About Estonian

Helle MetslangFlorence, April 2010

Topics Estonian in myths and facts Rise and development of Estonian Development of written / standard

Estonian Estonian dialects Characteristic features of Estonian Publications about Estonian

Estonian in myths and facts: a legendOnce upon a time Estonian had won the

second prize after Italian at the beauty contest of languages with the sentence

Sõida tasa üle silla ‘ride slowly across the bridge’.

Is Estonian a difficult language?There is a myth among learners of Estonian that

Estonian is a difficult language. It is true that e.g. the abundance of noun forms and

stem alternations or the aspect that is manifested in the object makes Estonian different from the Indo-European languages, which learners are mostly familiar with.

However, the main categories, lexicalization and grammaticalization processes, and the abundance of loan vocabulary blend Estonian into the European context.

Some facts about Estonian: speakers of Estonian 1,1 million people speak Estonian as a

native language About 950 000 of them live in the Republic

of Estonia. Estonians live also in Sweden, Canada,

USA, Russia, Australia, Finland, Germany etc.

Status of Estonian Estonian (as also e.g. Icelandic) is today

one of the smallest languages in the world that functions as official language in all spheres of use: administration, media, literature, theatre, business, school, universities, research, etc.

From 1.5.2004 Estonian is one of the official languages ot the EU.

Related languages Estonian belongs to the Finnic group of the

Finno-Ugric language family Other Finnic languages: Finnish, Livonian,

Vepsian, Votian, Karelian, Izhorian Most distant Finno-Ugric languages:

Khanty, Mansi, Hungarian

Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic languages

The development of Estonian As a language as its own Estonian evolved

between the 13th-16th centuries: common changes in the local tribal dialects resulted in the formation of the common language

Ancient Estonian was influenced by various Germanic, Baltic and Slavonic languages. This is proved e.g. by multiple loan words.

German influence in the 13th-19th c. Standard Estonian started to take shape in the

16th–17th centuries, it was mostly developed by the German clergy

Some of the common changes in the local tribal dialects palatalization of the consonants (kan’n : kan’ni

‚plaything’, cf. kann:kannu ‚jug’) apocope (*jalka > jalG ‚leg’), syncope (*kastanut

> kastnut participle of kastma ‚water’) change of the negation verb (cf. Finnish en, et)

into the negation particle ei, ep loss of the possessive suffixes, of the potential

mood, of the essive case; rise of the new comitative case (*keelen kaas >

keele kaas > keele kaa > keeleGa ‚with the tongue’) and of the quotative mood (tulevat ’is said to come’)

An example of reconstructions of the Estonian language (Andrus Saareste)'Once an old honest man had a very ill-tempered

wife’Pre-13th c.: Kõrdan oli ühdellä vanhalla auvoisalla

meehellä ülin kurja nainõn13th c.: Kordan oli ühdelä vanhala auvosala mehelä

ülin kurja nainõn16th c.: Korra oli ühel vanal auosal mehel väen kaas

kuri naine17th-18th c.: Korra oli ühel vanal auusal mehel

väega kuri naine20th c.: Kord oli ühel vanal ausal mehel väga kuri

naine

The first recordings of Estonian In the 13th century German and

Scandinavian crusaders reached Estonia, one of the last pagan countries in Europe

The crusades are described in the early 13th century in the Latin chronicle Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae, which already contains words and fragments of sentences in Estonian.

The first continuous Estonian text1524-1528 The Kullamaa Manuscript.This Catholic text contains two prayers - the

Lord's Prayer and the Hail Mary -, and the Creed.

The oldest extant pages of a book: the Wanradt-Koell Catechism (1535)

Grammars of Estonian Missionary grammars in the 17th-18th c. 1637 Heinrich Stahl ”Anführung zu der

Ehstnischen Sprach” – the first grammar of Estonian

1884 Karl August Hermann “Eesti grammatik” – the first grammar in Estonian

Heinrich Stahl „Anführung zu der Ehstnischen Sprach“ (1637)

Development of the Standard Estonian in the 19th/20th c. During the National Awakening in the mid-

19th century, the Estonian language rapidly advanced from being the spoken idiom of the peasants to becoming a cultural language.

During the first decades of the 20th century, the Estonian intelligentsia set themselves the conscious task of turning the Estonian language into a European cultural language.

Standardization and development of Estonian in the first decades of the 20th c.

Two trends: Johannes Voldemar Veski: systematic

development of the standard language Johannes Aavik: language reform. He

tried to make the literary language richer and more beautiful. He relied on the material provided by the Finnish language and Estonian dialects, but also coined artificial words and forms.

