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Topic
Year
On the nature of Estonian quantity system
The article surveys the recent acoustic and perceptual studies of Estonian phonetic quantity and introduces some new phonological interpretations of the ternary opposition of the Estonian quantity degrees. Answering to Mati Hint’s (2015) criticism, which is based on a theory of syllable quantity, the Estonian opposition of three quantity degrees is explained as a property of minimally disyllabic metrical feet. Acoustically as well as perceptually, Estonian quantity degrees are a complex phenomenon depending on durational differences, pitch contour, intensity, sound quality, and the way of binding of the first and second syllables (cf. Lippus et al. 2013). The article points…
Attitudes towards translation, or how translation is defined
The article addresses the available definitions and interpretations of translation, mainly in view of translator education. The constantly changing market as well as the modern information society requires that a translator should be flexible and ready to act in a constructive manner whatever the situation. Knowing just a few basics is hardly enough if a translator’s ambition is higher than the lowest market segment, let alone job satisfaction. Therefore, I would argue that it is crucial for translators to reach their own definition of translation and to be able to analyse the translation process.
Translation is a field of many well-established…
Translation is a field of many well-established…
Parnassus and the Agora
The article discusses the literary criticism published in the Estonian printed press during 2013–2014 and in the available collections of criticism by classics as well as by modern critics. The focus is on the government supported cultural journals Looming, Vikerkaar and Keel ja Kirjandus, and the newspaper Sirp, which all publish criticism of a satisfactory standard. Compared to Soviet times, when part of the cultural press was censored less strictly, thus enabling hidden reference to social problems, the literary criticism cultivated in independent Estonia is more self-sufficient, mainly dealing with aesthetic problems. An approach to literature as an art in…
Cat house
Mati Unt’s image as a writer is closely related to existentialism, which is evidenced by his portrayal of home. Many of Unt’s characters live in temporary rooms, without really feeling at home anywhere, and their relations with other people are complicated and often violent. And yet, Unt’s existentialism is not absolute. His alienation is often conditioned by the public sphere, the (Soviet) system and its influence on human relations. Rather, the characters created by the young Unt are trying to bridge the crevice of alienation, to catch „a signal of help”, to make contact with other levels or spheres. This…
Three congresses
One of the manifestations of Soviet cultural policy involved spectacular congresses of the creative unions, held according to a traditional scenario. Such congresses (of composers, artists, writers, as well as, e.g., of collective farmers) were always very ceremonious, with a lot of rhetoric eulogizing the authorities; some, if not all members of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union were elected to the Honorary Presidium of the congress, a letter was addressed to the congress by the Bureau of the local (Estonian) Communist Party or by some other such organ, a congress resolution was adopted, containing…
Mechanics of the erroneous theory of three distinctive quantities in Estonian
In his paper „Estonian word prosody in the Southern Finnic context” (Keel ja Kirjandus 2014, No. 8–9, pp. 575–589) Karl Pajusalu has recently analysed the prosodic differences and peculiarities of North Estonian, Votic, Livonian and South Estonian. In both North and South Estonian, Pajusalu prefers the concepts of foot and foot isochrony as the most adequate model of Estonian word prosody. However, there are many unsolved problems connected with the calculation of the duration ratio of the first and second syllables of a word. Pajusalu’s paper and a lot of research conducted during the last decades fail to pay due…
A hero of the Enlightenment and a national myth in „Rakvere romaan” (A Rakvere novel) by Jaan Kross
The focus of the article is an analysis of the main character of „Rakvere romaan“ (A Rakvere novel) (1982) by Jaan Kross. Although literary scholars have not yet captured the structure and detail of Berend Falck’s inner world, a little has been achieved by critics upon the appearance of the book. J. Kross has has turned serious attention to the books read by this Enlightenment character. Although we get no direct access to Falck’s interpretation of his reading, its influence can be guessed from his way of thinking and acting. Berend Falck, who is fluent in German and French, mainly…
Sarn and sarnane
The Estonian sarn ‘cheekbone’ belongs to the words with still no satisfactory etymology. The same applies to the word sarnane ‘similar; coll. such’. Although to-day the word sarn is considered a natural part of the North-Estonian based common and standard language, its historical area of distribution refers it to South Estonian. The word does not occur in other Finnic languages, nor in more distantly related languages. The article suggests a Slavic etymology. The assumed source word is the pre-pleophonic *skorńa, which has descendants in East, West and South Slavic languages, e.g. Russian скоронь f. ‘temple’, Church Slavonic скрания (-ья) ‘cheek;…
Number in some body-part nouns
The article attempts to find out what factors could possibly affect the grammatical number of the Estonian words käsi ‘hand’, jalg ‘foot’ and suu ‘mouth’. The material investigated comes from the Electronic Base Dictionary of Estonian Phrases (FES), the Corpus of Modern Estonian Metaphorical Phrases (MetafK) and the Estonian Web Corpus (etTenTen). The article aims to determine (1) the possible differences in the frequency of occurrence of singular and plural forms of the body-part words in idiomatic and non-idiomatic phrases in modern and older language; (2) the possible factors behind the deviations from the normal syntactic and distributional logic of…
Home and wayfinding
The article observes the depiction of home as an intimately experienced spatial node in three works by Jaan Kaplinski: a collection of poetry entitled Evening Brings Everything Back (1985); a piece of poetic prose Through the Forest (1991); and a contemplation written in South Estonian dialect Into the Forest and Back (2014). The framework against which the texts are read is informed by the phenomenologically minded school of human geography (Yi-Fu Tuan), merged with insights from architecture (Juhani Pallasmaa) and semiotics (Juri Lotman, Kalevi Kull) as well as from points of convergence of sensory perception studies with anthropology (Tim Ingold)…
Letter of indulgence, communion wafer and fair: aablat, oblaat, laat
The article reviews domestication of the concepts of and terms for ’letter of indulgence’and ’communion wafer’ in the Estonian language. Etymological research of the word oblaat leads to the early Low German loanword aablat (afflate in old written Estonian) which denoted indulgence. As letters of indulgence were primarily sold near churches during religious holidays, the word laat, an abbreviated form of afflate, became gradually related chiefly to trade and acquired the meaning of a fair or fȇte. In the 16th century, at the time of the Reformation, letters of indulgence disappeared in Estonia, but fairs remained. In the dictionaries of…