Jonas Jablonskis' corrections of religious vocabulary. On the occasion of 150 years of Jablonskis' birth

30 December 2010 was the 150th anniversary of the birth of the father of standard Lithuanian Jonas Jablonskis (1860-1930). The article overviews his opinion about some words used in religious writings at the beginning of 20th century. The material for this article was collected from articles about religion, religious education and language of religion textbooks and reviews published in the press of this period (Viltis, Santara, Nepriklausomoji Lietuva, Lietuva, Lietuvos Mokykla, Švietimo darbas, etc.). At the beginning of the 20th century the need to regularise and renew the language of Lithuanian religious writings arose. There were various amendments of religious vocabulary suggested by Jablonskis. He corrected loan-words (abrozas (Pol. obrazek) - paveikslas (image), dūšia (Pol. dusza) - siela (soul), griekas (Belor. грехъ, Pol. grech) - nuodėmė (sin), nabašninkas (Pol. nieboszczyk, Belor. пебощык) - velionis (deceased), viera (Rus. вера, Pol. wiara) - tikėjimas (faith)), borrowings of meaning (sutvėrėjas (Pol. stworzyciel) - kūrėjas (creator), tvarinys (Pol. stworzenie) - kūrinys (creation)), badly formed words (he suggested pamaldos instead of dievmeldystė, sakykla instead of pamokslinyčia, dvasininkas instead of dvasionis or dvasiškis), dialectisms (pakasynos — laidotuvės, pakastuvės) and other. Jablonskis did not try to avoid using non-Lithuanian words, especially if they were commonly used (old borrowings bažnyčia (church), kunigas (priest), etc.) or international words. Jablonskis suggested differentiating the mean ings of some words (dausa 'rojus' (heaven) and dausos 'šiltieji kraštai' (warm countries))