Talurahva keelest riigikeeleks

Abstract

The monograph gives a detailed account of the formation of Modern Standard Estonian against a broad general background covering the historical and political setting and also official policy vis-a-vis other ethnic groups in Estonia. The necessity of adapting Estonian for new purposes grew to a major issue in the 1850s and the Estonian language became a central symbol of Estonian nationalism, later also Estonian statehood. The rise and practice of linguistic precorrection, which is closely linked to a normative leaning in Estonian language corpus planning and goes beyond the limits of a normal language editing, is described. Lexical borrowing from dominant neighbouring languages, primarily German, later also Russian, evoked targeted purism which in Estonia reverenced Finnish. Finnish being seen as a preserver of a purer, historically more correct language, which could thus serve as a good model for Estonian until quite recenrtly. Several succesful linguistic reforms—orthograhic, lexical as well as grammatical—have been carried out as a result of individual efforts and collective work.

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