Research into Multilingualism in Estonia

Abstract

The present paper concentrates on several issues relevant to research into multilingualism in Estonia. It is argued that a macrosociolinguistic approach is insufficient when not counterbalanced with microsociolinguistic studies (case studies of actual linguistic behaviour, linguistic creativity, mechanisms and practices of multilingual communication, construction of immediate and long-term strategies of multilingual communication, etc). Furthermore, it is demonstrated why the census of 2000 in Estonia gives a rather distorted picture of multilingualism. Another problem is the lack of scholarly attention to the so-called third languages (non-Russian and non-Estonian). The example of the Jewish community in Estonia shows how a minority with a supposedly common ethnohistorical background is in fact split into two separate groups (indigenous and nonindigenous) with different sociolinguistic profiles. It remains to be seen for which minority groups in Estonia the same kind of division is relevant. Finally, topics for future research (language change and identity construction, dynamics of multilingual conversation, emerging ethnolects) are outlined.

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