Learning Estonian: My First Steps

[@MichaelLoda]

I'm just waiting till he starts writing his own narrative story like Tolkien

[@joebarrera334]

One can hope but I think his publisher will be expecting the Prose Edda translation at some point before that happens haha

[@NicolasVascoVillamizar]

You're not alone

[@eltrew]

Well i was not expecting you here lol.

[@foulmercy8095]

Well there’s the Icelandic Star Wars story Dr. Crawford wrote

[@thossi09]

@@foulmercy8095 There's a what now? Is it easily available, and what's it called? Also, I'd love to read 'A Song of Ice and Fire' in the style of Icelandic sagas. "A man was named Eddard, son of Rickard, son of [I don't remember, google is no help], son of [and so on], of the house of Stark." It probably would be a lot more concise - and that's a major improvement.

[@SionTJobbins]

Estonian is such a cool language. So light sounding, on tip toes. And as a Welshman and Welsh speaker, I've so much respect for them for fighting for their language. People always go on and on about how beautiful French is, but French is just a lot of dipthongs. Estonian, Finnish, Basque, Irish, Breton as all nicer languages to listen to with a beautiful balance of vowels and consonants.

[@ccgamerlol]

proovi oma sõnadega öelda mu lauset

[@pinwyrdd]

Cytuno Siôn mae gan yr Estoneg a Ffineg 'flas' hyfryd, dwli ar y llafariaid hir ac wrth hanes y gwledydd yn ysbrydoliedig i unrhyw Gymro gwladgarol.

[@SionTJobbins]

@@pinwyrdd ti'n berffaith iawn. Gwerth darllen llyfr Gwynfor Evans o 1989(?),'Pe Bai Cymru'n Rhydd' am fraslun ar yr ieithoedd a chymhariaeth â'r Gymraeg.

[@jumalAnni]

To answer your question around 7:22 Keel = language Kell = clock, bell kel = short of 'kellel' (alalütlev/adessive of kes 'who') The last two have the same pronunciation. Some other things. 's(i)' is the most common past tense (lihtminevik) marker. The less common one is 'i' which historically was the only one (or so I have heard). Now it is present in some of the more basic words. Also, 'v' always marks present tense. Also, you keep aspirating K, P, T. Maybe you actually don't want to have that accent... Good luck with all the languages you want to learn.

[@Optiqe_]

As an Estonian, I have to say, I am impressed. You have only studied it for 48 hours and well of course you don't know much but for that little time, you know quite a bit about the language. Good job!

[@GreatRetro]

Especially when in Estonia we have people who lived here for 10, 20, 30 years and still can't speak any Estonian... lol! ^_^

[@1227-z5w]

Yeah. Who lived Centuries and still speak their native language are suc$$ers. So shame. Like swedish people in finland who don’t even try to learn finnish, bas***rds right? They even changed the law of Finland to never learn finnish language

[@kindaimmortal]

Estonian has been terribly challenging, but I love the sound and feel of it. Nowhere near fluent yet, but it's been fun.

[@ccgamerlol]

kus sa elad, mis su emakeel on?

[@liambyrne5285]

How many hours have you studied, and are you a1 or a2 or higher

[@kindaimmortal]

@@liambyrne5285 One semester, but I'm hoping to take an intensive when I go back. Currently A1.

[@kindaimmortal]

@@ccgamerlol Minu emakeel on inglise keel jah olen ameeriklane.

[@TheLegendaryAmanda]

@@ccgamerlol eestikeel.

[@danieldahlborg8192]

I would think the reason Estonian feels more intuitive than Finnish is because it has adapted more to Indo-European languages, even in syntax. Finnish is more genuinely Fennic, more archaic, in its form.

[@VegaIllusion]

I had an interesting thing happen when I dabbled in Finnish. I have a South Slavic linguistic background and I was impressed by how intuitive Finnish felt at times. All pronouns felt intuitive with the exception of “they”. The verb conjugation also felt intuitive, and even some words that are exclusive to Finnish felt highly intuitive. The syntax is the only outlier, but it is still very accessible. I think that Finnish and Hungarian are made out to be far less accessible than they actually are tbh.

[@zoolkhan]

PERKELE!

[@rrsjr]

Awesome! I'm terribly interested in non-Indo-European languages, particularly Finnish, and Estonian. To hear a linguist discuss this is very gratifying, thank you for this. It's interesting that some pronouns seem to be cognate with Indo-European ones (ma/me-moi/me; ta-/te-tu/toi; sa-sie).

[@egbront1506]

It's not just the pronouns but also the verb conjugations. They are not unlike Indo-European - dentals for the second person, m/n for the first person. Compared with Turkic, for example, they seem somehow influenced by IE contact.

[@ilyake7862]

@@egbront1506 Turkic languages use m for the first person and n for the second person.

[@hbowman108]

"The study of nonlinear differential equations is like the study of animals that are not elephants."-John von Neumann

[@alexxxO_O]

Proto-Indo-Euro-Uralic reconstruction WHEN ?? ? ? ?? ?

