Pastabos apie Balio Sruogos laiškų rašybą ir kalbą
Notes on the Spelling and Language of Balys Sruoga's Letters

Summary/Abstract: The language and spelling of fiction, scientific literature, journalism and other literature are usually edited in an exemplary manner. The true language of writers is well illustrated by the letters they wrote. The language of the letters of the Lithuanian literary classic Balys Sruoga is incredibly distant from the language of the works published. The letters are full of various types of mistakes. Long and short vowels are confused, nasal letters are very often left out in accusative singular and genitive plural cases, in singular and plural endings of nominative cases of active participles, in the roots of verbs, as well as there are incorrectly written forms where there is consonant assimilation. The causes of mistakes are different. At the beginning of the 20th century, the spelling of the Lithuanian language was not yet properly standardized. But the main reason was that B. Sruoga did not study at any Lithuanian school. The writer graduated from Panevėžys Realschool, where all the subjects were taught in Russian. Later on, he studied at the universities of Petrograd, Moscow, and Munich. Mistakes are made due to his inaccuracy, as well as for psychological reasons. In the letters where the author complains of a bad mood, tells about disasters or failures he has experienced, there are usually numerous mistakes. B. Sruoga’s letters contain poems or their insertions, some letters exist as separate texts of fiction. The writer is much more focused on the intense search for stylistic variants rather than on spelling. Lithuanian writers often use dialect forms and words from their native dialects. B. Sruoga is unique in this regard. He uses not only his own, but also other forms of Lithuanian dialectal words, such as the illative case, the supine, the dual form of predicates and verbs, infinitive forms of dialect verbs, subjunctive and imperative mood forms, and others. The letters in question employ a large number of foreign words (mainly Slavisms), especially literally translated Slavic constructions.

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