ová

I regularly read - God help me - Denník N, one of the major Slovak dailies. I realize I should have stopped years ago, considering the diminishing returns: for every interesting article or sharp analysis (almost always by a non-Slovak media outlet or expert), there are twenty incredibly stupid pieces, invariably authored by one the intellectual smallholders that are employed by the newspaper or by one of their circle of equally dimwitted and/or morally corrupt friends. Doyens of Slovak intellectual scene make idiotic assessments of Slovak history only to be corrected by actual historians, high-school teachers - who also engage (along with failed politicians and shitty translators) in the grift of "coaching critical thinking" - furnish us with their opinions on everything from appropriate mode of dress for chess players to how we have no records of people's personal lives from before 1800, and there are, of course, countless examples of the time-tested genre "here is how this thing happening to important people also affects my circle of friends". Add to that venerable intellectuals who produce incomprehensible drivel in defense of genocide and slightly less venerable - but equally lacking in coherence and sense - writers who went on a trip where they learned that you cannot become an expert on a country by going on a trip there and consider it absolutely necessary to share this insight while also painting a picture of said country in terms that racist British travel writers from two hundred years ago would consider too much, referring to the "ever-smiling Turkmens" and "the contrast between clay villages and mosaic-emblazoned palaces and mosques". In short, the entire newspaper is filled with the sort of loud faux-intellectual provincial mediocrity that is emblematic of Slovak society and I really should stop reading it, if only for the sake of my blood pressure.

But while I am, I have a few words on a recent piece on matters relating to language. In this piece, we are informed about the decision to no longer add the suffix -ová to last names of non-Slovak (lit. "foreign" which sounds weird...) female persons that the editorial board has taken. This process, referred to in Slovak as prechyľovanie (henceforth: modification) is described in the normative Orthographic Rules of Slovak (henceforth: PSP) and it is implied that it is mandatory: the final note in the chapter on modification (accompanying section 2.8) informs us that "foreign last names of known female artists" can be left in the original form, the assumption here is that this is the exception. The piece in question explains that the decision was taken and implemented a year ago and lays out the reasons for it, or, as they put it:

"Prechyľovanie či neprechyľovanie je pomerne zložitá téma. Preto náš korektorský tím pripravil na túto tému analýzu, ktorá pomenovala mnohé pravopisné a štylistické dilemy a pomohla nám zvážiť argumenty za a proti."

"Modification of feminine last names or lack of it is a somewhat difficult subject. This is why our proofreader team has prepared an analysis that pointed out many orthographic and stylistic dilemmas and helped us to weigh the pros and the contras."

Let's ignore the shudder induced by the words "our proofreader team" and "analysis". Let us also ignore the fact that the rules for modification laid out in PSP are somewhat clear, at least for now, and that despite of the name of the book, modification is not an orthographic issue, is it a morphological one. Instead, we consider the arguments the authors present. The very first one is, shall we say, suspect:

"Vďaka nej sme si uvedomili napríklad aj to, že ženské priezviská sa neprechyľujú len v slovanských krajinách a že majú rôzne podoby, čo má vplyv na ich skloňovanie a rôzne pravopisné nuansy."

"The analysis helped us realize that, for example, feminine last names are modified in non-Slavic countries as well and that this modification comes in different forms which influences their declensions and has various orthographic nuances."

I mean, yes, that is certainly true. So?

"Bývalá litovská prezidentka Dalia Grybauskaitė má na konci priezviska príponu -itė, typickú pre ženský rod, pričom mužská podoba je Grybauskas. Takže po prechýlení podľa slovenských pravidiel dostaneme Daliu Grybauskasovú – čo je oproti pôvodnému priezvisku dosť veľký rozdiel.

Alebo taká bývalá islandská premiérka Katrín Jakobsdóttir. Na konci má príponu -dóttir, teda dcéra. Správne prechýlená do slovenčiny by mala byť Katrín Jakobssonová. Ktovie, či by tieto ženy svoje mená spoznali, ak by ich uvideli takto poslovenčené." 

"The last name of the former Lithuanian president Dalia Grybauskaitė features the suffix -itė typical for the feminine gender; the masculine form is Grybauskas. Modifying her last name according to Slovak rules, we get Dalia Grybauskasová, which is quite different from the original.

Or take the former prime minister of Iceland, Katrín Jakobsdóttir. Her last name features the suffix -dóttir meaning daughter. Her last name modified according to the rules of Slovak should then be Katrín Jakobssonová. Who knows if these women would recognize their names if they saw these Slovak forms." 