[@anutuulmets8772]

A good example of short and long vowels: jäätis (ice cream), jätis (scumbag, scoundrel). We don’t shorten words much like Finns, but it is definitely used when counting numbers. Instead of kolmkümmend viis, kolmkümmend kuus (35, 36) most people would really say kolgend viis, kolgend kuus.

[@joebarrera334]

My man decided to become a giant on his Nordic adventures. But yeah Estonian sounds very melodic

[@melissahdawn]

Reminds me of my obsession with learning to play instruments or finding new needlepoint techniques, it is fun to see the joy of trying out a new language to play around with. Estonian is made to seem like a new plaything..."let's see what I get do with it." I love that sort of feeling when finding a new venue. So, this video reminded me of that feeling, and it was a pleasure to watch.

[@herrakaarme]

I once said in the comments of another video with Estonian being spoken that as a Finn it feels like I should understand Estonian 90%, but in reality I only understand 5%. It sounds very familiar, but in reality it's an altogether diffferent language, removed far enough that you'd need to study it for real to know it. Not to mention so many words that look the same or almost the same have a different meaning.

[@ilovestattrak]

mr snake

[@Ninjadoku3779]

mida vittu. I think you understand this. I also think ur right.

[@zoolkhan]

@@Ninjadoku3779 understand entire sentences - i dont get all words beyond a doubt, but i guess right most of the times and then have the context to confirm. I cannot speak it though. In any case, i get much more than 5% and i am not even trying too hard. torille

[@Ninjadoku3779]

@@zoolkhan I guess its not as low as 5%, but I do not understand more than 60% of finnish. But I havent listened to alot of finnish so not alot of experience.

[@samcook6368]

My first encounter with the Estonian language was the band Metsatöll. I saw them when they toured with Finntroll (a Finnish band which sings in Swedish) around the end of 2013. Because a lot of folk metal bands are from Finland and sing in Finnish (such as Moonsorrow and Korpiklaani; Korpiklaani was originally Sami but started singing in Finnish and English to be more marketable if I understood correctly), knew what Finnish sounds like enough to think that Metsatöll sounded similar but not quite the same. And then it made a lot of sense when they said that they were from Estonia.

[@Ithirahad]

So kuusi = Finnish spruce drink; kusi = American beer!

[@Drewe223]

These videos are awesome, I’d love to see you travel around the world learning languages.

[@antstorim5976]

Awesome to see Dr. Crawford trying Estonian! Estonian actually has three lenghts: short, long and overlong. Though both long and overlong are written in the same way (double letters) they are pronounced differently. For example short "koli" means "junk", long "kooli" is genitive case of school ("school's") and overlong "kooli" is partitive/short illative case of school ("into the school"). Lengthening "l" instead would give long "kolli" for genitive case of "bogey/monster" and overlong "kolli" is partitive/short illative case.

[@d.rabbitwhite]

I met an Estonian once when In grad school, when he just mysteriously turned up at my door, in Washington State. His name was Vilyar. Sat in yard space, conversed about the stars and capitalist constructs (and why he was in the US), and cats, and drank tea for a coupla hours. Very surreal experience. I think he was sad. An US company had exploited him. I have since, been interested in Estonia and would like to learn the language and somehow come across Vilyar for another long conversation.

[@molylepke9522]

A random Estonian just showed up at a random person's doorstep, and started philosophizing? Did I get it right?

[@Darnaguen]

As a Finn I definitely think Estonian is softer and more musical than Finnish. 'Generic' Finnish at least, some of our dialects are more musical, particularly the more Eastern ones. I also believe the farther back you go in time the more similar Finnish is to Estonian, many words that are very archaic and all but forgotten in Finnish are still in use in almost the exact same form in Estonian (and/or Karelian).

[@阳明子]

Thank you Annabel Laul! Great video

[@yaminoyume610]

Uralic languages are beautiful

[@moshpitjo1146]

This is a beautiful language

[@oh2mp]

As a native Finnish speaker I can say that I understand eg. signs, ads etc. in Estonia quite well, but it's almost impossible to understand their speech more than maybe the context. In the end you were talking about that Finnish has often "extra letters" in the end of words when comparing to Estonian. That's true, Finnish "likes" to have a wovel in the end of words. Also many words that are loaned from Swedish or Russian are finnishized so that eg "i" is just added to the end. Especially in the southeastern dialects of Finnish it's typical to drop those end wovels so that many words sound a little like Estonian. But if you look at the map, long time ago in the history there was just Ingria between southeastern Finland and Estonia by land, so all of those have gotten influences from each other I think.

[@elderscrollsswimmer4833]

Sometimes we can differentiate meaning with that vowel. Harppi is used to draw circles and harppu is musical instrument. Both could be translated as a harp to English though you also use word 'compass'. Finnish kompassi however, only tells you where North is.

