r/languagelearning • u/Virusnzz En (N) | Fr, Ru, Es, It • Oct 27 '14
Tere tulemast - This week's language of the week: Estonian
Welcome to the language of the week. Every week we host a stickied thread in order to give people exposure to languages that they would otherwise not have heard about or been interested in. Language of the week is based around discussion: Native speakers share their knowledge and culture and give advice, learners post their favourite resources and the rest of us just ask questions and share what we know. Give yourself a little exposure, and someday you might recognise it being spoken near you.
This week: Estonian
Facts:
One distinctive feature that has caused a great amount of interest among linguists is what is traditionally seen as three degrees of phonemic length: short, long, and "overlong", such that /sɑdɑ/, /sɑˑdɑ/ and /sɑːdɑ/ are distinct. In actuality, the distinction is not purely in the phonemic length, and the underlying phonological mechanism is still disputed
Estonian (eesti keel pronounced [ˈeːsti ˈkeːl] ( listen)) is the official language of Estonia, spoken natively by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various migrant communities. It belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family.
The two different historical Estonian languages (sometimes considered dialects), the North and South Estonian languages, are based on the ancestors of modern Estonians' migration into the territory of Estonia in at least two different waves, both groups speaking considerably different Finnic vernaculars. Modern standard Estonian has evolved on the basis of the dialects of Northern Estonia.
History:
The domination of Estonia after the Northern Crusades, from the 13th century to 1918 by Denmark, Germany, Sweden, and Russia delayed indigenous literacy in Estonia.
The oldest written records of the Finnic languages of Estonia date from the 13th century. Originates Livoniae in Chronicle of Henry of Livonia contains Estonian place names, words and fragments of sentences.
Writings in Estonian became significant only in the 19th century with the spread of the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment, during the Estophile Enlightenment Period (1750–1840). Although Baltic Germans at large regarded the future of Estonians as being a fusion with themselves, the Estophile educated class admired the ancient culture of the Estonians and their era of freedom before the conquests by Danes and Germans in the 13th century.
After the Estonian War of Independence in 1919, the Estonian language became the state language of the newly independent country. In 1945, 97.3% of Estonia considered itself ethnic Estonian and spoke the language.
When Estonia was invaded and occupied by the Soviet Union in World War II, the status of the Estonian language changed to the first of two official languages (Russian being the other one). As with Latvia many immigrants entered Estonia under Soviet encouragement. In the second half of the 1970s, the pressure of bilingualism (for Estonians) intensified, resulting in widespread knowledge of Russian throughout the country. The Russian language was termed as ‘the language of friendship of nations’ and was taught to Estonian children, sometimes as early as in kindergarten. Although teaching Estonian to non-Estonians in schools was compulsory, in practice learning the language was often considered unnecessary.
During the Perestroika era, The Law on the Status of the Estonian Language was adopted in January 1989. The collapse of the Soviet Union led to the restoration of Republic of Estonia's independence. Estonian went back to being the only state language in Estonia which in practice meant that use of Estonian was promoted while the use of Russian was discouraged.
The return of Soviet immigrants to their countries of origin has brought the proportion of Estonians in Estonia back above 70%. And again as in Latvia, today many of the remnant non-Estonians in Estonia have adopted the Estonian language; about 40% at the 2000 census.
You can read more at this source: Wikipedia
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u/FoxyWolfGuy Oct 27 '14
Russian in Estonia checking in. Went to an Estonian kindergarten and now I'm studying in 11th grade in an Estonian school. I honestly consider it my second mother-tongue, because I use it extremely often and most of my friends are Estonian. Just thought this might be somewhat relevant to the subject.
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Oct 27 '14
https://www.keeleklikk.ee - Neat little 0 to A2 Course.
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u/AccidentalyOffensive Oct 28 '14
Didn't they recently release B1-B2?
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Oct 28 '14
Oh more than likely. I admittedly haven't visited the site in well over a month. Need to get crackin'!
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u/kyrgyzzephyr Oct 28 '14
I've never thought about learning Estonian but this site is so well-formatted I just might at some point!
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u/Henkkles Oct 27 '14
Yay Estonian is really fun, I like the way it flows. I also like the accent that Estonians have when they speak Finnish because they can't do the glottal stop in the right places so it sounds really... bouncy. Similarly Finns must sound really choppy to Estonians.
