Estonian

Bilingual dictionaries

• CHALVIN Antoine (dir.), Dictionnaire fondamental estonien-français, Tartu : Presses de l'Université de Tartu & Association franco-estonienne de lexicographie, 2023, 759 p.
• GDEF (Grand dictionnaire estonien-français), in progress, over 38,000 items accessible: http://www.estfra.ee
• Taskusõnastik: prantsuse-eesti, eesti-prantsuse = Dictionnaire de poche français-estonien, estonien-français. - Tallinn: TEA Kirjastus, 2002. - 640 p.
• KANN Kallista, KAPLINSKI Nora: Eesti-prantsuse sõnaraamat. - Tallinn: Valgus, 1979. - 601 p.
• KANN Kallista : Prantsuse-eesti sõnaraamat. - Tallinn: Valgus, 1968. - 563 p.
• LAFFRANQUE Julia, LAFFRANQUE Rodolphe : Dictionnaire juridique français-estonien, estonien-français. - Tallinn: Juura Õigusteabe AS, 2002. - 443 p.

Grammars and presentations of the language

• CHALVIN Antoine: Grammaire estonienne. - Paris: L'Asiathèque, 2023, 380 p.
• SIVERS Fanny de: Parlons estonien : une langue de la Baltique. - Paris : L'Harmattan, 1993. - 214 p.
• SUTROP Urmas: La langue estonienne. - Tallinn: Estonian Institute, 2002. - 27 p.
• ERELT Mati (ed.): Estonian language. - Tallinn: Estonian Academy Publishers, 2003. - (Linguistica Uralica Supplementary Series; 1). - 412 p.
• HASSELBLATT Cornelius: Grammatisches Wörterbuch des Estnischen. - 2nd edition. - Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz, 2001. - 176 p.
• VALMIS Aavo, VALMIS Lembetar: Lihtne eesti keele grammatika = Эстонская грамматика для всех. - Tallinn: TEA, 2001. - 239 p.

Language methods, manuals

• CHALVIN Antoine, RÜÜTLI Malle, TALVISTE Katre: Manuel d'estonien. - Paris: L'Asiathèque, 2011. - 254 p.
• KINGISEPP Leelo & KITSNIK Mare: Teach Yourself Estonian. - London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2008. - 360 p.
• MOSELEY Christopher: Colloquial Estonian: a complete language course. - London : Routledge. - 231 p.
• PESTI Mall, AHI Helve: E nagu Eesti: eesti keele õpik algajaile. - Tallinn: TEA kirjastus, 2001. - 267 p.

Literature

• CHALVIN Antoine: "La littérature estonienne". In: DELAPERRIÈRE Maria (ed.): Histoire littéraire de l'Europe médiane des origines à nos jours. - Paris : L'Harmattan, 1998. - pp. 75-89.
• CHALVIN Antoine : " L'évolution de la littérature estonienne depuis le rétablissement de l'indépendance ". In : Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania: ten years of recovered independence, Paris : INALCO, 2002. - pp. 167-179.
• HASSELBLATT Cornelius: Geschichte der estnischen Literatur: von den Anfängen bis zur Gegenwart. - Berlin: De Gruyter, 2006. - 869 p.

History

• MINAUDIER Jean-Pierre: History of Estonia and the Estonian nation. - Paris: ADÉFO/L'Harmattan, coll. Bibliothèque finno-ougrienne, 17, 2007.
• BERTRICAU A. (dir.): L'Estonie : identité et indépendance / French edition edited by Antoine Chalvin. - Paris : L'Harmattan, 2001. - 364 p.
• MILJAN Toivo: Historical Dictionary of Estonia. - Lanham, Md.: Scarecrow Press, 2004. - 624 p.
• RAUN Toivo U. : Estonia and the Estonians, Updated 2nd ed., Stanford (Calif.): Hoover Institution Press, 2001. - 366 p.

Estonian is the mother tongue of around one million speakers. The official language of the Republic of Estonia, it is also spoken by a large diaspora in Sweden, North America, Australia... Like Finnish, it belongs to the Fennic branch of the Finno-Ugric languages. German influence has had a profound effect on the language.

History

In the 13th century, Estonian proper names are mentioned in the Chronicle of Henry the Latvian and in Danish tax rolls. Continuous texts, however, are only available from 1524 onwards. In the 17th century, two literary languages emerged from the northern and southern dialects, and the division of the Estonian-speaking territory into two bishoprics did little to promote linguistic unification. In 1739, however, a complete translation of the Bible ensured the predominance of Northern Estonian. In the 19th century, the Estophile movement established orthographic and grammatical standards; secular literature developed, notably with the publication, from 1857, of Kalevipoeg ("The Son of Kalev"), a national epic composed by F. R. Kreutzwald. The first decades of the 20th century would be marked, under the impetus of Johannes Aavik, by a major movement to renovate the language (keeleuuendus), in competition with a vast undertaking to standardize and enrich terminology led by J. V. Veski.

