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About Estonian. Helle Metslang Florence, 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 legend. - PowerPoint PPT Presentation
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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.