Diskussionen über die estnische Schriftsprache in der zweiten Hälfte des 17. jahrhunderts: Argumente und Beispiele
Discussions about the Estonian Literary Language in the Second Half of the 17th Century: Arguments and Examples

Summary/Abstract: In the 1680s and 1690s numerous discussions and debates were held on the Estonian literary language. On the basis of critical writings on the religious books in Estonian, as well as of grammars and correspondence, the paper gives an overview of the arguments used in those discussions. The main topics included the nature or the genius of Estonian, Estonian dialects, whether the peasant’s language or the language used in the previously printed books should be used, and whether Estonian should be modeled on German or Finnish. In the second part of the paper examples are given of the linguistic phenomena discussed in connection with the idea of the genius of the Estonian language. For the most part these are the aspects of Estonian that are difficult for German native speakers (e.g. negation, use of infinitives). It turns out that a number of topical issues discussed at the end of the 17th century had already been on the agenda for several decades.

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