Raamatu ja kirja tähendused eesti vanas kirjakeeles
The meaning of raamat ‘book’ and kiri ‘letter’ in old written Estonian

Summary/Abstract: This article explores the historical development of the meanings of two key words in 16th–19th century literary Estonian – raamat ‘book’ and kiri ‘letter, message, etc.’ Literary Estonian emerged in the first half of the 16th century, following the Reformation, with the translation of religious literature from German. Even at that time, the Estonian words raamat and kiri were used with distinct meanings. This article examines the evolution of their usage, drawing primarily on Corpus of Old Written Estonian and dictionaries. At the same time, it seeks to answer how and why, unlike in Finnish, the word raamat in Estonian came to refer to various types of texts, while kiri retained meanings that diverged from its Finnish counterpart, kirja ‘book’. In old written Estonian, both raamat and kiri referred to written documents. Over time, the word raamat became associated with longer printed or handwritten texts, while kiri referred to shorter texts intended for a specific recipient and purpose. Both words were used to denote the Bible and its parts. The usage of these words by Baltic German religious authors was influenced by the example of German words, such as Buch, Schrift, and Brief. However, there were also several semantic developments that occurred independently of German influence. With the diversification of Estonian written culture, new types of books, documents, letters, and other written texts have continued to be introduced over the centuries. Already by the late 19th century, compound words had been created to describe many of these. Later, as a result of deliberate language planning, further adjustments were made to both the meanings and forms of these words, leading to the creation of new terms for emerging types of books and written materials.

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