Well, that is certainly a line of reasoning. Let's take it from the top: the official rules as written in PSP do not lay out any general principles of modification. The sections 2.1-2.3 do discuss the morphophonology of the suffix -ová as combined with various roots, but only in terms of euphonics and orthography (hence the inclusion of this phenomenon in a guide on orthography), not in terms of morphological analysis. And so section 2.1 discusses what to do with masculine last names ending in a consonant, 2.2 addresses masculine names ending in the vowel a or o and 2.3 covers masculine last names ending in a vowel. Note 1 to 2.3 then addresses Romanian, Albanian and Turkish last names ending in u and Note 2 discusses English and French last names ending in e which is "silent" in English and indicates a specific pronunciation of the preceding consontant in French. Nothing on morphology, though, let alone on removing any suffixes. So whence this interpretation of the rules?

I have a guess: section 2.3 specifically says that the suffix is to be added to the "unaltered* masculine last name". Ergo, to execute such a derivation, we must first derive said "unaltered masculine last name". It does make sense from a certain standpoint. From a different one, it lays bare the inadequacy of PSP rules and so the ultimate futility of trying to come up with a hard and fast rule. In any case, I can see the logic behind the decision in these and similar cases and do not have a problem with it per se. I mean the other option, to simply attach the suffix to the already feminine name and end up with Grybauskaitėová and Jakobsdóttirová does strike me as weird. So yeah, to say that such names should not be modified makes sense, especially considering PSP rules already in force, specifically the aforementioned note to section 2.8 which covers such cases as Grace Kelly or Greta Garbo.

What I do have a problem with is the appeal to the Slovak modified feminine name being "different" and "unrecognizable". For one, well, yes, at the very least we are slapping an entire morpheme on the name, so yeah, it is gonna look different, even according to PSP rules (Sharon Stonová, anyone?). But also, why should we care? Even with unaltered masculine names spelled according to conventions of the language in question we add declension suffixes, just consider Shakespeare and let me count the w... you know what, I will leave the counting as an exercise to the reader. 

And speaking of bogus arguments, here is one:

"Do debaty o prechyľovaní teda vstupujú nielen pravopisné dilemy, ale aj to, aké predstavy sa nám s prechyľovaním spájajú. Vnímame ho ako zbytočný relikt patriarchálnej histórie? Ako funkčnú súčasť jazyka? Alebo ako oboje?" 

"The discussion on modification thus involves not only orthographic arguments, but also ideas associated with it. Do we perceive it as a useless relict of patriarchal history? A productive part of the language? Or both?" 

Now don't get me wrong, my position has always been "fuck the patriarchy and all its manifestations". But we are talking about non-Slovak names here, in the context of editorial decisions of a particular newspaper (or three, as it turns out), not a general language reform. The piece is titled (emphasis mine) "A year ago we stopped modifying the names of non-Slovak** women. Have you noticed?", after all.

The justifications for the decision continue and so do bogus arguments:

"Ak by sme žili vo svete ideálneho pravopisu, všetky Slovenky by mali prechýlené priezviská a všetky cudzinky by mali mená pripravené na prechýlenie." 

"If we lived in the world of ideal orthography, all Slovak women would have modified last names and all foreign*** women would have names ready for modification."

I, for one, would love to know more about this "ideal orthography". And also what this has to do with orthography, since this is - as noted above - a morphological issue. Ignoring this bit of nonsense, let's follow the argument:

"Aj napriek tomu, že od čias vrcholného stredoveku prevažovali prechýlené ženské priezviská v rôznej podobe a začiatkom 20. storočia sa ustálila prípona -ová, slovenčina zvládla Margitu Figuli aj Elenu Maróthy-Šoltésovú a určite zvládne aj Simonu Petrík a Miriam Lexmann. A taktiež novinárky Janu Shemesh, Vitaliu Bellu, Kristinu Böhmer a Martinu Koník."

"Despite the fact that modified feminine last names in various shapes have been the norm since the late Middle Ages and early 20th century saw the codification of the suffix -ová, the Slovak language has managed to cope with Margita Figuli, as well as Elena Maróthy-Šoltésová and will certainly cope with Simona Petrík and Miriam Lexmann. And also with journalists Jana Shemesh, Vitalia Bella, Kristina Böhmer and Martina Koník."

That is an excellent point and yes, I agree, the Slovak language can deal. But did you notice that one of these names is not like the others? In case of Vitalia Bella (the executive editor of the newspaper), the last name is declined while the remaining unmodified last names are not, even though all appear as direct objects which requires the accusative. So the issue here is not only the lack of modification, but also the place of the unmodified last names in the morphosyntactic system of Slovak. To be specific, they all - with some exceptions, apparently - are indeclinable now. What are those exceptions and why? Why is the accusative "Vitaliu Bellu" (where, nota bene, the last name should be analyzed as M.SG.ACC if this is the unmodified form of the last name of her husband or father, so there go the antipatriarchal arguments) and not "Vitaliu Bella"? We are not told.

And to their credit, the authors of the piece are vaguely aware of the issues involved (italics indicate original Slovak in translation):

"Prečo sa teda mená cudziniek prechyľujú? Z viacerých dôvodov. Ľahšie ich vieme skloňovať. Ľahšie v texte rozoznáme, kedy hovoríme o prezidentovi Obamovi a kedy o prvej dáme Obamovej. Je zrozumiteľnejšie v titulku napísať, že Williamsová porazila Osakovú, než že Williams porazila Osaka."

