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Was Jakob Liiv the author of the first Estonian sonnets?
According to Bernard Kangro’s Eesti soneti ajalugu („History of the Estonian sonnet”, 1938) the first Estonian sonnet ever written was Õnnesoov isamaale („Congratulation to Fatherland”) by Matthias Johann Eisen, published in 1881, which has ever since been regarded as the birth year of the Estonian sonnet.
However, there are two Estonian sonnets dated to earlier years by their author Jakob Liiv (1859–1938). The sonnet Isale 50 aastaseks sündimise päevaks („To Father on his 50th anniversary”) bears the date 1878, and Asjata („In vain”) – 1880. Both were published later than Eisen’s poem: Isale. . . .in 1886 (undated) and 1903 (dated), while Asjata was…
However, there are two Estonian sonnets dated to earlier years by their author Jakob Liiv (1859–1938). The sonnet Isale 50 aastaseks sündimise päevaks („To Father on his 50th anniversary”) bears the date 1878, and Asjata („In vain”) – 1880. Both were published later than Eisen’s poem: Isale. . . .in 1886 (undated) and 1903 (dated), while Asjata was…
Regularities of the Estonian system of declension
The article offers a description of the Estonian declensional system. The underlying principle is that of W. Wurzel’s concept of stable and unstable inflectional classes. Basing its claims on frequency data, the article presents a conceptual implicational structure of the nominal paradigm, headed by the nominative singular. The article also shows that the extramorphological properties of a word comprise the derivational structure (together with the knowledge of the base), the phonological properties of the nominative singular, and the foreignness of the word. The important phonological properties are: the final phonemes of the word, the length of the final syllable, in…
Change of place names in Pöide parish
The article reports a study of changes in place names used in Pöide parish, focussing on three time periods from the end of the 18th century until today. The necessity for place names depends on people’s need to communicate and identify a certain place, while survival of the names critically depends on their use. Both social changes and changes in nature may be the reason for changes in place names. Place names can be classified into cultural and nature names. This classification is expedient, because the names change differently as do their referents. Although nearly half of the names of…
On some words erroneously labelled as Latvian loanwords
The article deals with a dozen South-Estonian words which Kalev Kalkun (2012) has taken for Latvian loanwords. Actually, most of them are of a different origin. The lexemes kostum(m)a ’to thaw up; to soften’, klympama ’to limp’, mäürämmä ’to growl’ and, maybe also räüs ’hail’ and räütmä ’to trample down; to tousle’ are genuine. It is likely that some of the words, especially klympama and mäürämmä are expressive. The general form of klympama is (k)lVmp(s)V, cf. klimpama, limpama, lompama, lumpama ’to limp’ etc. A borrowing from Germanic languages is not excluded either, cf. the English „limp”. The word räüstämä ’to…
„Great stories” of a small nation – self-presentation constructed through folktales
The article discusses how rumours and legends work together in creating national and personal identity. The subject matter is a narrative cycle centered around so-called stories of descendence. According to these stories, a number of famous people such as Harry S. Truman, Benito Mussolini, Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Boris Yeltsin, Boris Becker, Ayrton Senna da Silva, Lady Diana etc are either Estonians or have Estonian ancestors. Following these stories through many different sources and material (archival texts, memories, diaries, literature, media, popculture) we can observe how vibrant this discourse has been and still is today. We may take these stories with…
The object in Estonian impersonal clauses
The paper examines whether the use of the typical subject case, the nominative, with the total object in the impersonal clause could be possibly accompanied by transference of even some more subject characteristics to such object, and whether the total object has more characteristics of the subject than does the partial object.
There is no subject in the Estonian impersonal construction, while the only overt argument is the object. In active clauses, the case of the total object is usually genitive and the case of the partial object is partitive. In impersonal clauses, the total object is in the nominative which…
There is no subject in the Estonian impersonal construction, while the only overt argument is the object. In active clauses, the case of the total object is usually genitive and the case of the partial object is partitive. In impersonal clauses, the total object is in the nominative which…
The smellscape of Palanumäe
Smell is one of the most powerful human sensations evoking memories. A single whiff may bring back images from decades ago. When reading the novel series Minge üles mägedele („Go Up the Hills”) (prologue + 12 volumes) by Mats Traat one can hardly avoid sensing the importance of smells. Traat’s vivid sense of smell makes him almost unique among the Estonian authors. Thus his novels represent, inter alia, an Estonian history in smells from the mid-19th to the mid-20th century.