[@puhistagram]

Nice video! Thank you Jackson. I think Estonian is more modern than Finnish and is therefore a bit more intuitive .. maybe? When I was in school there was no Estonian back then - only russia. That is why distant cousin Hungarians are always dragged to these related conversations (even tho they are near Turkish). Today we have our Estonia back and it is very much appreciated, it's good, for us Finns, to have real brother/sister. Thank you for your excellent work Jackson Crawford 🙏

[@2meetrit]

How come there wasnt Estonia back then? 😅

[@sharonjackson5196]

"Negative verbs" aren't so strange when you consider "don't" and "doesn't" in English where the auxiliary is conjugated, leaving the main verb in the infinitive form.

[@seenonyt2210]

First video I came across of your channel. I love it! Estonian sounds really beautiful 💛

[@eckligt]

Would also love to hear you to delve into the Sami languages on your next visit.

[@mohamedmoawad6303]

6:35 is exactly me, improving a skill I know will not benefit me in the near or far future. I am new to this channel but I already love it👍

[@martinhartecfc]

To my untutored ear, it sounds very like Japanese when she reads it at the end. Thanks for a lovely video.

[@mnels5214]

Anyone interested in hearing a lot of Estonian can watch November. Awesome story, and you can hear how pretty the language is. Really interesting conversation!

[@captivatedlunt1895]

Whose November?? Do they have a yt channel??

[@mnels5214]

​@@captivatedlunt1895 November is a really great movie based on a book called Rehepapp ehk November. Highly recommend! And if you were making the comment tongue in cheek - just ignore me. I am a complete idiot when it comes to identifying sarcasm on yt.

[@captivatedlunt1895]

@@mnels5214 oh thanks I’ll check it out. I thought it was a person lol.

[@jkoperski9925]

Loving Annabel! Love the content, would have wished you to sit next to her and speaking face to face to each other, kind of a conversation. (Maybe you were and you are much taller than Annabel. But it looked as if you would sit higher, and closer to the camera.) Keep on doing the things you love! It's great!

[@JWMathreMusic]

The timing of this is a crazy coincidence! I have been following your channel for years and am in the process of learning Estonian right now as I prepare to move there for work in January!

[@Pakanahymni]

The Estonian past tense 3pl form actually contains the nominative plural -d, where the plural form is -literally- the plural form of the 3sg. The -b of present tense 3sg vanishes because it is originally a present tense participle, and it was inherited in Estonian and exists as the -v participle e.g. "töötav" - working (as in, "a working man"), "töötav mees töötab" "a working man works". It's kind of like if English derived its 3sg form from the -ing form and the 3pl form from pluralising it, as in "she working, they workings".

[@lecros6628]

When visiting Estonia I was quite surprised by how many words I could understand in written Estonian as a German speaker. I was able to make a good guess about the content of a text because of a lot of German loanwords. But the impression i got was, that those loanwords were limited to more specialized vocabulary, which was usefull in getting a rough idea of the topic but I had absolutely no understanding beyond that. And when spoken I understood precisely 0%.

[@captivatedlunt1895]

That’s bc Estonian was created with the same kind of context of German words (middle German). that’s why in the Estonian alphabet there’s a lot of similar words to it in German. It’s very interesting you should read about the Estonian language history online if you’re interested. Very resourceful.

[@ragnarlaine4065]

​@@captivatedlunt1895Why do people always say that these Estonian loanwords are similar to German? I think that these words are similar to Swedish or maybe to Old Swedish. Look... 🇪🇪 juust 🇸🇪 ost 🇩🇪 käse 🇪🇪 juustuhöövel 🇸🇪 osthyvel 🇩🇪 käseschneider 🇪🇪 kahvel 🇸🇪 gaffel 🇩🇪 gabel 🇪🇪 taldrik 🇸🇪 tallrik 🇩🇪 teller 🇪🇪 köök 🇸🇪 kök 🇩🇪 küche 🇪🇪 kringel 🇸🇪 kringla 🇩🇪 kringel 🇪🇪 pagar 🇸🇪 bagare 🇩🇪 bäcker 🇪🇪 sült 🇸🇪 sylta 🇩🇪 sülze 🇪🇪 pann 🇸🇪 panna 🇩🇪 pfanne 🇪🇪 jaht 🇸🇪 jakt 🇩🇪 jagd 🇪🇪 korsten 🇸🇪 skorsten 🇩🇪 schornstein 🇪🇪 proua 🇸🇪 fru 🇩🇪 frau 🇪🇪 härra 🇸🇪 herr 🇩🇪 herr 🇪🇪 jõulud 🇸🇪 jul 🇩🇪 weihnachten 🇪🇪 näärid 🇸🇪 nyår 🇩🇪 neujahrfest 🇪🇪 vastlad 🇸🇪 fastlagen 🇩🇪 fastnacht Estonian loanwords have a stronger resemblance to Swedish rather than German due to the historical influence of Sweden on Estland during the period of Swedish rule. This influence resulted in significant cultural and linguistic exchange between the two regions, particularly in everyday vocabulary. While German has also influenced Estonian, its impact on everyday vocabulary is comparatively smaller

[@mehdiconsulta]

Watching it into my first week in Tallinn, I like the vibes

[@rootkite]

Väga tubli! I'm so happy as a Finnish speaker (with some Estonian) to see Fenno-Ugric languages shown interest and respect. Aitäh/Kiitos! You learn really quickly too :)

[@CarlCOts]

Its soo cool that my Mother language is Estonian! Can speak 4 more fluently and can appriciate that one of my super power is speaking that small language!🇪🇪

[@autarchprinceps]

2nd person singular & 3rd person plural being linked is also true for German in a way. 3rd person plural is the formal way to adress someone instead of 2nd person singular. Siezen if you want to look it up.