Johannes Aavik

The propaganda of the language reformAavik and his

sympathizers used the reformed language in print medium, e.g. in the series “Hirmu ja õuduse jutud” (Stories of fear and horror). The covers were designed by Johannes Aavik. (“Vaimude maja” ‘House of ghosts’)

The artifical stems of AavikThe word of Aavik

Previous word

Year Model, source

aabe ‘character’

kirjatäht 1930 A, B

eetma‘propose’

ette panema 1936 ette panema

embama‘embrace’

ümbert kinni võtma

1921 fr. embrasser

kolp ‘skull’ pealuu 1919 kolu, ru. golova

laip ‘corpse’

surnukeha 1917 grm. Leiche

Estonian dialects Standard Estonian has been mostly

formed from the dialects of North Estonian.

Mulgi, Tartu, Võro and Seto dialects in the South Estonian language area

The North Estonian language area includes the northeast coastal, eastern, central, western and insular dialects.

Estonian dialects

Estonian dialects: an example‘Our nightingale has gone elsewhere this year’Standard Estonian: Meie ööbik on tänavu mujale

läinudSaaremaa (insular dialect): Meide ööbik aa seaesta

maeale läinMuhumaa (insular dialect) : Meite üöbik uo sieoasta

mõjale läinNorthern-Virumaa (coastal dialect): Meie kirikiut one

tänävu mojale lähändSetomaa (Võru dialect): Mii sisas'k om timahavva

muialõ l'änüq

Some characteristic features of the Estonian language 1 large number of cases - 14 productive

cases no accusative case – the object can be in

the partitive, genitive or nominative case no articles (either definite or indefinite)

Some characteristic features of the Estonian language 2 no grammatical gender either of nouns or

personal pronouns. (As the pronoun tema can refer to both man

and woman (occasionally even to a thing), an Estonian speaker does not face problems of political correctness as do those who speak Indo-European languages)

quotative and jussive mood differentiation between three quantities

Sound The Estonian language is rich in vowels:

the 26 Estonian phonemes include 9 vowels: u, o, a, õ, ü, ö, ä, e, i

A few exceptions excluded, the main stress in Estonian words falls on the first syllable, the frequent secondary stress on odd syllables

Three quantitiesEstonian has differentiation between three

quantities of syllables. The 2nd and 3rd quantities are not distinguished in spelling; the meaning and pronunciation of the word becomes clear from the contents.

koli ‘trash’ kooli genitive of kool ‘school’kooli partitive and short illative of kool ‘school’

koli ‘trash’ kolli genitive of koll 'bogey' kolli partitive of koll 'bogey'

VocabularySimple and compound words, derivations.

Old and new loanwords.

Morphology: declination14 cases, incl. 3 grammatical cases, 6 local

cases (3 interior and 3 exterior local cases)

Grammatical cases:Nominative ilus tüdruk

‘(a) beautiful girl’Genitive ilusa tüdrukuPartitive ilusa-t tüdruku-t

Semantic cases: interior local casesIllative ilusa-sse maja-sse / majja

‘into a beautiful house’Inessive ilusa-s maja-s

‘in a beautiful house’Elative ilusa-st maja-st

‘from a beautiful house’

Semantic cases: exterior local casesAllative ilusa-le tüdruku-le

‘to a beautifiul girl’Adessive ilusa-l tüdruku-l

‘by a beautiful girl’Ablative ilusa-lt tüdruku-lt

‘from a beautiful girl’

Other semantic casesTranslative ilusa-ks tüdruku-ks

(to turn) ‘(in) to a beautiful girl’Terminative ilusa tüdruku-ni

‘up to a beautiful girl’Essive ilusa tüdruku-na

‘as a beautiful girl’‘Abessive ilusa tüdruku-ta

‘without a beautiful girl’Comitative ilusa tüdruku-ga

‘with a beautiful girl’

To compare: cases in Finnish 15 cases No terminative Old cases:

Comitative: talo-i-neen ‘with his house(s)’Instructive: talo-inAccusative (7 pronouns): minu-t, sinu-t etc.

