Southern Estonian features

I decided to write this post to share with fellow learners some interesting points I came across whilst reading Jaan Kaplinski's children's collection of short stories Põhjatuul ja lõunatuul. The first little tale is called Siga taevatamme all (Pig under the sky-oak) which tells the tale of a pig who escapes from his pen and goes wandering in the countryside and I want to reproduce some of the lines here and discuss them a little.

As a learner of Estonian I am quite certain you very familiar with the demonstrative pronoun see and all its forms: selle, seda, sellese, ses/selles etc. However, I wonder if you have come across too. While this pronoun is perfectly acceptable in standard Estonian its usage is far less common and gives the piece a more distinctive southern Estonian feel.

The second 'southern feature' I would like to draw your attention to is the use of a double ä versus the standard ae diphthong. It's archaic Estonian and as such is not a feature of the modern standard language but, again, is quite common amongst southern Estonians speaking the state language (riigikeel). Also, in running through the few shortish sentences I will point out other features that are of general interest and not stereotypically southern.  

Misuke suur õun sääl puu otsas kasvab (Missugune suur õun seal puu otsas kasvab.)
'What a big apple grows in that tree over there'.  

Misuke is colloquial for missugune. Notice that seal is rendered as sääl, a distinctly southern form. Puu otsas means 'in a tree, up a tree.' There is an Estonian expression that incorporates this phrase: Mina olin puu otsas kui pauk käis! 'I was up the tree when the bomb went off', i.e. 'I haven't the foggist what happened/ I wasn't involved.'  

Peaks uurima, kus tolle tamme tüvi on. '
(I) must investigate where this oak's trunk is.'

Remember that the -ma form of a verb is used after peama (see here and here for a discussion). Tolle is the genitive singular of too just like selle is the genitive singular of see. The word tüvi can mean 'trunk' as in 'tree trunk' but it can also mean 'the root of a word' as in: Sõna töölt tüvi on töö 'The root of töölt "at work" is töö'.  

Siga oleks tahtnud toda tõru üles otsida, aga kust sa ikka otsid.
'The pig would have wanted to search for this acorn but where would you look?' Toda is the partitive singular form.  

Taevas ei olnud ühtegi tõru, ainult üks suur ümmargune tuline õun paistis säält [sealt].
'There wasn't any acorn in the sky at all, only one big round firey apple shining from there'. Here sealt is rendered as säält.

Peaks ikka sulgu tagasi minema: sääl ei ole küll õuna ja tõrusid ülevalt alla kukkumas...
'I must indeed return to the pen: there isn't of course any apples nor acorns falling from above'.

Here again seal is rendered as sääl. Notice the use of the inessive case marker -s at the end of the verb alla kukkuma 'to fall down' to make alla kukkumas 'in the act of falling down'. Estonian verb infinitives can take the inessive ending to state what action is currently happening.  

Lapsed on laulmas 'The children are engaged in singing'
Mul on kõik olemas 'I have everything'.

...aga kindlasti küna juba ootamas, hääd rokka ja kartuleid täis
'but for certain the trough is waiting full of good feed and potatoes.'

Here head, partitive singular (or nominative plural) of hea is rendered as hääd. For southerns it is common also to say pää rather than pea 'head' as in the town Otepää 'Bear's Head' (the symbol of the town is a bear's head).

I hope that you learned something from today's post and that the end one will come shortly (after after half a year's wait!).

Nägemiseni! Until the next time!

locative cases and postpositions

When you wish to emphasis or clarify the location of an object you can make use of postpositions instead of case endings. To do this, one removed the locative case ending from the noun and replace it with the proper postposition, leaving a space between the noun (now in the genitive case) and the postposition. The following examples use the Estonian nouns kapp 'cabinet' and laud 'table'.

kapisse (kappi) = kapi sisse 'into the cabinet'
kapis = kapi sees 'in the cabinet'
kapist = kapi seest 'out of the cabinet'

lauale = laua peale 'onto the table'
laual = laua peal 'onto the table'
laualt = laua pealt 'onto the table'

A native speaker, Myst, points out that the 'long illative' kapisse has fallen out of use in the modern spoken language, in favour of the 'short illative' kappi. That gives me another idea for a future post when I look at cases, the 'short' v. the 'long' illative. Thanks Myst!

Note: The observent student will notice that the case endings -sse, -s, -st, -le, -l, -lt have jumped from the noun to the postposition. For example, peale, peal, and pealt simply mean 'onto the head', 'on the head', and 'off the head' respectively. The Estonian word for head is pea. It is related to the Finnish and Võro words for head pää as in the Southern Estonian town of Otepää (Otõmpää in Võro) which means 'Head of the Bear'.

A native speaker, Kata, adds the following: 'There certainly is a historic connection with the noun 'pea' and the postpositions you named. Today the postposition have only one meaning. For example 'onto the head' would be 'pea peale': Ta elu pöörati pea peale. [Her/His life turned onto the head (lit. Her/His life turned upside-down.]

And one more historical note. I am currently reading a Estonian translation of a novel, published in 1937. "Ta vaatas tema peale" [S/he looked him in the face (lit. onto the head)] is a common way of expression. The case has shifted within the 70 years and now contemporary Estonians would say: "Ta vaatas teda." [S/he looked at her/him]' Thanks for the input Kata!

Here are some examples of the Estonian locative cases and postpositions in action:

Karu tuleb koopa seest [= koopast] välja 'The bear comes out of the cave'.
Ma mõtlen sõbra peale [= sõbrale] 'I am thinking of my friend'.
Räägi kõik südame pealt  [= südamelt] ära! 'Tell everything that is on your heart [Get everything off your chest!]'.
Vean kihla kümne dollari peale [= kümnele dollarile] 'I will bet you ten dollars'.
Must valge peal [= valgel] 'Black on white'.

All note the use of käsi 'hand' as a postposition:

Kelle käes [= Kellel] on minu ajaleht? 'Who has my newspaper? [In whose hand is my newspaper?]'
Ma küsin venna käest [= vennalt] 'I will ask (of) my brother'.

Source: Estonian Textbook by Juhan Tuldava, 1994, pg. 100.