Pranas Skardžius (26 March 1899 – 18 December 1975) was a Lithuanian linguist. Together with , Skardžius was the first and most prominent linguist who matured in independent Lithuania.
As a student at Vytautas Magnus University, Skardžius became secretary of Jonas Jablonskis and with his help obtained a scholarship to study at Leipzig University. Upon his return to Lithuania, he lectured as a docent at Vytautas Magnus University in 1929–1939 and as a professor at Vilnius University in 1939–1943. In 1944, Skardžius emigrated from Lithuania due to the upcoming Soviet annexation. Skardžius worked at the University of Tübingen in West Germany in 1946–1949 and at the Library of Congress in Washington, D.C. in 1956–1971.
Skardžius wrote some 800 works and articles, both on purely academic subjects and on more practical issues of the everyday language. He was interested in the history of the Lithuanian language. His PhD thesis on the Slavic loanwords in ancient Lithuanian contained a list of 2,950 loanwords collected from 16–17th century Lithuanian texts. His habilitation was on the accentology of Mikalojus Daukša (1527–1613). In 1943, he published a 768-page work on word formation in Lithuanian which was supposed to be part of the planned historical grammar. However, World War II and subsequent emigration disrupted his research plans and he published only short academic articles. He was also interested in standardizing the Lithuanian language and developing clear linguistic norms. He published numerous articles on practical issues of everyday language. In 1950, together with others, he published a 606-page guide to the Lithuanian language. In 1973, he published a practical aid for Lithuanian Americans to help them find Lithuanian equivalents to international words.
Biography
Education
Skardčius was born in Subačius to a family of Lithuanian peasants who owned of land. He attended a primary school in Subačius and then a four-year school in Panevėžys. Due to World War I, he dropped out of school but continued self-education at home. In January 1920, he passed entrance examinations to the 5th grade at Panevėžys Gymnasium. He graduated from the gymnasium in June 1923 with a gold medal. His teachers included Gabrielė Petkevičaitė-Bitė and . He was an active student and helped organizing an art club.
In fall 1923, Skardžius enrolled into the University of Lithuania to study the Lithuanian language. His professors included Kazimieras Būga, Jonas Jablonskis, Mykolas Biržiška, Eduards Volters, Juozas Tumas. He became close with Jablonskis and worked as his assistant and secretary. After the death of Būga in December 1924, the university was left without a strong linguistics professor. Therefore, it was decided to send two students, Skardžius and , to study with the Lithuanian linguist who lectured at Leipzig University. His other teachers included Reinhold Trautmann, , and Hans Driesch. He studied Baltistics with minors in Slavistics and philosophy. In 1929, Skardius defended his PhD thesis on Slavic loanwords in ancient Lithuanian.
Career
In 1929–1939, Skardžius lectured at Vytautas Magnus University some of the key courses in Lithuanian language studies: Lithuanian language historical grammar and history, dialectology, Prussian language. Lacking qualifies staff, he occasionally taught other classes such as history of the Russian language and Old Church Slavonic. He wanted to become the editor of the Academic Dictionary of Lithuanian, but Juozas Balčikonis was chosen instead perhaps due to his connections with the President Antanas Smetona and Prime Minister Juozas Tūbelis. Skardžius advised Balčikonis on how best to prepare the dictionary but remained critical of his efforts, particularly of spelling choices. There were attempts at replacing Balčikonis with Skardčius as the editor of the dictionary in 1940–1941.
In 1930, Skardžius established and edited the academic journal Archivum Philologicum. In total, eight issues of the journal were published. In 1933, he completed his habilitation on the accentology of Mikalojus Daukša and was promoted to docent. In 1935, he co-founded and became chairman of the Lithuanian Language Society. He chaired the society in 1935–1941, 1946–1949, and 1958–1968. When Lithuania gained Vilnius as a result of the Soviet–Lithuanian Mutual Assistance Treaty, part of Vytautas Magnus University was moved to Vilnius University and Skardžius become a professor in Vilnius until 1943. In 1941, he joined the newly established Lithuanian Academy of Sciences and briefly headed its Institute of the Lithuanian Language.