NationMaster - Encyclopedia: Estonian language

Estonian (eesti keel (help· info); IPA: [ˈeːs.ti ˈkeːl]) is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and by some ten thousand in various émigré communities. It is a Finno-Ugric language and is closely related to Finnish. Northern Europe is marked in dark blue Northern Europe is a name of the northern part of the European continent. ... Current distribution of Human Language Families A language family is a group of related languages said to have descended from a common proto-language. ... Geographical distribution of Samoyedic, Finnic, Ugric and Yukaghir languages Yukaghir Samoyedic Ugric Finnic The Uralic languages (pronounced: ) form a language family of about 30 languages spoken by approximately 20 million people. ... Approximate geographical distribution of areas where indigenous Finno-Ugric languages are spoken. ... Approximate geographical distribution of areas where indigenous Finno-Ugric languages are spoken. ... Baltic-Finnic languages are a subgroup of Finno-Ugric languages, spoken around the Baltic Sea by about 6 million people. ... Image File history File links Flag_of_Estonia. ... Image File history File links European_flag. ... ISO 639-1 is the first part of the ISO 639 international-standard language-code family. ... ISO 639-2 is the second part of the ISO 639 standard, which lists codes for the representation of the names of languages. ... ISO 639-3 is an international standard for language codes. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the â€œInternational Phonetic Alphabetâ€. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Phonetics (from the Greek word Ï†Ï‰Î½Î®, phone meaning sound, voice) is the study of the sounds of human speech. ... Unicode is an industry standard designed to allow text and symbols from all of the writing systems of the world to be consistently represented and manipulated by computers. ... Image File history File links Et-eesti_keel. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the â€œInternational Phonetic Alphabetâ€. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Ã‰migrÃ© is a French term that shows how Martin B. loves stephanie. ... Approximate geographical distribution of areas where indigenous Finno-Ugric languages are spoken. ...

One distinctive feature that has caused a great amount of interest in linguists is that Estonian has what is traditionally seen as three degrees of phoneme length: short, long, and "overlong", such that IPA /toto/, /toːto/ and /toːˑto/ are distinct, as are /toto/, /totːo/, and /totːˑo/. In actuality, the distinction isn't purely in the phoneme length, and the underlying phonological mechanism is still disputed. Linguistics is the scientific study of language, which can be theoretical or applied. ... In human language, a phoneme is the theoretical representation of a sound. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the â€œInternational Phonetic Alphabetâ€. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ...

Another feature that sets Estonian apart from most languages is the vowel õ ([ɤ]), a close-mid near-back unrounded vowel, which is farther back than the schwa ([ə]), but fronter than [o]. Ã•, or Ãµ is a composition of the Latin letter O with the diacritic mark tilde. ... Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... In linguistics, specifically phonetics and phonology, schwa can mean: An unstressed and toneless neutral vowel sound in any language, often but not necessarily a mid-central vowel. ...

Classification

Estonian belongs to the Finnic branch of the Finno-Ugric languages. Estonian is thus closely related to Finnish, spoken on the other side of the Gulf of Finland, and is one of the few languages of Europe that is not Indo-European. Despite some overlaps in the vocabulary due to borrowings, in terms of its origin, Estonian is not related to its nearest neighbours, Swedish, Latvian and Russian, which are all Indo-European languages. Geographical distribution of Finno-Ugric (Finno-Permic in blue, Ugric in green). ... Approximate geographical distribution of areas where indigenous Finno-Ugric languages are spoken. ... The Baltic Sea The Gulf of Finland is an arm of the Baltic Sea that extends between Finland (to the north) and Estonia (to the south) all the way to the city of Saint Petersburg in Russia, where the river Neva drains into it. ... The Indo-European languages comprise a family of several hundred related languages and dialects [1], including most of the major languages of Europe, as well as many spoken in the Indian subcontinent (South Asia), the Iranian plateau (Southwest Asia), and Central Asia. ...

Estonian is distantly related to Hungarian. It has been influenced by German — initially Middle Low German, later also standard German, Russian, Swedish and Latvian, though it is not related to them genetically. The Middle Low German language is an ancestor of the modern Low German language, and was spoken from about 1100 to 1500. ... Standard German is the prescriptive norm variant of the German language used as a written language, in formal contexts, and for communication between different dialect areas. ... Proto-language may refer to either: a language that is the common ancestor of a set of related languages (a language family), or a system of communication during a stage in glottogony that may not yet be properly called a language. ...

