Learning Estonian: My First Steps

Annabel Laul provides an Estonian's perspective as Jackson Crawford discusses his first 48 hours of trying to learn Estonian and his thoughts on the language.
Jackson Crawford, Ph.D.: Sharing real expertise in Norse language and myth with people hungry to learn, free of both ivory tower elitism and the agendas of self-appointed gurus. Visit jacksonwcrawford.com/ (includes bio and linked list of all videos).
Jackson Crawford’s Patreon page: / norsebysw
Visit Grimfrost at glnk.io/6q1z/jacksoncrawford
Latest FAQs: vimeo.com/375149287 (updated Nov. 2019).
Jackson Crawford’s translation of Hávamál, with complete Old Norse text: www.hackettpublishing.com/the... or www.amazon.com/Wanderers-Hava...
Jackson Crawford’s translation of The Poetic Edda: www.hackettpublishing.com/the... or www.amazon.com/Poetic-Edda-St...
Audiobook: www.audible.com/pd/The-Poetic...
Jackson Crawford’s translation of The Saga of the Volsungs: www.hackettpublishing.com/the... or www.amazon.com/Saga-Volsungs-...
Audiobook: www.audible.com/pd/The-Saga-o...
Music © I See Hawks in L.A., courtesy of the artist. Visit www.iseehawks.com/
Logos and channel artwork by Justin Baird. See more of his work at: justinbairddesign.com

Пікірлер: 229

  • @MichaelLoda
    @MichaelLoda Жыл бұрын

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

  • @gruu

    @gruu

    Жыл бұрын

    Now that's a book I would read, what a great a idea!

  • @joebarrera334

    @joebarrera334

    Жыл бұрын

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

  • @NicolasVascoVillamizar

    @NicolasVascoVillamizar

    Жыл бұрын

    You're not alone

  • @eltrew

    @eltrew

    Жыл бұрын

    Well i was not expecting you here lol.

  • @foulmercy8095

    @foulmercy8095

    Жыл бұрын

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

  • @SionTJobbins
    @SionTJobbins Жыл бұрын

    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

    @ccgamerlol

    Жыл бұрын

    proovi oma sõnadega öelda mu lauset

  • @pinwyrdd

    @pinwyrdd

    Жыл бұрын

    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

    @SionTJobbins

    Жыл бұрын

    @@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.

  • @danieldahlborg8192
    @danieldahlborg8192 Жыл бұрын

    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

    @VegaIllusion

    Жыл бұрын

    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

    @zoolkhan

    Жыл бұрын

    PERKELE!

  • @joebarrera334
    @joebarrera334 Жыл бұрын

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

  • @jumalAnni
    @jumalAnni Жыл бұрын

    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.

  • @DNA350ppm
    @DNA350ppm Жыл бұрын

    Best chemistry ever - please, provide more collaborations, Annabel - Jackson! Love it! A better mix of languages around the Baltic Sea and cultures of peoples from the Viking Age, than one that includes Estonian cannot be found!

  • @d.rabbitwhite
    @d.rabbitwhite Жыл бұрын

    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

    @molylepke9522

    Жыл бұрын

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

  • @kindaimmortal
    @kindaimmortal Жыл бұрын

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

  • @ccgamerlol

    @ccgamerlol

    Жыл бұрын

    kus sa elad, mis su emakeel on?

  • @liambyrne5285

    @liambyrne5285

    Жыл бұрын

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

  • @kindaimmortal

    @kindaimmortal

    Жыл бұрын

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

  • @kindaimmortal

    @kindaimmortal

    Жыл бұрын

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

  • @TheLegendaryAmanda

    @TheLegendaryAmanda

    Жыл бұрын

    @@ccgamerlol eestikeel.

  • @Optiqe_
    @Optiqe_ Жыл бұрын

    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

    @GreatRetro

    Жыл бұрын

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

  • @user-um1tj5nm1g

    @user-um1tj5nm1g

    Жыл бұрын

    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

  • @sharonjackson5196
    @sharonjackson5196 Жыл бұрын

    "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.

  • @anutuulmets8772
    @anutuulmets8772 Жыл бұрын

    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.