[@markusmiekk-oja3717]

Re 3pl and 2sg coinciding, that is conservative in Estonian, and does occur in other Baltic Finnic + conservative Finnish dialects. It seems to be the nominative plural suffix! Estonian has partially replaced it with the past active participle in plural nominative, Finnish has further restructured the past tense 3pl w/ the participle marker.

[@boxerfencer]

I like the sound of estonian.

[@belstar1128]

I should start studying Estonian again.

[@tynistty]

7:26 “keel” vs “kell” question: keel - language, tongue ; kell - watch or bell

[@1sanitat1]

True, but the final consonant is different!

[@belstar1128]

In Dutch that means throat probably just a coincidence.

[@jumalAnni]

@@1sanitat1 There is also kel (= short of 'kellel' (alalütlev/adessive of kes 'who')). "Kell" (clock, bell) and "kel" are pronounced identically.

[@scaldedape6213]

There's a pretty awesome Estonian band called Metsatöll for those that enjoy folk metal.

[@mimikal7548]

It's almost December and yet it looks quite warm

[@anzelmasmatutis2500]

I like languages which you can read "as you see".

[@sucre4523]

you should learn karelian/livonian or latgalian/latvian after this

[@UrinationNation]

The dialect in Latgale in Latvia is amazing, it's relationship is a bit like Welsh to the UK. Though I don't know what the chances Dr. Crawford has of finding someone who speaks it outside of Latvia, but it would be cool to hear.

[@syystomu]

I think Estonian is fairly easy to learn for us Finnish speakers, but it's true that if you don't learn it, it does sound pretty unintelligible. It's mostly the vocabulary being either different or misleading. A lot of words sound similar but mean different things. Sometimes due to semantic shifts in one language or another or just due to sheer coincidence. The example I always bring up: Estonian: "Mu töö on ruumide koristamine" It means: "My job is to clean up the rooms" But what it sounds like to a Finnish speaker is: "Mun työ on ruumiiden koristaminen" Which means: "My job is to decorate the corpses" So yeah, the misunderstandings can get pretty unfortunate. The real Finnish translation would be: "Mun työ on huoneiden siivoaminen" (note that "hoone" means "building" in Estonian, not a "room") Another classic one is "pulmad" vs "pulmat". The first means "wedding" in Estonian, the second means "problems" in Finnish. I'm not even kidding, that's a real false cognate! I will say that usually Finnish is more conservative when it comes to the form of the word (mainly due to preserving the last syllable) while Estonian tends to be more conservative when it comes to the meaning. Although not always: in the earlier example sentence the Estonian forms are more archaic. "Töö" and also "hoone" are more archaic than "työ" and "huone". That's one thing Finnish changed that Estonian didn't, the long rounded vowels became diphthongs in Finnish at some point. Also yes, I'm choosing to use the short colloquial Finnish form here because it's closer to the Estonian anyway and I think it's okay to write Finnish the way you speak. Honestly it's becoming more common with the internet and texting, I think. Although in _my_ native dialect it would be "mu tyä" actually... But I don't use that dialect anymore, mostly because we were taught not to at school, and then I also moved to another province.

[@眼無し難眼]

Very interesting to see you looking at Estonian! As someone who lives in Estonia and loves the language, it's been interesting to hear your initial thoughts on it! Anticipating forms of words in general (verbs and nouns alike) is a skill that takes a pretty long time to develop due to all the different "grade changes" words go through. From one language nerd to another: if you are interested in a really thorough look at stem changes between different forms, I highly recommend "A Handbook of Estonian: Nouns, Adjectives, and Verbs" (Mürk 1997) from Indiana University Research Institute for Inner Asian Studies. Verbs and nouns are actually really interesting in Estonian! For example: there's a neat verb-noun connection where -ma infinitive mirrors the illative and the -da infinitive mirrors the partitive for verb agreement. There are also "case forms of verbs": töötama = "to work" (including illative meaning of "go to work"), töötamas = "working" (mirroring inessive meaning of "in the state of working"), töötamata = "without working" (the abessive meaning, "in the state of not working"). Those can be used in place of nouns, as in "ma olen töötamas" = "I am working" (literally "I am in the state of working"), although this usage is not as common as the progressive aspect in the English translation.

[@jumalAnni]

What does the book say about the form 'töötamaks' ('in order to work')? Is it too artificial, or sth, to be translative? edit: 'Töötamast' is also a thing, though.

