Lexical polonisms in the language of Lithuanian social and cultural press of the end of XIX century

Artykuł jest poprawioną i uzupełnioną wersją referatu wygłoszonego podczas sesji naukowej „W stulecie urodzin Haliny Turskiej - śladem jej badań naukowych" Ciechocinek-Toruń 11-13 X 2001.On the basis of nearly 300 polonisms excerpted from the first annual of the literary political scientific monthly Varpas, meaning Bell, published in Lithuania in 1889-1906, the author reaches the conclusion that despite richness and variety, its lexis is stylistically and thematically uniform. It represents official style where formal terms from various fields - church, army and administration, prevail. In the traditional dominance of concrete vocabulary amongst dictionary borrowings, mainly referring to living conditions, the appearance of a large group of abstract notions attracts attention. A considerable participation of borrowings from other languages in the examined lexis makes us treat Polish language as an important medium, through which western culture expanded into Lithuanian land. Lack of dialectisms among the researched lexis proves its over-regional character. It is accompanied by formality, generality, abstractness, lack of emotionally featured polonisms. Such features prove that they belong to written style/register and the sphere of educated people’s language. Unsteadiness of Polish vocabulary, mostly adopted in past centuries, makes us believe that despite extensive influence of Polish language on Lithuanian language, this impact was superficial. It is possible, however, that the purist attitude of enlightened users of Lithuanian language who, in spite of a long passage of time, succeeded in their efforts to remove most polonisms from at least official variety of Lithuanian language, may have played some role in it as well.6778