Category
Topic
Year
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…
The process of writing as mirror stage
The article discusses the works of Estonian Russian author Andrei Ivanov. Although he has been publishing only since 2007, he has already received a number of local and international awards, while his books have been translated into Estonian and German; also, a play based on his novel has been staged in Hamburg. Never before has an Estonian Russian author attracted so many Estonian sympathizers as evidenced by professional criticism as well as by numerous literary blogs. The article makes an attempt to analyse some specific features of Andrei Ivanov’s writings, pointing out his alien or non-belonger status, writing as his…
Russian formalism and Estonian literature
The 19th century following the industrial revolution developed into a technological era, which evoked humanist protest in arts (symbolism, decadence) as well as humanities (Freud, anthropology). Literary theory was also affected as scientific logic borrowed from technology was applied to human semiotic and figurative thinking (Saussure, Wölfflin). Russian formalists had to overcome two traditions in the 19th-century literary studies, namely, a positivist adherence to facts and vulgar psychologism, neither having to do with a work of literature. Their studies addressed the author, the person behind the text. However, for them the author was not so much a person of flesh…
Estonian verb paradigm
The article deals with the problem how to represent the morphological composition of the paradigmatic simple forms of the Estonian verb with a view to good theoretical justification and practical suitability for computer and corpus linguistics. The major issue here is systematic homonymy and underspecification. The article discusses the possible influence of paradigmatic representation on the understanding of the system of categories, comments on the imperative and jussive moods, makes an original suggestion of how to place certain morphological forms in the paradigmatic table, and points out some forms ending in -kse, which do not fit in the traditional framework.
The…
The…
40 years of young scientists conferences
The article gives an overview of young scientists conferences, with a focus on the representation and participation of young folklorists. The tradition of such conferences dates back to 1974 (Institute of Language and Literature) and 1978 (Estonian Literary Museum). The overview reflects changes both in conference organization and presentation technology. It also points out the changes in research focus throughout the 40 years period. The article is based on the recollections of the participants and organizers as well as on published sources.
Etymological notes (XV)
The article discusses the origin of the Estonian words kada ‘slingshot’, (k)raejalad ‘horse, trestle’ and õnnar ‘coccyx’. The word kada is the result of shortening the word kadapulk, which in turn is a folk etymological transformation of katapult ‘catapult’. The meaning of ‘slingshot’ had been obtained by Katapult in German, which mediated the antique word to Estonian. The first component (k)rae- of the compound word (k)raejalad (jalad ‘legs’) is a borrowing from Middle Low German schrage ‘trestle with crossed legs’. The word õnnar ‘coccyx, tailbone’ is a Standard Estonian word obtained from the first component of the compound word õndra-kont…
Aleksander Kesküla as a literary character
The article discusses three literary characters inspired by historical Estonian politician Aleksander Kesküla, found in the novels „Tõde ja õigus” III (Truth and Justice III, 2009 [1936]) by Anton Hansen Tammsaare, „Dr. H. Rejsende i revolution” (Dr. H. Traveler in Revolution, 1986) by Tørk Haxthausen, and „Volta annab kaeblikku vilet” (The Plaintive Whistle of the Volta Factory, 2001) by Aarne Ruben. In all three novels, Kesküla is a secondary character, yet fulfills a significant role in the context of the author’s more general ambitions. The depiction of Kesküla, stressing mysteriousness as his main characteristic trait, is relatively realistic in the…
A multi-layered Setumaa
The article addresses some etymological issues of the place names of Setumaa, which have hitherto received insufficient attention, if any. Those issues include Baltic substrate names. Attention is drawn to those names of Russian origin that reflect sound changes enabling relative dating. The article emphasizes the necessity of a systematic in-depth investigation of the stratigraphy of the whole toponymic material recorded from Setumaa, with a view to obtaining new reliable information on the settlement history of the region.
Narratives about humorous life events in the community tradition
Compared to the 1960s, an analysis of today’s humorous narratives based on real-life events allows to identify some dynamic changes in community folklore. The most volatile factor in this study is the sociocultural situation: the topics of the narratives continue shifting forward in time, reflecting the experience that the community members have accumulated in life. The tradition shows a receding tendency in rural villages, but is more active in circles of colleagues or friends, in clubs and societies, etc. As far as humour theories are concerned, the most important point to make here is that the topicality of the repertoire…
Ruins and gardens
Up to the present, Bernard Kangro’s Tartu novels („Springs of Ice” 1958, „The River Emajõgi” 1961, „Tartu” 1962, „The Stone Bridge” 1963, „The Black Book” 1965, and „Whirlwind of Fire” 1969), regarded as the core of his prose fiction, have been examined through a paradigm of literary movements. The goal of this article is to supplement and specify these so-called canonical treatments by an examination of the characteristics of baroque aesthetics as seen in Kangro’s last five Tartu novels. Among the features attributed to baroque literature are spatial representation of time, syncretism, a coexistence of different levels of meaning in…
Lexical categories and constructions with the verb saama (‘to get’) in written Estonian
The paper gives a panchronic overview of the central lexical uses and constructions related to the polysemous Estonian verb saama ‘to get’, from its first records in the written language until the present day. The paper concentrates on the main semantic categories that saama expresses in its lexical usage. The potential development paths of the central lexical meanings of saama and their interrelatedness have been outlined.
The conclusion is that based on documented written Estonian, the SUCCEED meaning has always been part of the semantic field of the verb saama, being present in the central grammatical functions of POSSIBILITY, NECESSITY, and…
The conclusion is that based on documented written Estonian, the SUCCEED meaning has always been part of the semantic field of the verb saama, being present in the central grammatical functions of POSSIBILITY, NECESSITY, and…
The oldest Chinese loanwords in Estonian
As the two oldest Chinese loanwords, tee ‘tea’ and jaam ‘station’, have been properly established in Estonian they cannot been found in the Estonian Lexicon of Foreign Words (VL). The Estonian Etymological Dictionary (EES) mentions the Chinese origin of tee ‘tea’, but not of jaam, even though Enn Ernits (2007) has written on the Chinese origin of both words. The present contribution specifies the Chinese origin of the two words as evidenced by ancient Chinese sources.