Like Finnish and Hungarian, Estonian is an agglutinative language, but unlike them, it has lost the vowel harmony of Proto-Finno-Ugric, although in older texts the vowel harmony is still to be recognized. Furthermore, the apocope of word-final sounds is extensive and has caused a shift from a purely agglutinative to an inflected language. The basic word order is Subject Verb Object. It has been suggested that Agglutination be merged into this article or section. ... Vowel harmony (also metaphony) is a type of long-distance assimilatory phonological process involving vowels. ... Proto-Finno-Ugric is the reconstructed protolanguage for the Finno-Ugric languages, that is the ancestor of the Samic languages or Finnic languages, such as Finnish, and the Ugric languages, whose best known example is Hungarian. ... An apocope or apocopation is a type of metaplasm that refers to a word formed by removing the end of a longer original word. ... In linguistic typology, subject-verb-object (SVO) is the sequence subject verb object in neutral expressions: Sam ate oranges. ...

Dialects

The Estonian dialects are divided into two groups - the northern and southern dialects, usually associated with the cities of Tallinn in the north and Tartu in the south, in addition to a distinct kirderanniku dialect, that of the northeastern coast of Estonia. County Harju County Mayor JÃ¼ri Ratas Area 159. ... County Tartu County Mayor Laine JÃ¤nes Area 38. ...

The northern group consists of the kesk or middle dialect that is also the basis for the standard language, the lääne or western dialect, roughly corresponding to Läänemaa and Pärnumaa, the saarte (islands') dialect of Saaremaa and Hiiumaa and the ida or eastern dialect on the northwestern shore of Lake Peipsi. Capital Haapsalu Governor Sulev Vare Area 2,383. ... PÃ¤rnu County (Estonian: PÃ¤rnumaa) is a County (maakond) in the country of Estonia. ... This article is about the island. ... Tahkuna peninsula is the most northern part of Hiiumaa, Estonia Hiiumaa is the second largest island (989 kmÂ²) belonging to Estonia. ... Shore A shore or shoreline is the land at the edge of a large body of water, such as an ocean, sea, or lake. ... Lake Peipsi (Estonian: Peipsi järv, Russian: Чудское озеро(Chud Lake), German: Peipus-See) is a large lake, on the border between Estonia and Russia in Eastern Europe. ...

The southern group consists of the Tartu, Mulgi, Võro and Seto dialects. These are sometimes considered either variants of a South Estonian language, or separate languages altogether. Also, Seto is not usually considered a dialect of Estonian, but rather a variant of Võro. South Estonian is a language or a language group which belongs to the Finnic branch of the Finno-Ugric languages. ... Seto or Setu language is a dialect of the Finnic South Estonian or VÃµro language (or a separate language, which is a disputed claim) and also the name denoting its speakers, Seto people, who mostly inhabit the area near Estonias southeastern border with Russia, in the county of... The Vyronian language (vÃµro kiil) is a language belonging to the Baltic-Finnic branch of the Finno-Ugric languages. ...

Writing system

Alphabet

Like Finnish, Estonian employs the Latin alphabet, in addition to which the Estonian alphabet contains letters š, ž, ä, ö, ü, and õ. The letters c, q, w, x and y are limited to proper names of foreign origin, and f, z, š, and ž appear in loanwords and foreign names only. Ö, and ü are pronounced similarly to their equivalents in German. Unlike in standard German, Ä is pronounced [æ], as in English mat. The vowels Ä, Ö and Ü are, unlike in German, clearly separate phonemes and inherent in Estonian, although the letter shapes come from German. The letter õ denotes IPA /ɤ/, unrounded /o/, or a close-mid back unrounded vowel. (It has a different sound from the same letter in Portuguese. It is similar to the Russian ы, Turkish ı and the Vietnamese ơ.) The Estonian alphabet is used for writing the Estonian language and is based on the Latin alphabet, with German influence. ... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world today. ... The Estonian alphabet is used for writing the Estonian language and is based on the Latin alphabet, with German influence. ... A proper name [is] a word that answers the purpose of showing what thing it is that we are talking about writes John Stuart Mill in A System of Logic (1. ... Articles with similar titles include the NATO phonetic alphabet, which has also informally been called the â€œInternational Phonetic Alphabetâ€. For information on how to read IPA transcriptions of English words, see IPA chart for English. ... Vowels Near-close Close-mid Mid Open-mid Near-open Open Where symbols appear in pairs, the one to the right represents a rounded vowel. ... Yery (Ð«, Ñ‹) is a letter in the Cyrillic alphabet. ... Æ is one of the 12 Vietnamese language vowels. ...

