Summary

Was the Bagaslaviškis sub-dialect a mother-tongue of Ignas Šeinius?

 

By Kazys Morkūnas

 

The article deals with the questions: Whether Ignas Šeinius knew Lithuanian well? and Was the Lithuanian his mother-tongue? The analysis of the biography of the poet Šeinius, taking into account the historical and cultural peculiarities of that period, as well as the exploration of the language in his papers, enabled to make the conclusion that Ignas Šeinius had been speaking Lithuanian from a child in his family and with his friends and he knew Lithuanian very well.
The dialect spoken in the area of Bagaslaviškis, Gelvonai and Musninkai was not only a homeland language of Ignas Šeinius, but also most probably his mother-tongue (Šeiniūnai was the native village of the Lithuanian author Ignas Jurkūnas who used the name of Šeinius as his pseudonym).