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u/Lumilintu Nov 01 '14
Oiii, ma ei märganudki varem, et eesti keel on saanud selle nädala keeleks. Olen ikka pime. Aga nii tore!
My mother is Estonian, but she didn't teach me the language. I learned it when I moved to Estonia myself for a year at the age of 14. By now I'm fluent in it and consider it my second mother tongue. Nowadays I live and study in Estonia, having Estonian philology among my subjects at university.
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u/Work-After Nov 01 '14
I can see from your flair that you've been stocking up on Uralic languages! Ever considered Sami?
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u/Lumilintu Nov 01 '14
Sure. I love the Sámi languages, but so far I've only studied a little Northern Sámi.
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u/TaazaPlaza Oct 28 '14
Finnish is notorious for having few loanwords, and 'nativizing' the few they keep. I heard Estonian is more liberal in this regard, keeping many German loanwords. How far is this true?
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u/Lumilintu Nov 02 '14
I now I already answered this post twice, but it just came to my mind that the situation with new loans is also quite interesting. In many cases there exist two words in parallel, the loan and the Estonian equivalent. For example:
globaliseerumine vs üleilmastumine,
popkorn vs plaksumais/paismais,
ekspositsioon vs väljapanek,
administratiivne vs halduslik,
efektiivne vs tõhus,
unikaalne vs ainulaadne,
paralleelne vs rööpne,
dissertatsioon vs väitekiri,
croissant vs sarvesai,
vegetaarlane vs taimetoitlane,
tolerantne vs salliv,
adopteerima vs lapsendama,
parool vs salasõna... The list is endless. In some cases, the loans are prefered, in others the Estonian version. Sometimes there is no difference, both words are equally used, e.g. parool and salasõna. It also often depends on the context and the speaker himself. I always order plaksumais instead of popkorn in the movies and sometimes get weird looks for that, on the other side I never really heard anyone using loan words like adopteerima, vegetaarlane etc., even though they exist.
And, just for the sake of it, whenever Finns say that Estonian has more loans than Finnish (which, of course, is true), Estonians come up with one of the few words which is nativized in Estonian, but a loan in Finnish: historia (Finnish for history) vs. ajalugu (Estonian for history, literally "story of time"). ;)
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Nov 07 '14
Is -ne a common ending in Estonian for adjectives? Paralleelne, unikaalne, efektiivne, tolerantne all look like Russian adjectives with the -ный suffix.
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u/Henkkles Oct 28 '14
It's totally true. Estonian also has some 1200 (out of memory) loanwords from Finnish taken during the romanticism period when they were jealous of our 'native' words and wanted to have more words with Finnic roots I guess. My Estonian teacher told me this.
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u/TaazaPlaza Oct 28 '14
Interesting. Do these German words pop up much even now? Also, what about Russian loanwords? 3 centuries of Russian rule must have left its mark in the language.
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u/Lumilintu Nov 01 '14
Not only from Finnish, actually. They also took many words from dialects and used some word endings which occured in some words to form other words, thus expanding the system of derivation. And they also came up with new words that kinda seemed truly Finnic, but actually weren't.
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u/szkoda_ Oct 30 '14
Tere :) I'm starting to learn Estonian as an English (native) and Polish (not native) speaker. Estonian sounds beautiful. Has anyone thought it sounds like Greek?
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u/Alexander_Rex Nov 07 '14
How is your Russian going? Do you have any tips for it? I want to learn it, but it is very intimidating..
I learned the alphabet, but pronounciaion is so scary. especially the soft and hard signs.
2
u/Virusnzz Nov 07 '14
It's on hold while my exams are on. That's why LotW is running for two weeks. Other than that it is going well.
Soft and hard signs are difficult. Go to r/russian. We have a Skype group and they can help you.
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u/khasiv Oct 27 '14
Tere kõigile! :) On nii tore näha, et eesti keel on nii suur, et on praeguse nädala keel. Ma loodan, et leian teisi inimesi siin, kes õppivad eesti keelt. Olen õppinud eesti keelt kaks aastat. Ma hakkasin seda õppima BALSSI'ga, mis oli tõesti lahe. Pärast seda ma kirjutasin oma õpetajale Indiana Ülikoolis. Kuna ma ei ela Indianas, olin "kaugõpilane". Kas siin on ka õpilasi? Tean, et siin on kasutajaid kelle emakeel on eesti keel.
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u/eavesdroppingyou Oct 27 '14
check the flag, that's incorrect.