Finnish cases 1

Grammatical nominatiivi - talo house genetiivi -n of talon of (a) house akkusatiivi - or -n - talo or talon house partitiivi -(t)a - taloa house (as an object)

Locative (internal) inessiivi -ssa in talossa in (a) house elatiivi -sta from (inside) talosta from (a) house illatiivi -an, -en, etc. into taloon into (a) house

Finnish cases 2

Locative (external) adessiivi -lla at, on talolla at (a) house ablatiivi -lta from talolta from (a) house allatiivi -lle to talolle to (a) house

Marginal essiivi -na as (temporary state) talona as a house translatiivi -ksi becoming (change of state) taloksi becoming a house instruktiivi -n with (the aid of) (talon)/taloin with (a) house abessiivi -tta without talotta without (a) house komitatiivi -ne- together (with) taloineni with my house(s)

Case forms and stems in Estonian and FinnishEstonian:Nominative Genitive

Finnish:Nominative Genitive

tuba ‘room’ toa tupa tuva/n

talu ‘farm’ talu talo ‘house’ talo/n

mees ‘man’ mehe mies miehe/n

lammas ‘lamb’ lamba lammas lampaa/n

Verbal categories 1

Category Estonian Finnish

Tense PresentPastPerfectPluperfect

PresentPastPerfectPluperfect

Mood IndicativeImperativeConditionalQuotative Jussive

IndicativeImperativeConditionalPotential

Verbal categories 2

Voice Personalimpersonal

Personalimpersonal

Person ja number

1SG 1PL2SG 2PL3SG 3PL

1SG 1PL2SG 2PL3SG 3PL

Polarity Negation / affirmation

Negation / affirmation

Estonian and Finnish verb forms: examples 1E ma ela-n ‘I live’F minä elä-n

I live-1SG

E ta ela-b ‘s/he lives’s/he live-1PL

F hän elääs/he live:3PL

E nad ela-si-d ‘they lived’F he el-i-vät

they live-PST-3PL

Estonian and Finnish verb forms: examples 2

E sa ole-d ela-nud ‘You have lived’F sinä ole-t elä-nyt

you (SG) be-2SG live-PRTC

E ta ela-vat ‘s/he is said to live’s/he live-QUOT

E ela-ta-ks ‘one would live’F ele-ttä-isi

live-IMPS-COND

Estonian and Finnish verb forms: examples 3E te ei ela ‘you do not live’

you NEG liveF te e-tte elä

you NEG-2PL live

E är-ge ela-ge (you) ‘don’t live!’NEG-2PL live-2PL

F äl-kää elä-köNEG-2PL live-IMP

E ela! ‘live!’F elä!

live

Books about EstonianDialects: dictionary,

textsLiterary language:

normative dictionary, explanatory dictionary

Grammar of Estonian “Eesti keele grammatika I” 1995

Publications of the universities of Tartu and Tallinn and of the Institute of Estonian language

Yearbooks of the Mother Tongue Society and Estonian Association of Applied Linguistics

Journals

Publications about Estonian from the typological point of view

“Estonian: typological studies” I-V, ed. by Mati Erelt, University of Tartu, 1996-2001

Linguistic typology and universals (STUF) 2009, 1-2: Estonian in typological perspective (guest editor Helle Metslang)

References 1Erelt, Mati (ed.) 2003, Estonian Language.

(Linguistica Uralica. Supplementary Series. Volume. 1).Tallinn: Estonian Academy Publishers.

Grünthal, Riho 2000, Typological characteristics of the Finnic languages: a reappraisal. – Laakso, Johanna (ed.), Facing Finnic. Some challenges to historical and contact linguistics. (Castrenianumin toimitteita 59.) Helsinki, 31-63

Kehayov, Petar 2008, An Areal-Typological Perspective to Evidentiality: the Cases of the Balkan and Baltic Linguistic Areas. Tartu, University of Tartu Press

References 2Klaas, Birute 1997, The quotative mood in the

Baltic Sea areal. - Estonian: typological studies II. Ed. by Mati Erelt. (Publications of the Department of Estonian of the University of Tartu 8.) Tartu: 73-97

Metslang, Helle 1996, The developments of the futures in the Finno-Ugric languages. - Estonian: Typological Studies I. Ed. by M. Erelt. (Publications of the Department of Estonian of the University of Tartu 4.) Tartu: 123-144.

Moskovoj, A. 1989, Zur typologischen Charakteristik der estnischen Fragepartikel kas. - SFU 2, lk. 84-90.

References 3Raag, Raimo 2008, Talupojakeelest riigikeeleks.

Tartu, AtlexRätsep, Huno 1989, Eesti keele tekkimise lugu. –

Akadeemia 1989, 1503-1524Sutrop, Urmas 1999, Entspricht Estnisch dem

agglutinierenden Sprachtypus? - Estonian: typological studies II. Ed. by Mati Erelt. (Publications of the Department of Estonian of the University of Tartu 8.): 199-219.

Sutrop, Urmas 2004, Estonian language. Tallinn, Estonian Institute.