About Estonian Helle Metslang Florence April 2010

About Estonian Helle Metslang Florence, April 2010

Topics Estonian in myths and facts p Rise and development of Estonian p Development of written / standard Estonian p Estonian dialects p Characteristic features of Estonian p Publications about Estonian p

Estonian in myths and facts: a legend Once 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 p About 950 000 of them live in the Republic of Estonia. p Estonians live also in Sweden, Canada, USA, Russia, Australia, Finland, Germany etc. p

Status of 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. p From 1. 5. 2004 Estonian is one of the official languages ot the EU. p

Related languages Estonian belongs to the Finnic group of the Finno-Ugric language family p Other Finnic languages: Finnish, Livonian, Vepsian, Votian, Karelian, Izhorian p Most distant Finno-Ugric languages: Khanty, Mansi, Hungarian p

Finno-Ugric and Samoyedic languages

The development of Estonian p p As a language as its own Estonian evolved between the 13 th-16 th 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 13 th-19 th c. Standard Estonian started to take shape in the 16 th– 17 th centuries, it was mostly developed by the German clergy

Some of the common changes in the local tribal dialects p p palatalization of the consonants (kan’n : kan’ni ‚plaything’, cf. kann: kannu ‚jug’) apocope (*jalka > jal. G ‚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 kaa > keele. Ga ‚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-13 th c. : Kõrdan oli ühdellä vanhalla auvoisalla meehellä ülin kurja nainõn 13 th c. : Kordan oli ühdelä vanhala auvosala mehelä ülin kurja nainõn 16 th c. : Korra oli ühel vanal auosal mehel väen kaas kuri naine 17 th-18 th c. : Korra oli ühel vanal auusal mehel väega kuri naine 20 th c. : Kord oli ühel vanal ausal mehel väga kuri naine

The first recordings of Estonian In the 13 th century German and Scandinavian crusaders reached Estonia, one of the last pagan countries in Europe p The crusades are described in the early 13 th century in the Latin chronicle Heinrici Chronicon Livoniae, which already contains words and fragments of sentences in Estonian. p

The first continuous Estonian text 1524 -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 17 th-18 th c. p 1637 Heinrich Stahl ”Anführung zu der Ehstnischen Sprach” – the first grammar of Estonian p 1884 Karl August Hermann “Eesti grammatik” – the first grammar in Estonian p

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

Development of the Standard Estonian in the 19 th/20 th c. During the National Awakening in the mid 19 th century, the Estonian language rapidly advanced from being the spoken idiom of the peasants to becoming a cultural language. p During the first decades of the 20 th century, the Estonian intelligentsia set themselves the conscious task of turning the Estonian language into a European cultural language. p

Standardization and development of Estonian in the first decades of the 20 th c. Two trends: p Johannes Voldemar Veski: systematic development of the standard language p 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 reform Aavik 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 Aavik The word of Aavik Previous word aabe kirjatäht ‘character’ Year Model, source 1930 A, B eetma ‘propose’ ette panema 1936 ette panema embama ‘embrace’ ümbert kinni 1921 võtma fr. embrasser kolp ‘skull’ pealuu 1919 kolu, ru. golova laip ‘corpse’ 1917 grm. Leiche surnukeha

Estonian dialects Standard Estonian has been mostly formed from the dialects of North Estonian. p Mulgi, Tartu, Võro and Seto dialects in the South Estonian language area p The North Estonian language area includes the northeast coastal, eastern, central, western and insular dialects. p

Estonian dialects

Estonian dialects: an example ‘Our nightingale has gone elsewhere this year’ Standard Estonian: Meie ööbik on tänavu mujale läinud Saaremaa (insular dialect): Meide ööbik aa seaesta maeale läin Muhumaa (insular dialect) : Meite üöbik uo sieoasta mõjale läin Northern-Virumaa (coastal dialect): Meie kirikiut one tänävu mojale lähänd Setomaa (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 p no accusative case – the object can be in the partitive, genitive or nominative case p no articles (either definite or indefinite) p

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) p quotative and jussive mood p differentiation between three quantities p

Sound The Estonian language is rich in vowels: the 26 Estonian phonemes include 9 vowels: u, o, a, õ, ü, ö, ä, e, i p A few exceptions excluded, the main stress in Estonian words falls on the first syllable, the frequent secondary stress on odd syllables p

Three quantities Estonian has differentiation between three quantities of syllables. The 2 nd and 3 rd 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'

Vocabulary Simple and compound words, derivations. Old and new loanwords.

Morphology: declination 14 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 tüdruku Partitive ilusa-t tüdruku-t

Semantic cases: interior local cases Illative 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 cases Allative 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 cases Translative 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 p No terminative p Old cases: p Comitative: talo-i-neen ‘with his house(s)’ Instructive: talo-in Accusative (7 pronouns): minu-t, sinu-t etc.

Finnish cases 1

Finnish cases 2

Case forms and stems in Estonian and Finnish Estonian: Nominative Finnish: Genitive 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 Present Past Perfect Pluperfect Mood Indicative Imperative Conditional Quotative Jussive Indicative Imperative Conditional Potential

Verbal categories 2 Voice Personal impersonal Person ja number 1 SG 1 PL 2 SG 2 PL 3 SG 3 PL Polarity Negation / affirmation

Estonian and Finnish verb forms: examples 1 E ma F minä I ela-n elä-n live-1 SG ‘I live’ E ta s/he F hän s/he ela-b live-1 PL elää live: 3 PL ‘s/he lives’ E nad ela-si-d ‘they lived’ F he el-i-vät they live-PST-3 PL

Estonian and Finnish verb forms: examples 2 sa ole-d F sinä ole-t you(SG) be-2 SG E E ta s/he ela-vat live-QUOT E ela-ta-ks F ele-ttä-isi live-IMPS-COND ela-nud ‘You have lived’ elä-nyt live-PRTC ‘s/he is said to live’ ‘one would live’

Estonian and Finnish verb forms: examples 3 E te you F E ei NEG e-tte NEG-2 PL är-ge NEG-2 PL äl-kää NEG-2 PL F E F ela! elä! live ela live elä live ela-ge live-2 PL elä-kö live-IMP ‘live!’ ‘you do not live’ (you) ‘don’t live!’

Books about Estonian Dialects: dictionary, texts Literary 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 1 Erelt, 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 2 Klaas, 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 3 Raag, Raimo 2008, Talupojakeelest riigikeeleks. Tartu, Atlex Rätsep, Huno 1989, Eesti keele tekkimise lugu. – Akadeemia 1989, 1503 -1524 Sutrop, 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.