[@phuttyyt]

I'd say phrases like "ma olen töötamas" aren't common at all, not just in comparison with English, but overall - precisely because the present singular ("ma töötan") covers it perfectly :D

[@jumalAnni]

​@@phuttyyt "Ma olen töötamas" is a very weird sentence. "See on olemas" (it exists), on the other hand, is very common. And "ma olen söömas" (I am eating) is a very normal answer to "Kus sa oled?" (Where are you?), but you might not be eating at that moment. It's about the fact that you went to eat... Maybe you are in the process of acquiring food or just walking there, maybe you have already finished eating. "I am eating" is a bad translation. "I am at a place where you can eat / I went to eat" might be better... Point being, in a "normal" sentence, the focus is very likely to be on a place, not on the point of doing something. Maybe not with "olemas olema" because that's pretty much a phrasal verb.

[@眼無し難眼]

@@jumalAnni You are totally right. I have used töötama specifically because it was the verb used in the video, to illustrate the grammatical process more than anything. I very much agree with your points, thank you for the clarifying comment.

[@verAlvyn]

My Finnish boss once summarised it pretty well, I think. At first Estonian sounds familiar to him, but when he tries to focus on it, he can't get a single word. So like he feels he SHOULD be able to understand but ultimately he can't.

[@mnels5214]

As an English speaker sometimes I feel the same way about German. It's SO CLOSE but, not really.

[@verAlvyn]

@@mnels5214 Well, maybe it's because I'm not a native English speaker, but German sounds almost completely foreign to me. I can recognise cognates, etc, however it never sounded familiar.

[@verAlvyn]

@@Jess-737 I have similar feelings for southern slavic languages. I speak Polish and Czech, so those sound familiar but not quite.

[@benandolga]

She looks more like swedish girl! My uncle's wife is Estonian and my cousins live in Estonia. I visited them in 90s and I loved to observe such beautiful country!

[@eerokutale277]

For me "ma töötän" sounds like "mä tööttään" (I honk) in written Finnish, I work is "minä työskentelen" but I would say "mä teen työtä / mä duunaan... / mä oon (ny/t) duunis".

[@MK-tq2uv]

So calm video 🤘

[@Gungnir762]

Sweet. Hope the travels go well.

[@SimoVirtanenStonehands]

Hi Jackson! Really wonderful to see in your video another person, who has grown up speaking Estonian and Finnish. I myself have such upbringing in Estonia. As such the poetic relationships in language have interested me for my whole life. Funny that I have watched your videos and never expected such topic. I have a little bit different perspective on the relationship of those languages, but really enjoyed the video. Best wishes, Simo

[@Talvekuningas]

Can’t say I ever expected estonian on this channel. 😅 I would just say there’s no real difference if you say “ma” or “mina” minä being finnish. We sorta use both all the time. I think we use a lot of the same vocabulary but it takes some getting used to. As an example. To speak we say rääkima, kõnelema. They say puhun. But it’s also a word in estonian . And there’s like 100 other examples as such .

[@ihmejakki2731]

Was this shot in somewhere around Viikki by any chance? Seeing the background and hearing the aeroplane pass overhead made me suddenly very nostalgic for Helsinki :D

[@stolman2197]

Waiting for you to learn Lithuanian

[@Thedeepseanomad]

Have you done some vids about Elfdalian? Given its closer ties to Norse than other contemporary Scandinavian languages it seems right up your alley.

[@osw330904]

Love your fascination with linguistics

[@mikkoolavijarvinen3653]

Many Estonians are or have been working in Finland, but the middle aged Estonians also know Finnish because the the country was occupied by the Soviet Union for the entire Cold War, but in the 70s and 80s it was common in the northern part of country to watch Finnish TV (after all, the countries are geographically so close that under very good weather conditions the Tallinn TV Tower can be seen from Helsinki). This is generally pinpointed as started in 1971, when a certain TV mast was built in Espoo, and some actually not that farfetched theories claim that USA was involved in the project. After all, the Finnish TV shows (and grocery store commercials) as well as American shows like Knight Rider, McGyver and Dallas gave the people a glimpse of an entirely different world compared to that in the Soviet Bloc. The Soviet official never managed to stop this, may layperson's guess is that interfering the signal would have also affected viewers in the most populous parts of Finland and "you missed Napakymppi because the Soviets scrambled the signal" was not actually a thing they wanted to see in Finnish tabloids, so they just tried to claim the famous Finnish grocery store meat counter, full of all kinds of goodies, was just carefully fabricated CIA propaganda. Probably not many people believed...

[@finnguy9096]

Yeah the modern Finnish spoken language differs from Estonian quite a bit, but if you look at the Western Finnish dialects from like 100 years ago before urbanization, they are very similar to Estonian, even more than the written form. That's no surprise since the coastal regions of Finland were in close contact with Estonians very recently, about a 1000 years ago or less.

[@TheHPMP]

Wow, I’m impressed. Very well pronounced.☺️

[@AnthonySell]

The relationship you describe between Finnish and Estonian sounds similar to the relationship between Norwegian and Swedish. Norwegian has fewer syllables, and is often seen as more poetic.

[@fr4933]

I thought Norwegian had more syllables to allow them to 'bounce' through the sentence?