Orthography

Estonian orthography is essentially phonemic with each phoneme of the language represented by exactly one grapheme. Exceptions to this derive from historical agreements: for example the initial letter 'h' in words, preservation of the morpheme in declension of the word (writing b, g, d in places where p, k, t is pronounced) and in the use of 'i' and 'j'. Where it is very impractical or impossible to type š and ž, they are substituted with sh and zh in some written texts, although this is considered incorrect. Otherwise, the h in sh represents a voiceless glottal fricative, as in pasha (pas-'ha); this also applies to some foreign names. In linguistics, declension is the inflection of nouns, pronouns and adjectives to indicate such features as number (typically singular vs. ... The voiceless glottal transition, commonly called a fricative, is a type of sound used in some spoken languages which often behaves like a consonant, but sometimes behaves more like a vowel, or is indeterminate in its behavior. ... Pasha refers to: Pasha, a high rank in the former Ottoman Empire Russian-speakers use Pasha as a diminutive form of the given name Pavel, equivalent to the English Paul. ...

Modern Estonian orthography is based on the Newer Orthography created by Eduard Ahrens in the second half of the 19th century based on Finnish Orthography. The Older Orthography it replaced was created in the 17th century by Bengt Gottfried Forselius and Johann Hornung based on standard German orthography. Earlier writing in Estonian had by and large used an ad hoc orthography based on Latin and Middle Low German orthography. Some influences of the standard German orthography — for example, writing 'W'/'w' instead of 'V'/'v' persisted well into the 1930s. Another influence that had persisted in the 20th century and beyond is using a spaced em dash — which is often used in professional publications (books, etc), although many Estonian computer users not knowledgable in correct orthography tend to use a hyphen-minus, a figure dash or an en dash instead, with no spacing or with variable spacing. Bengt Gottfried Forselius (ca 1660, Harju-Madise, Harju County, Estonia (then part of Sweden) â€“ 16 November 1688, Baltic Sea) was a founder of public education in Estonia, author of the first Estonian language ABC-book, and creator of a spelling system which made the teaching and learning of Estonian easier. ... German (called Deutsch in German; in German the term germanisch is equivalent to English Germanic), is a member of the western group of Germanic languages and is one of the worlds major languages. ... Latin is an ancient Indo-European language originally spoken in Latium, the region immediately surrounding Rome. ... The Middle Low German language is an ancestor of the modern Low German language, and was spoken from about 1100 to 1500. ... A dash is a punctuation mark, and is not to be confused with the hyphen, which has quite different uses. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ... Note: This article contains special characters. ...

It should be noted that Estonian words and names quoted from Soviet sources are often incorrect back-transliterations from the Russian transliteration. Examples are the use of "ya" for "ä" (e.g. Pyarnu instead of the correct Pärnu) and "y" instead of "õ" (e.g., Pylva instead of the correct Põlva). Even in the "Encyclopaedia Britannica" one can find "ostrov Khiuma", where "ostrov" means "island" in Russian and "Khiuma" is back-transliteration from Russian instead of correct "Hiiumaa" (Hiiumaa>Хийума(а)>Khiuma).

Phonology

Vowels

There are nine phonemic monophthongs, with three phonetic lengths. Of these, simple and long are segmentally phonemic, and the third length level is suprasegmentally phonemic and aided by a distinctive tonal contour. The script distinguishes only short and long, marked by vowel doubling, e.g. öö "night". There are 19 segmental diphthongs (Hint 1978), and polysyllablic vowel clusters are also found. There are very few instances of vowel allophony: 'ä' may have pronunciations [æ] and [ɛ], and the phoneme /yː/ is pronounced as the diphthong [yi].

Consonants

Notes: In phonetics, a bilabial consonant is a consonant articulated with both lips. ... In phonetics, labiodentals are consonants articulated with the lower lips and the upper teeth, or viceversa. ... Alveolar consonants are articulated with the tongue against or close to the superior alveolar ridge, which is called that because it contains the alveoli (the sockets) of the superior teeth. ... Postalveolar (or palato-alveolar) consonants are consonants articulated with the tip of the tongue between the alveolar ridge (the place of articulation for alveolar consonants) and the palate (the place of articulation for palatal consonants). ... Palatal consonants are consonants articulated with the body of the tongue raised against the hard palate (the middle part of the roof of the mouth). ... Velars are consonants articulated with the back part of the tongue (the dorsum) against the soft palate (the back part of the roof of the mouth, known also as the velum). ... Glottal consonants are consonants articulated with the glottis. ... A stop, plosive, or occlusive is a consonant sound produced by stopping the airflow in the vocal tract. ... A nasal consonant is produced when the velumâ€”that fleshy part of the palate near the backâ€”is lowered, allowing air to escape freely through the nose. ... Fricatives (or spirants) are consonants produced by forcing air through a narrow channel made by placing two articulators close together. ... Approximants are speech sounds that could be regarded as intermediate between vowels and typical consonants. ... In phonetics, a trill is a consonantal sound produced by vibrations between the articulator and the place of articulation. ...