  • @herrakaarme
    @herrakaarme Жыл бұрын

    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.

  • @casescomplete7811

    @casescomplete7811

    Жыл бұрын

    mr snake

  • @Ninjadoku3779

    @Ninjadoku3779

    Жыл бұрын

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

  • @zoolkhan

    @zoolkhan

    Жыл бұрын

    @@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

    @Ninjadoku3779

    Жыл бұрын

    @@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.

  • @rrsjr
    @rrsjr Жыл бұрын

    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

    @egbront1506

    Жыл бұрын

    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

    @ilyake7862

    Жыл бұрын

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

  • @hbowman108

    @hbowman108

    Жыл бұрын

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

  • @alexxxO_O

    @alexxxO_O

    Жыл бұрын

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

  • @Ithirahad
    @Ithirahad Жыл бұрын

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

  • @Darnaguen
    @Darnaguen Жыл бұрын

    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).

  • @melissahdawn
    @melissahdawn Жыл бұрын

    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.

  • @samcook6368
    @samcook6368 Жыл бұрын

    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.

  • @oh2mp
    @oh2mp Жыл бұрын

    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.

  • @antstorim5976
    @antstorim5976 Жыл бұрын

    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.

  • @Drewe223
    @Drewe223 Жыл бұрын

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

  • @verAlvyn
    @verAlvyn Жыл бұрын

    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

    @mnels5214

    Жыл бұрын

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

  • @verAlvyn

    @verAlvyn

    Жыл бұрын

    @@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

    @verAlvyn

    Жыл бұрын

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

  • @moshpitjo1146
    @moshpitjo1146 Жыл бұрын

    This is a beautiful language

  • @eckligt
    @eckligt Жыл бұрын

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

  • @Pakanahymni
    @Pakanahymni Жыл бұрын

    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".

  • @IosefDzhugashvili
    @IosefDzhugashvili Жыл бұрын

    Thank you Annabel Laul! Great video

  • @lecros6628
    @lecros6628 Жыл бұрын

    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

    @captivatedlunt1895

    Жыл бұрын

    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

    @ragnarlaine4065

    8 ай бұрын

    ​@@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

  • @Gungnir762
    @Gungnir762 Жыл бұрын

    Sweet. Hope the travels go well.

  • @martinhartecfc
    @martinhartecfc Жыл бұрын

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

  • @MK-tq2uv
    @MK-tq2uv Жыл бұрын

    So calm video 🤘

  • @seenonyt2210
    @seenonyt2210 Жыл бұрын

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

  • @jkoperski9925
    @jkoperski9925 Жыл бұрын

    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!

  • @mnels5214
    @mnels5214 Жыл бұрын

    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

    @captivatedlunt1895

    Жыл бұрын

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

  • @mnels5214

    @mnels5214

    Жыл бұрын

    ​@@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

    @captivatedlunt1895

    Жыл бұрын

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

  • @JWMathreMusic
    @JWMathreMusic Жыл бұрын

    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!

  • @Northernmostsoul
    @Northernmostsoul Жыл бұрын

    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

  • @osw330904
    @osw330904 Жыл бұрын

    Love your fascination with linguistics

  • @mohamedmoawad6303
    @mohamedmoawad6303 Жыл бұрын

    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👍

  • @rootkite
    @rootkite Жыл бұрын

    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 :)

  • @puhistagram
    @puhistagram Жыл бұрын

    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

    @2meetrit

    7 ай бұрын

    How come there wasnt Estonia back then? 😅

  • @belstar1128
    @belstar1128 Жыл бұрын

    I should start studying Estonian again.

  • @sucre4523
    @sucre4523 Жыл бұрын

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

  • @UrinationNation

    @UrinationNation

    Жыл бұрын

    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.

  • @TheHPMP
    @TheHPMP Жыл бұрын

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

  • @mimikal7548
    @mimikal7548 Жыл бұрын

    It's almost December and yet it looks quite warm

  • @markusmiekk-oja3717
    @markusmiekk-oja3717 Жыл бұрын

    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.

  • @nobodyexceptme7794
    @nobodyexceptme7794 Жыл бұрын

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

  • @tynistty
    @tynistty Жыл бұрын

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

  • @1sanitat1

    @1sanitat1

    Жыл бұрын

    True, but the final consonant is different!