"So why do we modify non-Slovak (last) names? For multiple reasons. They are easier to decline. It is easier to recognize in a text when a reference is made to president Obama and when to the First Lady Obamová. It is much easier to understand when we write Williamsová [F.NOM] porazila [defeated.PAST.F.SG] Osakovú [F.ACC] than Williams [INDCL] porazila [defeated.PAST.F.SG] Osaka [INDCL]."

OK, but then considering the flexible Slovak constituent order, if you get rid of the declension suffixes...

"Urobiť z textu zrozumiteľný celok môže byť bez prechyľovania ťažšie. Vety treba pozornejšie štylizovať, pomôcť si skloňovaním krstných mien či okolitých slov, prípadne použitím všeobecných podstatných mien. Williams zvíťazila, Osaka sa prepadla v rebríčku."

"It might be more difficult to turn the text into an intelligible unit without modification. The sentences need to be formulated more carefuly, one can also decline first names or surrounding words or use generic nouns. Williams [INDCL] zvíťazila [won.PAST.F.SG], Osaka [INDCL] sa [REFL] prepadla [drop.PAST.F.SG] v [in] rebríčku [ranking.SG.LOC]."

But the meaning here is diff...

"Rozhodovanie o tom, či pri zahraničných ženských priezviskách zrušiť prechyľovanie, nebolo pre redakciu jednoduché." 

"The decision whether to stop modifying non-Slovak feminine last names was not simple for us on the editorial team." 

Yeah, sure, but ... 

"Dá sa to, len to niekedy chce trocha viac času a tiež šikovných ľudí, ktorí text napíšu, zeditujú a skorigujú."

"It [= dealing with stylistic issues resulting from the decision] can be done, it just needs a little more time sometimes and smart people who will write, edit and proofread the text."

OK, fine but let me ask you this: what problem did you solve? Aside from the bogus argument regarding the patriarchy, what actual issue has been addressed here? We are assured that the editorial team contains people capable with dealing with the stylistic problems resulting from - not to put a too fine point on it - creating an entire class of indeclinable nouns. I have my doubts about that and in any case, you yourself admit it takes more time and effort, and for what? For dealing with Grybauskaitė and Jakobsdóttir? All that so you end up with clumsy and unnatural sounding headlines like this?

"Prečo ľudia vidia iné veci, keď sa pozerajú na rovnaké videá zabitia Renée Good a Alexa Prettiho" 

"Why do people see different things when they watch the same videos of the killing of Renée [INDCL] Good [INDCL] and Alex-a [Alex-M.GEN] Pretti-ho [Pretti-M.GEN]?"

How is that better, in what world is it better?

It is not. My theory is that the faux-intellectual provincial Slovak mind is simply incapable of dealing with variation. That is why they worship standard Slovak and its "rules" or "grammar", by which they mean orthography, because that is all they know of language. That is why they come up with this sort of shit.

"S rozhodovaním nám pomohlo, že naše spriatelené redakcie v týždenníku Respekt a v českom Deníku N zrušili prechyľovanie ešte skôr ako my a vyjadrili sa, že to funguje pomerne bez problémov. Každá redakcia však má nejaké svoje usmernenia či výnimky." 

"What helped with our decision was that our allied editorial departments in the weekly Respekt and the Czech Deník N did away with modification before we did and were of the opinion that it works more or less without problems. Each editorial office, however, has their own guidelines and exceptions."

So it's not just our intellectual smallholders, but also our neighboring intellectual smallholders. Splendid. But hang on a second, exceptions? Why?

"My sme si povedali, že s prechyľovaním skončíme, ale Merkelovej vládu si ponecháme. To znamená, že príponu -ová uvidíte menej často, a keď už, bude to najmä pri privlastňovaní."

"We decided to do away with modification, but will keep Merkel-ovej [Merkel-ADJ.F.SG.ACC] vládu [government.SG.ACC]. This means that you will see the suffix -ová less often and when, it will be in the context of possession."

And here we have it. These people introduced a hard rule that will complicate their work, but then will have exceptions because the new rule complicates their work too much. I guess going by PSP rules and adding a completely reasonable exception for Lithuanian and Icelandic (and Latvian etc.) last names while applying good judgment and maybe have some variation is way too complicated for them.

I swear to God, I really should stop reading this fucking rag. 

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* The word used here is "celé" = "whole, entire". I believe it is to be interpreted in the context of the discussion of names ending in -ec, -ek and -ok (section 1.2). These suffixes are contracted in cases other than the nominative and so is the root used in modification, e.g. Strýček > Strýčková.

** The actual phrasing here is "women from abroad" where the Slovak word I translated as "abroad" is "zahraničie", lit. "beyond border land".

*** This just sounds... more racist than it is.