The article takes stock of the sustainability of the present language policy in Estonia, asking how capable the ongoing language management is in face of the future challenges of a modern nation state in a globalizing world. The authors offer a critical analysis of the existing technocratic understanding of language policy as a top-down mechanism where political aims are transferred unchanged from decision makers through implementers to passive receivers (language users). Inspired by the writings of some critical sociolinguists and ethnolinguists, the authors propose an understanding of the language policy as a designing tool of the language environment, which is…

 
In Estonian vernacular religion the Lord’s Prayer has several divergent functions. The first historical records of using the Lord’s Prayer as a charm can be found in 17th-century witchcraft reports. According to M. J. Eisen’s folklore collection it is a universal charm that can be used in protective magic, healing procedures, erotic seduction and divination, and occasionally also for harming other people. The Lord’s Prayer may be repeated several times (usually thrice) and the order of the words or letters might be reversed to achieve a stronger effect on the supernatural. The Lord’s Prayer can be read as a separate…

The article is a follow-up to Küsimused eestikeelses infodialoogis I. Küsimuste vorm (2009). The article points out (a) what social actions are performed in the Estonian institutional information-seeking dialogue by means of questions of different categories and forms, and (b) compares the authors’ results with those of a comparative project on questions done at Nijmegen Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics. An analysis of everyday dialogues in four Indo-European languages serves as reference material.
 
The article presents an analysis of 859 questions used in phone conversations, drawn from the Dialogue corpus of the University of Tartu and consisting of 282 content (q-word)…

The specifics of the technique of leitmotifs as used by Jaan Kross in his novel Keisri hull („The Czar’s Madman”, 1978) is discussed. According to the tradition of literary theory, leitmotif means a recurrent text element (word, phrase, parallel episodes etc.), which in combination with other analogously recurrent elements serves to build up the specific compositional structure of the text. This kind of text structuring is found in J. Kross’s novel The Czar’s Madman, which (as well as some other historical novels by the same author, esp. Kolme katku vahel („Between Three Plagues”) and Professor Martensi ärasõit („Professor Martens’ Departure”)…

The article proceeds from the question „What were the members of the elite called in prehistoric Estonia?”. Since the early 20th century there have been attempts, mostly among our folklorists, to claim that they were called Kalevs, i.e. with the name of a legendary hero known from the later epics of Kalevipoeg and Kalevala. Though supporting this idea in general terms, the author of this paper argues that Kalevas a generic name for a representative of the elite was already born in the Late Bronze Age under the influence of Baltic languages. There have been numerous etymologies for the names Kalev(a) / Kalevine,…

The article asks about the boundaries of drama. There are a few strategies of producing dramatic texts that are popular in Western theatre, yet not very widely used in Estonia: (1) devised theatre, where the staging process does not start from a finished play; (2) documentary theatre, where the dramatic text is compiled using various documentary sources, and (3) verbatim theatre, using interviews and oral tradition in general. The article defines those methods and explains their historical background. The definition of the verbatim-technique is extended to cover not only the use of recordings of oral speech, but also the use…

Die Studie untergliedert sich in zehn Kapitel. Zu Anfang werden die poetologische Rezeption von Pindar und das daraus folgende „Pindarisieren” seit der Renaissance im französischen und besonders deutschen Sprachbereich geschildert. Danach wird der Herderschen Interpretation der „pindarischen” Dithyramben und den dichterischen Initiativen des jungen Goethe nachgespürt. Im Kapitel „Das Enjambement” (fr. ’das Überschreiten’, dt. Zeilensprung) wird gezeigt, wie das Pindarisieren in der neuen Dichtung fast verpflichtend mit dieser Versfigur in Verbindung gebracht wurde. Die Pindar-begeisterten Dichter haben seine Oden in der sog. kolometrischen Schreibweise gelesen, wobei der Text in kurze Zeilen von unregelmäßiger Länge eingeteilt wurde, die wie Freie Rhythmen…

In the rapidly changing world of today many adults have gained an impression that young people are sitting in front of a computer rather than reading fiction. Nevertheless, according to a study carried out in Estonia in 2008–2009 most of the schoolchildren can name their favourite authors as well as books, giving reasonable arguments for their choice. Literature lessons have a significant role in shaping pupils’ taste in literature, as many a good book would otherwise miss their attention. However, in drawing up the lists of school literature, more attention should be paid to the age and abilities of the…

From 1875–1886, Jakob Hurt, who was the initiator of the first major campaign of collecting Estonian folklore, managed to publish only the first two volumes of the Vana Kannel („The Old Kannel”) series (songs of Põlva and Kolga-Jaani). Hurt’s next publication was Setukeste laulud („The Songs of the Seto People”) (I–III, 1904–1907). Hurt’s scientific principle has remained basic for the later publishers of Estonian folk songs. Herbert Tampere brought out „The Songs of Kuusalu” (1935) and „The Songs of Karksi” (1941). In the 1960s and 1970s the publication of the series ceased to be an effort of lone enthusiasts, becoming…