There is one series of stops, unvoiced unaspirated, with three phonemic lengths, written b d g, p t k and pp tt kk. The rest of the consonants also have distinctive length, but only short and long are distinguished in writing. As with vowels, two segmental length levels are phonemic, and the third level is suprasegmentally phonemic. For example, for 'n', short 'n' in lina "sheet", half-long 'n' in linna "town's", over-long 'n' in linna "to the town". The latter addition of length is traceable to a grammatical marker *-han that has elided. In phonetics, an allophone is one of several similar phones that belong to the same phoneme. ...

The fricatives are s h, added with f š ž z for loans. The other consonants are j l m n r v, plus the allophonic velar nasal in nk and ng. Consonants may be palatalized; but this is not written in the orthography, as palatalization generally occurs before front vowels. About 0.15% of the vocabulary features fully phonemic palatalization, where palatalization occurs without the front vowel. The process is similar to that found in Eastern Finnish dialects, where word-final 'i' is elided, leaving the palatalization on the consonant. Thus, palatalization does not necessarily need a front vowel, and palatalized vs. plain continuants can be articulated. The velar nasal is a type of consonantal sound, used in some spoken languages. ...

Proto-Finnic, the ancestor of the Estonian language, lost palatalization, but Estonian is one of those languages which reacquired it from Slavic. Yet, it underwent further modification, which makes Estonian palatalization different from Russian palatalization. In Russian, palatalization causes some affrication and necessarily features a palatal approximant/fricative offglide, which is not the case in Estonian, where the consonant is otherwise unaffected.

The stress is on the first syllable; however, international loanwords and over-long consonants may alter this pattern. The stress is weak, and as length levels already control an aspect of "articulation intensity", most words appear evenly stressed.

Gradation

In Estonian language, sounds alternate between various grades of length and stress in different grammatical forms of a word. In linguistics, Alternation is when a set of morphosyntactic properties is phonologically expressed in two or more different ways in different words. ...

Consonants

There are two principally different consonant gradation types in Estonian - qualitative and quantitative.

1) Qualitative changes
1a) deletion of a stop (g, b, d, k, t) or s (arg : ara, käskida : käsin, tuba : toa, uskuda : usun, mesi : mee)
1b) assimilation (kandma : kannan, vars : varre)
1c) replacement of a weak stop by rules b:v, d:j, g:j (kaebama : kaevata, rada : raja, märg : märja)
2) Quantitative changes
2a) alternation of long and short geminate (pikk : pika, sepp : sepa, võtta : võtan, kirss : kirsi)
2b) alternation of strong and weak stops (vilkuda : vilgub, kubjas : kupja, kartma : kardan).

The strengthening consonant gradation types of nouns are the following:
a) nouns that derived from a verb with consonant gradation, e.g.: hinne : hinde (verb hindama - hinnata - hindan)
b) nouns that end with s and are in weak grade in singular nominative, but singular genitive is in strong grade and the final s is deleted, e.g saabas : saapa
c) nouns that end with vowel + r (vaher : vahtra, tütar : tütre)
d) nouns that additionally to the gradating stem have stem final change e-me (liige : liikme, võti : võtme)

Vowels

Vowel gradation is the alternation of II and III grade (kool : kooli). In linguistics, apophony (also ablaut, gradation, alternation, internal modification, stem modification, stem alternation, replacive morphology, stem mutation, internal inflection) is the alternation of sounds within a word that indicates grammatical information (often inflectional). ...

Grammar

Typologically, Estonian represents a transitional form from an agglutinating language to a fusional language. Over the course of Estonian history, German has exercised a strong influence on Estonian, both in vocabulary and syntax. This article needs additional references or sources for verification. ... An agglutinative language is a language in which the words are formed by joining morphemes together. ... A fusional language (also called inflecting language) is a type of synthetic language, distinguished from agglutinative languages by its tendency to squish together many morphemes in a way which can be difficult to segment. ...