[@EchoLog]

I'd love to see your takes on Mongolic and Aleut languages now that I know you're touching on more than Norse. A general far-north repertoire of linguistic content would be cool

[@selen332]

the length thing is interesting, since some English dialects do have length contrasts, and it seems like the long/short vowel pairs aren't even perceived as being of the same quality

[@kullikressa7868]

ma/mina are both correct forms, fit for an official written text - and as you suggested, "mina" is the more emphatic form. But there are plenty of colloquial ways of speaking - eg. written "öelnud" or "ütelnud" ('said') is in spoken language "öeld", "üteld", "ütlend" or "ütelnu", depending on dialect. "Teinud" ('done') - "teind" (in North Estonia) or "teinu" or "tennüq" (in South Estonia).

[@corinna007]

Are you still learning Finnish? How would you say it compares in terms of difficulty? Another difference I can think of besides the negation thing is that Finnish has a lot more verb types than Estonian. I also suspect that the Finnish negation system is an influence from the Sámi languages, since they do the same thing. (And as a side note, all of my Finnish friends use puhekieli when they post something on social media or chat with me/their family and friends, etc , so I don't think you absolutely have to write in kirjakieli all the time, if it's just something casual.) Finnish will always be special to me, but maybe once I'm comfortably fluent in Finnish (currently at a B2 level but I'd like to get higher), I might tackle a bit of Estonian. 😅

[@nobodyexceptme7794]

Wonderful new God of war vids, been a follower since ur very first one on the original game.

[@mentallydotderanged]

6:00 onward. speaking of short and long vowels, there are some english minmal pairs, for example sit - seat. probably some more depending on the dialect. problem is english likes diphthongs too much, so just drop the second part of the diphthong, keep the length and there you have your long vowel. might wanna check out scottish english for inspiration. 13:50 estonian is obviously such an obscure language that i couldn't find any translation for this piece. would be appreciated if someone could provide one.

[@unzboz]

This particular snippet talks about a bird who flew over all the world, over a big lake, over a huge ball of yarn*. It looked for a place to lay an egg, a bed to hatch it, but it didnt find a place to lay an egg, a bed to hatch it. *debatable. estonian has many dialects. Even this song is in a dialect, thats why common translation doesnt work. I had a quick search, nothing 100% certain though. Not even an "official" translation. "ilmatse" could mean "ilm" as in the world, or "ilmatu" as in huge, vast. "kerik" could be "kirik" as in church, or as in a ball of yarn. Though that yarn theory entirely relies on a dialect dictionary. Thats an older folk song, or a piece of it. For the full song you can just type in "üle lendsi linnukene". Its fairly common in its field. Also you can look up articles on "regilaul". That song is from Ida-Virumaa, from 1888!

[@jumalAnni]

When you consider the context and songs of the same type (creation songs, loomine), "keriku" can only be "church". I am trying to give a bit more literal translation that pays attention to more archaic meanings of words. The (creator) bird flew over (us?), it flew over the high sky, over the sky, over a lake, over a huge church. She was looking for a (piece of) land to lay eggs on, a place to hatch eggs at. She didn't get a (piece of) land to lay eggs on, a place to hatch eggs at. There truly are several translations of creation songs available online.

[@jattikuukunen]

About the example at 15:05: I'm from Helsinki area in Finland and the closest sentence in spoken Finnish would be "mä nään naist(a)", which would mean I've started a new relationship with a woman (i.e. I'm seeing a woman). It's an interesting example of a misunderstanding a Finnish person might face when hearing Estonian. I put the last vowel in parenthesis because it felt slightly unnatural to leave it out here, perhaps because it's the last word of the sentence. The last letter or letters get often dropped in spoken Finnish, which makes it look closer to Estonian in some cases.

[@lakrids-pibe]

Eesti into nordic!! At least as far as I'm concerned. Hello from Denmark.

[@mikahamari6420]

For me as a native Finnish speaker, who has learned Estonian and wants to improve that skill every day, the experience is that starting is very easy because the languages are closely related. Like in all learning, free rides will end and you have to work, and you keep the feeling that deep inside these languages have same core. ♥️ I love Estonian language, ma armastan eesti keelt. These are quite tiny points about writing, but I find this interesting. Many Finnish dialects have similar features to Estonian, in which Estonian writing resembles more our speech than Finnish writing! Typical examples are *yks* 'one', *kaks* 'two', *viis* 'five' and *kuus* 'six' which are how Estonian writes and also Finns say them. Finnish writing has -i in the end of all those words (yksi etc.). One example is *d* in Finnish writing in consonantal gradation. It is not a feature of dialects, but artificial artefact brought by Agricola, who is the father of Finnish writing. For example I say *yhen* 'one (genetive) and *kahen* 'two (genetive)', not yhden and kahden, as they are written in Finnish. Estonian written forms *ühe* and *kahe* are in that respect very familiar, even if y is marked differently and -n-ending is absent (also in Finnish speech final -n is very weakly pronounced, not as full consonant).