In the mid-19th an Estonian may still easily get chastised in the stables of the manor and feel the sickening smell…
In the mid-19th an Estonian may still easily get chastised in the stables of the manor and feel the sickening smell…
The story of Palanumäe and a language
The article examines the language use, with related cultural attitudes and identity manifestations, in the novel series Minge üles mägedele („Over the Mountains”) by Mats Traat. Most of the character speech in the novels represents South Estonian, more specifically, the Tartu language. The narrator’s speech, however, is in standard Estonian, which is largely based on North Estonian dialects. Such division is typical of South Estonian prose, although not absolute. Notably, this novel series by Traat stands out in Estonian literary history as the most voluminous text of fiction where the Tartu language is consistently used. Moreover, the fate of the…
The sentimental revolution of Marie von Bruiningk
The article discusses a biographical circumstance concerning Friedrich Robert Faehlmann (1798–1850), notably his relations with Marie (Méry) von Bruiningk (1818–1853) from the Lieven family. Estonian historiography knows Marie von Bruiningk as a revolutionary of 1848, a democrat and, possibly, a revolutionary agitator, the spiritual leader of the circle associated with the Bruiningk family in the 1840s. Also, her association with Karl Marx and the Russian revolutionary Alexander Herzen has been pointed out. Friedrich Robert Faehlmann was the family doctor and friend of the Bruiningks. His putative relations with Marie von Bruiningk have enhanced the political weight of his activity, while…
Becoming a poetess
The article follows the poetic formation of the oldest living Estonian author Liidia Tuulse. The roles of Bernard Kangro, Helmi Mäelo, Marie Under, Arno Vihalemm, Õie Fleig-Tamm and others in that process are pointed out. The mutual relations of the expatriate authors, emergence of creative impulses and the phenomenally smooth evolution of Lidia Tuulse into a poetess are discussed.
Bernard Kangro’s interest in Liidia Tuulse’s poetic career was based on their shared school memories from Valga and a mystical South-Estonian sense of nature.
The talent of the young Liidia Tuulse was also noticed by Marie Under, whose supportive attitude enhanced her self-confidence.…
Language attitudes of Estonian school students in 2011
Eight years ago, in 2003 Martin Ehala and Katrin Niglas conducted a representative study among Estonian school students. The aim was to get an overview of the attitudes that could influence young people’s language preferences in situations or environments where their choice is between Estonian and English, such as Internet communications, entertainment, school and university, in the workplace and with family. The results showed that in the eyes of the students Estonian has quite a strong integrative value which cannot be said about the instrumental value. A similar survey conducted in 2011 shows that language attitudes of students have generally…
The trickster and the mythological tourist
In Estonian mythology landscape is an image of a primordial time, when the earth was created. This mythical time can be compared to some of the oldest and remotest oral traditions, like Dreamtime among Aboriginal Australians or the First Order among African Bushmen. There were two principal figures: one was the first, or more perfect creator, and the other a trickster, who added necessary imperfections and continued the process of creation. The first creator is often called Grandfather (Vanaisa), while the trickster is called Old Pagan (Vanapagan). Together they form a creator pair that functions in a supplementary manner: while…
Use of the Estonian passive and impersonal by 17th–18th century Bible translators
The first translators of the Estonian Bible had to cope with the fact that the Estonian language expresses passivity and impersonality differently from the source languages. During the long road to the first full Bible, the preferences of the translators changed a lot. An observation of 16 versions of the New Testament (NT) from the period 1632–1739 has revealed a decisive change in the late 17th century. Until then, the most popular construction was saama + passive past participle, and the impersonal forms of the Estonian verb were used modestly. The situation reversed in the 1680s: from that point on,…
Lümanda, Lümandu and Lümatu
On the Estonian territory there are at least six, if not seven place names with a putative underlying form *lüm(m)ättü. In view of settlement history those names refer either to old villages, medieval manors or similarly dispersed old allodial farms. As the landscapes where the places thus named sit do not look similar at all there is little hope in finding an appellative referring to a common characteristic of the landscape. Instead we can argue that the motivating name, which has originally contained a passive past participle, might rather be a pre-Christian personal name. The participial suffix belongs to the…
The radical Language Renewal of late Johannes Aavik
Without doubt, Johannes Aavik (1880–1973) is one of the most popular and widely known personalities in Estonian linguistics. His activity in the 1910–20s was focused on a renewal of literary Estonian, aimed at enriching its vocabulary and grammar. For this purpose he borrowed words from Estonian dialects and from Finnish, but his most famous achievements are concerned with coining new stems. His idea was to provide Estonian with new invented words enabling translation of any nuance of the words or expressions used in the most cultivated languages.
Although Aavik is a disputed personality, only very few researchers have dared to ask…
Although Aavik is a disputed personality, only very few researchers have dared to ask…
Causative Emotion Construction in Estonian
The Causative Emotion Construction (CEC) is one of the constructions for expressing experiential events in Estonian. In a CEC, the experiencer is marked as an object and the stimulus as a subject. In this paper, the CEC is examined in respect of the occurrence of the stimulus, a subject’s behavioural properties of the object argument (semantically: experiencer) and the effect of the agentivity of the subject argument (semantically: stimulus). The data are compared with those of Latvian and Russian as contact languages, and with those of the other Finnic languages.
The Estonian CEC deviates from the respective constructions used in other…
The Estonian CEC deviates from the respective constructions used in other…
“Santa Maria” forever
In January 1961 all papers wrote about the seizure of the Portuguese liner „Santa Maria” in protest against the dictatorship ruling Portugal at the time. In occupied Estonia „Santa Maria” became a symbol of freedom and rebellion whose use in arts and literature is best exemplified by a painting by Aleksander Suuman and a romantic freedom-singing poem by Paul-Eerik Rummo. Even a cafe ship in Tartu on the river Emajõgi was popularly christened „Santa Maria”. Those were marks of the social optimism raised in Estonia by the political „thaw” of the early 1960s, soon, however, running into the sands of…