  • @belstar1128

    @belstar1128

    Жыл бұрын

    In Dutch that means throat probably just a coincidence.

  • @jumalAnni

    @jumalAnni

    Жыл бұрын

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

  • @autarchprinceps
    @autarchprinceps Жыл бұрын

    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.

  • @ihmejakki2731
    @ihmejakki2731 Жыл бұрын

    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

  • @Talvekuningas
    @Talvekuningas Жыл бұрын

    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 .

  • @user-kr7xg3nf4c
    @user-kr7xg3nf4c Жыл бұрын

    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

    @jumalAnni

    Жыл бұрын

    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

    @phuttyyt

    Жыл бұрын

    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

    @jumalAnni

    Жыл бұрын

    ​@@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.

  • @user-kr7xg3nf4c

    @user-kr7xg3nf4c

    Жыл бұрын

    @@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.

  • @Thedeepseanomad
    @Thedeepseanomad Жыл бұрын

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

  • @scaldedape6213
    @scaldedape6213 Жыл бұрын

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

  • @eerokutale277
    @eerokutale277 Жыл бұрын

    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".

  • @selen332
    @selen332 Жыл бұрын

    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

  • @anzelmasmatutis2500
    @anzelmasmatutis2500 Жыл бұрын

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

  • @boxerfencer
    @boxerfencer Жыл бұрын

    I like the sound of estonian.

  • @CarlCOts
    @CarlCOts6 ай бұрын

    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!🇪🇪

  • @yaminoyume610
    @yaminoyume610 Жыл бұрын

    Uralic languages are beautiful

  • @erickrogelio2763
    @erickrogelio2763 Жыл бұрын

    Very good

  • @AnthonySell
    @AnthonySell Жыл бұрын

    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

    @fr4933

    Жыл бұрын

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

  • @EchoLog
    @EchoLog Жыл бұрын

    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

  • @stolman2197
    @stolman2197 Жыл бұрын

    Waiting for you to learn Lithuanian

  • @benandolga
    @benandolga Жыл бұрын

    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!

  • @edwardkiel3496
    @edwardkiel3496 Жыл бұрын

    ooof, now I feel like learning estonian too

  • @finnguy9096
    @finnguy90967 ай бұрын

    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.

  • @corinna007
    @corinna007 Жыл бұрын

    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. 😅

  • @syystomu
    @syystomu Жыл бұрын

    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.

  • @Caladras
    @Caladras Жыл бұрын

    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

    @unzboz

    Жыл бұрын

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

  • @matskustikee

    @matskustikee

    Жыл бұрын

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

  • @mentallydotderanged
    @mentallydotderanged Жыл бұрын

    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

    @unzboz

    Жыл бұрын

    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

    @jumalAnni

    Жыл бұрын

    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.

  • @nissevelli
    @nissevelli5 ай бұрын

    I saw a language distance map recently that showed how different various languages of Europe are. For example, German and English had a distance of about 50 while German and Danish had a distance of about 40. The difference between Finnish and Estonian was given a 45, which means they are about as different as German or Dutch and the Northern Germanic languages. Meanwhile, Finnish and Estonian had a distance of 90 from Swedish. The Romance languages had differences in the 20’s through 30’s for the most part. So it makes sense that on a very basic level, Finnish and Estonian have some mutual intelligibility. although not as much as one would think.

  • @kullikressa7868
    @kullikressa78688 ай бұрын

    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).

  • @billanderson9908
    @billanderson9908 Жыл бұрын

    Good.

  • @pierreabbat6157
    @pierreabbat6157 Жыл бұрын

    How about trying Livonian next?

  • @joannasthings
    @joannasthings Жыл бұрын

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

  • @faithlesshound5621

    @faithlesshound5621

    Жыл бұрын

    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

    @weirdlanguageguy

    Жыл бұрын

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

  • @faithlesshound5621

    @faithlesshound5621

    Жыл бұрын

    @@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

    @weirdlanguageguy

    Жыл бұрын

    @@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

  • @kavikv.d.hexenholtz3474
    @kavikv.d.hexenholtz3474 Жыл бұрын

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

  • @prince-electorsnoo2540
    @prince-electorsnoo2540 Жыл бұрын

    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.