[@closetmonster5057]

Actually, Agricola didn't bring or invent the d-sound that is used in todays Finnish language. He only used d in written language to mark ð spirant that used to exist in Finnish dialects at that time. So when Agricola wrote sydhän or sydän, he meant it to be pronounced it as syðän. "Soinnillinen dentaalispirantti ð (suomalais-ugrilaisessa tarkekirjoituksessa δ), sama äänne kuin englannin sanassa this, oli myöhäiskantasuomessa t:n allofoni astevaihtelun heikossa asteessa. Suomen kielen erilliskehityksen aikana ð kehittyi itsenäiseksi foneemiksi. Se esiintyi t:n astevaihteparina (/t/:/ð/, /rt/:/rð/, /lt/:/lð/) suomen murteissa. 1500- ja 1600-luvulla sitä tavattiin ilmeisesti monissa suomen murteissa. Useimmista murteista ð kuitenkin hävisi. Itämurteista se katosi ja länsimurteissa se muuttui l:ksi tai r:ksi. 1980-luvulla ð tunnettiin enää pienellä alueella Rauman ympäristössä. Vanhassa kirjasuomessa ð-äännettä merkittiin joko d tai dh. Kirjoitustapa dh oli peräisin ruotsin kielestä, jonka murteissa ð esiintyi vielä 1500-luvulla. Ruotsissa ð kirjoitettiin aluksi dh. 1600-luvulle tultaessa ruotsin ð muuttui d:ksi ja kirjoituksessa dh vaihtui d:ksi. Suomen kielessä kirjoitustavaksi vakiintui 1600-luvulla d siten, että vuoden 1642 Raamatussa on johdonmukaisesti d-kirjain. Kun ð-äänne oli useimmissa suomen murteissa käynyt vieraaksi, alettiin d-kirjain lukea d-klusiilina ruotsin ja muiden kielten mallin mukaan. Myös spiranttiääntämys kuitenkin lienee säilynyt pitkään, ainakin 1800-luvun lopulle asti. 1800-luvulla kysymys d:stä oli keskeinen kiista ns. murteiden taistelussa. Toiset olivat sitä mieltä, että d suomelle vieraana tulisi jättää pois. Toiset puolustivat d:n säilyttämistä. Loppujen lopuksi d säilyi."

[@mikahamari6420]

@@closetmonster5057 Yes, I know, Agricola did a great job. 👍 What I mean by calling "d" as artificial, it gives false impression that we have voiced plosive in cases like "käsi : käden" (inflection of word meaning 'hand'), but we never had.

[@pierreabbat6157]

How about trying Livonian next?

[@erickrogelio2763]

Very good

[@sulevturnpuu5491]

One place I notice spoke estonian is drifting away from written form is numbers 22, 34 etc. The grammatic form woul be 'kolmkümmend neli' (34), but in spoken language usually you will hear shortened 'kolmkend neli'. But round numbers like 30, 40, 50 withouth anything following it usually wont be shortened. I know I have noticed some other words that have drifted away from their written form, but I cant remember them right now. Also, she seems out of practice. When you were looking for an example of short-long differences... Keel - language/tongue. Kel - shortened version of Kellel, not often used, meaning 'on who/who has'. Kell - a clock.

[@OmegaTaishu]

Sounds like there's virtually no aspiration to the /p t k/ she pronounces, her /k/ almost sounds like a /g/ to my ear. Estonian is amazing!

[@prince-electorsnoo2540]

The shortened form of "mina"(ma) is grammatically correct in written Estonian. I would advise that when it comes to spoken Estonian and Finnish, that you consider the history. For example, when it comes to curse words, Finnish has some Swedish loanwords while Estonian has Russian ones.

[@Caladras]

I learned the basics of Estonian two years ago as an Erasmus student in Tallinn. It's a fascinating language and I wish the course was longer and more in-depth. Minu munn on puhas!

[@unzboz]

Seems like the natives got to you haha! Its like a custom to teach eachother profanities and slang.

[@matskustikee]

that bodypart has to be clean, otherwise you may pickup some unwanted diseases

[@denja964]

Iirlasena see oli mulle huvitav vaatama sest ma räägin Eesti keelt ja pole Eestisse käinud, siiskui ma räägin eestlastega(mis ma päris palju teen) nad arvavad et olen hullu. Aga(eestlasega) long distance suhtes olla aitab.

[@dafyddthomas6897]

Estonian 2nd person singular = 3rd person plural. Jackson can't think of another language that does this GERMAN "Sie" = polite 2nd person literally means "They" with a capital letter

[@phuttyyt]

I think you've misunderstood (or I've misunderstood you): the second person singular in Estonian is "sina" while the third person plural is "nemad".

[@kavikv.d.hexenholtz3474]

Be interesting to go over the difference between ö and õ.

[@Ateesh6782]

Is Hungarian on your radar? ;) - Other than the phonemic difference between ‘long’ and ‘short’ vowels in Hungarian (like in Estonian and Finnish), a major challenge for modern-day English natives is the instinct to diphtongalise syllables like “me” [me:] into [mei], for example. - Your work is big time appreciated. ;)

[@joannasthings]

that 2ps and 3pp distinction is in the english copula (though it includes 1pp as well)

[@faithlesshound5621]

That's because the original 2nd person singular forms ("thou art" or, in the Far West, "tha bist") have been displaced by the 1st/2nd/3rd person plural form "are." The same thing happened to regular verbs: we say "you look" nowadays instead of "thou look'st." But that's because of polite use of the 2nd person plural in place of the 2nd person singular. In English we rarely use the 3rd person plural to be hyper-polite: "Would madam like a cup of tea?"

