Dzūkian, their local dialect, to be most beautiful, and the same can be said about the Aukštaitian area where 61.72% of the respondents rated Aukštaitian highest. One fourth (25.4%) of the respondents have no opinion as to the most beautiful dialect. As regards language prestige, in the Dzūkian area the local dialect is regarded as most prestigious by 38.89% of the respondents. Aukštaitian as the most prestigious variety was indicated by 59.07% of respondents in the Aukštaitian area. Thus, Aukštaitian is rated higher in its area than Dzūkian. The fact that nearly half of respondents (52.90%) in the multilingual area do not distinguish one prestige-laden dialect could be explained by the infrequent use of dialects in this area. Moreover, some of respondents could have misunderstood the meaning of the word ‘prestigious’.To the majority of residents in Dzūkija, the least comprehensible dialect is Žemaitian: it was indicated by 87.93% of respondents in the Dzūkian area, 79.26% in the Aukštaitian area, and 60.12% in the multilingual one. Obviously, Žemaitian is not only most difficult to understand, but also it is seldom heard in this part of Lithuania. The future of dialects in this region does not look very optimistic because the respondents do not think it is necessary to encourage young people to use dialects. It was only in the Dzūkian area that three respondents out of five (61.2%) agreed that young people should be encouraged to use their native dialect. To compare, in the Aukštaitian and multilingual areas only one third of respondents share the same opinion (respectively 38.95% and 33.33%)

Lithuanian language policy: past and present duel

This article reviews some trends appeared in the public usage of the Lithuanian language. It evaluates the changes, emerged during the first 15 years of the new millennium, as well as how the problems of management of language policy that have emerged from these trends have succeeded in solving both the state and society

Peculiarities of the written language of students in theatrology

The aim of this paper is to discuss the written language of students in theatrology and to consider it in the aspect of grammaticality according the Register of Gross Blunders (1997) and new Punctuation guide (2006). The material was collected at 2007-2010 and the corpus was made. Recent years have witnessed an increase in the incorrect use of participle and irregularities of word-order in sentence, in the concrete in use of attribute, the other types of grammar mistakes being decreased. There is a need for a better Lithuanian teaching methodology in secondary school. It is very important to notice what Michael Wesch has emphasized: "As we increasingly move toward an environment of instant and infinite information, it becomes less important for students to know, memorize, or recall information, and more important for them to be able to find, sort, analyze, share, discuss, critique, and create information" [5]

Dzūkų tarmė ne be be be, o švelniai tas dz, c

Ar tarmiškai šneka tik seni kaimo žmonės? Ar miestiečių tarmiška kalba yra sugadinta? Ar lietuvių kalbos tarmės jau skaičiuoja paskutinius metus? Ar tarmė trukdo kopti karjeros laiptais? Kuri tarmė gražesnė? Daug dėmesio tarmių vartojimui, prestižui, vertinimui, mokėjimui ir mokymuisi šiemet, Tarmių metais, skyrė Vilniaus ir Vytauto Didžiojo universitetų bei Lietuvių kalbos instituto mokslininkai, vadovaujami Vilniaus universiteto prof. Meilutės Ramonienės: baigti Lietuvos mokslo tarybos remto projekto „Sociolingvistinis Lietuvos žemėlapis: miestai ir miesteliai“ darbai. Buvo užsimota ištirti dabartinę Lietuvos miestų ir miestelių sociolingvistinę situaciją: gyventojų kalbinį elgesį ir kalbų repertuarą, kalbos atmainų pasirinkimą įvairiose privataus ir viešojo gyvenimo srityse, išsiaiškinti kalbines nuostatas ir parengti sociolingvistinius Lietuvos žemėlapius. Nuoseklus kalbinės situacijos stebėjimas didžiuosiuose Lietuvos miestuose - Vilniuje, Kaune ir Klaipėdoje - atliktas 2009-2010 metais, jo rezultatai aptarti knygoje „Miestai ir kalbos“, o dabar anketinė apklausa buvo atlikta mažesniuose miestuose ir miesteliuose, iš viso atsakė 4697 respondentai, maždaug 300 žmonių tiesioginio interviu metu pateikė samprotavimų ir vertinimų dėl tarmių ir kalbų vartojimo, iš kurių aiškesnis tapo tarmių prestižiškumo klausimas, kodų kaitos motyvacija (kai tame pačiame pokalbyje kalbama tai tarmiškai, tai bendrine ar kuria kita kalba). Visa Lietuva buvo suskirstyta į etnografinius regionus: Dzūkiją, Aukštaitiją, Žemaitiją ir Suvalkiją (statistiškai nepakako sukauptų sociolingvistinių duomenų atskirai aprašyti Mažosios Lietuvos regioną). Šiame straipsnyje pristatysiu projekto metu sukauptus sociolingvistinius duomenis apie tarmes, nepanaudotus ar tik iš dalies panaudotus kolektyvinėje monografijoje skelbiamame straipsnyje apie Dzūkiją

Adaptation of international substantives: the end of words

The article analyses the adaptation of international words in the following aspect: lithuanization of substantives in respect of the end of a word. The object of the study comprises 6,666 international words selected from the dictionary Dažninis Dabartinės Rašomosios Lietuvių Kalbos Žodynas [Frequency Dictionary of Modem Written Lithuanian] compiled by L.Grumadienė and V. Žilinskienė, which includes a total of 25,068 words. It was determined that the most frequent international words are substantives - 4,413 (or 62.15%) of substantives were found. There was less than one percent of non-adapted international substantives found, i.e. 0.68% (24 words); for example, taksi, šou, meniu, etc. In addition, 3,027 minimally adapted substantives (45.41% of all the words found in the aforementioned Frequency Dictionary) were detected. Substantives ending in -ija (-(i)acija, -iz+-acija, -cija, -ija), for example, racionalizacija, kanalizacija, kanonizacija, etc. accounted for 17.18%. Another major group comprises substantives ending in -as, i.e. 19.82% (600), for instance, Filmas, kinas, sportas, etc. International words that have been sufficiently adapted to the system of the Lithuanian language have the following Lithuanian suffixes: -avimas, -akis, -elis, -ė, •ėlis, -ė, -(i)ukas, -inė, -ienė, -ietis, -minkas, -ybė, -ystė, -tojas, -(i)umas, and -uotė. These suffixes were used to construct 485 international substantives, i.e. 13.71% of all the substantives found in the Frequency Dictionary. Furthermore, one of the aims was to check which of the international words included in the Frequency Dictionary can be found in the following three Lithuanian dictionaries of international words: 1) Tarptautinių žodžių žodynas [Dictionary of International Words] published in 1985 (editor V.Kvietkauskas); 2) Tarptautinių žodžių žodynas [Dictionary of International Words] published in 2001 (editor A.Kinderys); 3) Mokyklinis tarptautinių žodžių žodynas [School Dictionary of International Words] published in 2000 (III volume) (editor J.Paulauskas). There are merely 21 examples of the words found only in the Frequency Dictionary (the number next to the word indicates the frequency, words are given in descending order of frequency): anestrinis (17), chutai (17), ketalaras (12), betaksololis (4), atenolis (4), etc. To sum it up, the Frequency Dictionary perfectly reflects the usage of international words