  • @ccgamerlol
    @ccgamerlol Жыл бұрын

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

  • @lakrids-pibe
    @lakrids-pibe Жыл бұрын

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

  • @mikkoolavijarvinen3653
    @mikkoolavijarvinen3653 Жыл бұрын

    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...

  • Жыл бұрын

    Latvia next?

  • @OmegaTaishu
    @OmegaTaishu Жыл бұрын

    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!

  • @DNA350ppm
    @DNA350ppm Жыл бұрын

    Sounds like the poem could be part of a "genesis" from Kalevala?

  • @caraboska
    @caraboska Жыл бұрын

    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?

  • @Majoneesik
    @Majoneesik Жыл бұрын

    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".

  • @sulevturnpuu5491
    @sulevturnpuu5491 Жыл бұрын

    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.

  • @graffics7665
    @graffics7665 Жыл бұрын

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

  • @dafyddthomas6897
    @dafyddthomas6897 Жыл бұрын

    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

    @phuttyyt

    Жыл бұрын

    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".

  • @denja964
    @denja964 Жыл бұрын

    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.

  • @Ateesh6782
    @Ateesh6782 Жыл бұрын

    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. ;)

  • @jattikuukunen
    @jattikuukunen6 ай бұрын

    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.

  • @hglundahl
    @hglundahl Жыл бұрын

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

  • @jakubolszewski8284
    @jakubolszewski8284 Жыл бұрын

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

  • @omenoid
    @omenoid Жыл бұрын

    I'm waiting for the time you can say in Finnish "Minä työtän" instead of "Minä teen työtä". What's interesting that to my ears, you seem to apply the Finnish-ish vowel harmony to Estonian words: e.g. instead of "ma töötasin" you tend to say like "ma tööttäsin" which is exactly what Finns would say when they don't follow the fact that Estonian lacks vowel harmony. :D A feature of the Estonian language I didn't hear you mention that Estonian actually has three vowel lengths instead of the two as in Finnish, did you know that or maybe I missed that part. For a native Finn like me, they are as much as difficult to distinguish as the two in Finnish. Also a tip for the pronunciation: if you drop the aspirated k/p/t, you'll sound much closer to the native way, so instead of thinking of "ma töötan", maybe you could trying to imagine it being written as "ma döödan", as that's what most North Americans would heard when hearing Fin/Est k/p/t. That is shown clearly in Finnish American surnames, where the pronunciation has affected the way the names are spelled, e.g. "Pekkala" -> "Bekkala", "Törölä" -> "Durrala". Moreover, I'm super envious of the Estonian lady, as I didn't have a chance to meet you here in Finland. ;) About the imperfect forms: in Finnish you would actually say as you said "Ma töötin", instead of the correct Estonian form "Ma töötasin", but in the most South-Western Finnish dialects the imperfect is formed in the same way as in Estonian: "Mnää tekisin" instead of the standard Finnish form "minä tein".

  • @salubriousscratch3540
    @salubriousscratch3540 Жыл бұрын

  • @SuperMrMuster
    @SuperMrMuster Жыл бұрын

    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
    @n6at6ali1a Жыл бұрын

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

  • @DNA350ppm
    @DNA350ppm Жыл бұрын

    Hop, hop - stop there, English pronunciation has long and short vowels and consonants, too. But they are not marked logically in writing. "Mother" has a short first vowel, but "father" a long, but both have a short consonant in "th". In "feeling" the first vowel is long, the consonant is short, but in "falling" the "a" is long but the consonant (ll) is long. In "humming", u is short, mm is long, and "humor" u is long and m is short. And it is not just the length that varies. Spelling inconsistency makes it more complicated. Thanks for a fun episode!

  • @mn4169
    @mn4169 Жыл бұрын

    interesting

  • @BlakeBarrett
    @BlakeBarrett Жыл бұрын

    Vibes

  • @ziloj-perezivat
    @ziloj-perezivat Жыл бұрын

    What mics do you use in this video

  • @larrywave
    @larrywave Жыл бұрын

    Karelian next ?😂