[@weirdlanguageguy]

@@faithlesshound5621 in your last example, like would be the infinitive, wouldn't it?

[@faithlesshound5621]

@@weirdlanguageguy Yes, "like" is an infinitive, it's "would" that is a 3rd person singular verb. "Would madam?" rather than "would you?" or "wouldst thou?" This auxiliary verb doesn't have a distinctive 3rd person singular inflexion. Unlike German and Dutch, English doesn't have a polite form of "you" that takes a 3rd person verb.

[@weirdlanguageguy]

@@faithlesshound5621 I see what you're saying now; you accidentally called it the 3rd person plural in your first comment and it threw me off

[@graffics7665]

I remember watching a KZbin video on how to say, "twelve months" in Estonian.. in English, it sounds like something my ex girlfriend goes around saying!

[@hglundahl]

4:46 I can give you a little tip. Estonian syntax was influenced by German syntax. Finnish wasn't.

[@caraboska]

I know basically nothing about Estonian pronunciation, but I have heard Finns pronounce Finnish, and they appear to treat the long vowels (i.e. the ones written as double letters) as two separate syllables. And since the accentuation is done with pitch rather than stress, that means that the pitch alters during the pronunciation of the double vowel. However, I don't remember their geminating double consonants, as we do in Polish. It seems like they do their double consonants more the way the Italians do. So I think I might find that more difficult. I'm getting the feeling from hearing the reading that in Estonian, they do in some measure do the same thing with vowels as the Finns do, but it sounds like they geminate their double consonants a bit more than the Finns. Does that sound about right?

[@ccgamerlol]

on väga harva kui välismaalased räägivad eesti keelt, nüüd viimasel ajal on neid rohkem, see on huvitav kogemus

Latvia next?

[@Majoneesik]

When it comes to long an short vowels I am reminded of the good old joke phrase "Kuused siin, kuused seal, kuused iga nurga peal".

[@laurienator]

Hi, Jackson, I saw you with Norbert and the Nordic languages, correct? :) I'm Estonian and know pretty well Finnish, so I comment: mina/ma is like in French je/moi: "ma olen eestlane" (I'm Estonian) would in fast speech sound like "ma'n eestlane". But if you answer to the question who of you guys is Estonian, the aswer is: "MINA olen eestlane." In spoken Finnish you'd say "(mä) oon suomalaine(n)" in fast speech and to answer to the question who is the Finn here: "MINÄ olen suomalainen. Spoken Finnish drops a lot of vowels that Estonian dropped already some hundreds of years ago but we have so many false friends in vocabulary that understanding without some knowledge is impossible. For me it's difficult to say because my Finnish came from Finnish TV during the Soviet occupation, never actually studied but young Estonians don't understand anything.

[@SuperMrMuster]

But Jackson, long and short vowels are important in English too! Compare and contrast "sheet" and "💩". Take for example: "Drop a sheet on the table." There's a funny old video about an Italian man messing these up.

[@n6at6ali1a]

keel - language kell - clock Estonian words lost their ending vowel several centuries ago. Finnish still have them

[@manometras]

There is keel - language and kell - hour, time on the watch in Estonian.

[@billanderson9908]

Good.

[@BlakeBarrett]

Vibes

[@jakubolszewski8284]

Oh yeah, one of this languages that I want to learn hahae.

[@AlekseiSljusarev]

This is quite difficult to switch to the correct sound of "T". In English/American it is softer. In English it sounds more like "t + ch" mix.

[@lilamusicproduction]

Come to Berlin. We teach you German too

[@SuperMrMuster]

Vernacular Finnish shortens numbers too, but differently: yksi -> yy kaksi -> kaa kolme -> koo neljä -> nee viisi -> vii kuusi -> kuu seitsemän -> sei kahdeksan -> kasi yhdeksän -> ysi kymmenen -> kymppi / kyt 23 -> kaakoo 30 -> kolkyt 108 -> satakasi

[@Dreoilin]

I dated a girl from Estonia for a short time. I found their language rather easy to pick up.

[@peterfireflylund]

Interesting that -t- and -k- are geminated in Estonian without being written as -tt- and -kk-... at least in her version of Estonian.

[@1sanitat1]

Yes that's how estonian ortography is. Also D and G aren't voiced, but voiceless non-geminated.

[@jumalAnni]

There is a three-way gradation in Estonian (modern orthographical standard is usually d (short), t (long), tt (over-long)). "T" in 'autellessanna' might really be over-long but that is not modern Estonian so who knows... (Modern form would probably be "haudumiseks", I get it from context.) And certain rhythmic expectations are also born out of the verse form. This one also seems to be stress poetry, not gradation poetry.

[@beepboop204]

🙂