In Estonian nouns and pronouns do not have grammatical gender, but nouns and adjectives decline in fourteen cases: nominative, genitive, partitive, illative, inessive, elative, allative, adessive, ablative, translative, terminative, essive, abessive, and comitative, with the case and number of the adjective(s) always agreeing with that of the noun (except in the terminative, essive, abessive and comitative, where there is agreement only for the number, the adjective being in the genitive form). Thus the illative for "a yellow house" (kollane maja) — "into a yellow house" is (kollasesse majja). In linguistics, grammatical gender is a morphological category associated with the expression of gender through inflection or agreement. ... The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun. ... The genitive case is a grammatical case that indicates a relationship, primarily one of possession, between the noun in the genitive case and another noun. ... The basic meaning of the Partitive case is partialness, without result or without specifying identity. In the Finnish language, its used to express unknown identities and irresultative actions. ... Illative is, in the Finnish language, Estonian language and the Hungarian language, the third of the locative cases with the basic meaning of into (the inside of). An example from Hungarian would be a házba (into the house). ... Inessive case is a locative grammatical case. ... See Elative for disambiguation. ... In the Finnish language, the Allative case is the fifth of the locative cases, with the basic meaning of onto. Its ending is -lle, for example pöytä (table) and pöydälle (onto the top of the table). ... In the Finnish language, Estonian language and Hungarian language the adessive case is the fourth of the locative cases with the basic meaning of on. For example, Estonian laud (table) and laual (on the table). ... In linguistics, the ablative case is a noun case found in several languages, including Latin, Sanskrit and in the Finno_Ugric languages. ... This declension (case) indicates a change in state of a noun, with the general sense of becoming X or change to X. In the Finnish language, this is the counterpart of the Essive case, with the basic meaning of a change of state. ... In morphology, the terminative case is a case that indicates to what point; where something ends. ... The essive or similaris case carries the meaning of a temporary state of being, often equivalent to the English as a. ... In linguistics, the Abessive case is a noun case expressing the lack and absence of something. ... The Comitative case is used where English would use in company with or together with. It, and many other cases, are found in the Finnish language, the Hungarian language, and the Estonian language. ...

The direct object of the verb appears either in the accusative (for total objects) or in the partitive (for partial objects). The accusative coincides with the genitive in the singular and with nominative in the plural. Accusative vs. partitive case opposition of object used with transitive verbs creates a telicity contrast, just as in Finnish. This is a rough equivalent of the perfect vs. imperfect aspect opposition. The accusative case (abbreviated ACC) of a noun is the grammatical case used to mark the direct object of a transitive verb. ... An object in grammar is a sentence element and part of the sentence predicate. ... Telicity or telic aspect is a verb aspect, indicating a reached goal or action completed as intended. ...

The verbal system lacks a distinctive future tense (the present tense serves here) and features special forms to express an action performed by an undetermined subject (the "impersonal"). The subject of a sentence is one of the two main parts of a sentence, the other being the predicate. ...

Vocabulary

Although the Estonian and Germanic languages are of completely different origins, one can identify many similar words in Estonian and English, for example. This is primarily due to the fact that the Estonian language has borrowed nearly one third of its vocabulary from Germanic languages, mainly from Low Saxon (Middle Low German) during the period of German rule, and High German (including standard German). The percentage of Low Saxon and High German loanwords can be estimated at 22-25 percent, with Low Saxon making up about 15 percent. History of Estonian vocabulary (in Estonian) Categories: | ... Proto-Indo-European Indo-European studies The Germanic languages form one of the branches of the Indo-European (IE) language family, spoken by the Germanic peoples who settled in northern Europe along the borders of the Roman Empire. ... This article does not cite any references or sources. ... The Middle Low German language is an ancestor of the modern Low German language, and was spoken from about 1100 to 1500. ... // Pre-history Chudes (proto-Estonians) and other Finnic tribes. ... Subdivisions Central German Upper German High German (in German, Hochdeutsch) is any of several German dialects spoken in Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and Luxembourg (as well as in neighbouring portions of Belgium, France (Alsace), Italy, Poland, and Romania (Transylvania) and in some areas of former colonial settlement, for example in... Standard German is the prescriptive norm variant of the German language used as a written language, in formal contexts, and for communication between different dialect areas. ...

Language example

Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Estonian: Bold text Eleanor Roosevelt with the Spanish version of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. ...

Kõik inimesed sünnivad vabadena ja võrdsetena oma väärikuselt ja õigustelt. Neile on antud mõistus ja südametunnistus ja nende suhtumist üksteisesse peab kandma vendluse vaim.

(All people are born free and equal in their dignity and rights. They are given reason and conscience and they shall create their relationships to one another according to the spirit of brotherhood.)

References

Contents

Classification

Dialects

Writing system

Alphabet

Orthography

Phonology

Vowels

Consonants

Gradation

Consonants

Vowels

Grammar

Vocabulary

Language example

References

See also

External links

Dictionaries