Phonetics, phonology, orthography

The Estonian alphabet is the Latin alphabet augmented by a few diacritical marks: ä, ö, ü are pronounced as in German, i.e. like è, eu and u in French; õ notes a back vowel, of minimal aperture and not rounded; it's the French u but pronounced, like i, with the corners of the mouth drawn back.
The Estonian language presents some important innovations compared to Finnish. It has lost vowel harmony, and the number of vowels that can appear beyond the first syllable is limited. Vowels and most consonants can be short, half-long or long (durations 1, 2 and 3). This opposition of durations is poorly reflected in the spelling: only the triple series of occlusives is well differentiated, although it's important to point out that simple occlusives, which are soft deaf and not sonorous, are noted by b, d, g, while p, t, k note half-longs and pp, tt, kk long ones: kabi "horse's hoof", kapi (uks) "(door) of the cupboard" (< kapp "cupboard"), (neli) kappi "four cupboards".
For other consonants, vowels and diphthongs, spelling makes no difference between durations 2 and 3. So we have duration 1 in lina "flax", duration 2 in linna (plaan) "(map) of the city", but duration 3 in (lähen) linna "(I'm) going to the city". We'll similarly contrast koli "barda, saint-frusquin", kooli (direktor) "(the head) of the school", (kaks) kooli "(two) schools".
Note also that in Estonian there are wet consonants whose wetness is not indicated by the spelling: the final consonant is wet in kann "toy", hall "gray", but not wet in kann "pitcher", hall "white jelly".
The tonic accent generally falls on the first syllable: Eesti vabariik "Estonian Republic". In many loanwords, however, the original accent is retained: revolutsioon, oktoober, probleem.

Intersyllabic alternation

At the consonantal alternation of Finnish, Estonian has substituted a much more complex and morphologically significant intersyllabic alternation. In Finnish, the genitive singular, as well as the accusative 1, are formed by the addition of a -n disinence built on the vowel theme of the noun; this addition can, by closing the syllable, lead in a quite mechanical way to the passage from the strong to the weak degree of an occlusive situated upstream: Finnish tupa "thatched cottage", Gen. tuvan. In Estonian, phonetic wear has led to the disappearance of the disinence -n and formal opposition, where it exists, may be marked only by alternation: tuba "room, chamber" gen. toa. Alternation has gone from being phonetic to morphological. In Estonian it concerns not only occlusives, but virtually all phonemes, including vowels and diphthongs. Alternation can be qualitative (tuba/toa) or quantitative (kapp/kapi); in the latter case, it may be "visible" (weak degree in the genitive kapi but strong degree in the nominative kapp as well as in the partitive and illative kappi) or "invisible", i.e. not reflected by spelling (weak degree in linna (plaan), but strong degree in (lähen) linna). Degrees, though linked to duration, must be distinguished from it. Some words present a three-degree alternation in their paradigm: toa (plaan) "(the plan) of the room", tuba (on tühi) "the room (is empty)", (lähen) tuppa "(I'm going) into the room".
Add to this the fact that this alternation is no longer dependent on the open or closed character of the syllable. Although its phonetic structure is comparable to that of tuba, the word saba "tail" is not subject to alternation, and its genitive is identical to its nominative.
In many words, the genitive is further distinguished from the nominative by the retention of the former thematic vowel dropped in the nominative. In Finnish the name of the dog is nominative koira, genitive koira-n; in Estonian the nominative is koer, genitive koera.
And let's add that while in Finnish an intersyllabic occlusion is subject to consonantal alternation whatever its position in relation to the accent, in Estonian only the "intersyllabic block" located at the exit of the stressed syllable is subject to intersyllabic alternation. In Finnish, the genitive of isäntä "boss" is therefore isännän; in Estonian, that of isand (same meaning) is isanda. Note, however, that in Estonian the alternation follows the stressed syllable whatever its position in the word: thus in identiteet "identity" genitive identiteedi.

Morphology and syntax

Estonian ignores the category of gender. It also has no articles, although certain pronouns seem increasingly called upon to play the role.
The function of the noun in the sentence is indicated by a casual suffix. The language also has a rich set of postpositions and prepositions used in combination with cases. There are 14 of these: nominative, genitive, partitive, illative, inessive, elative, allative, adessive, ablative, translative, terminative, essive, abessive and comitative. Estonian declension is broadly similar to Finnish, but some Finnish cases are missing in Estonian and vice versa.
The declension of the adjective is the same as that of the noun. The epithet adjective agrees in case and number with the noun it determines.
Nouns of number also decline. The verbal system is also comparable to that of Finnish, despite the differences brought about by phonetic evolution. There are only two simple indicative tenses, present and preterite, as well as a past compound and a past perfect. Estonian has fewer verbo-nominal forms (four participles and two infinitives), but has an indirect mode (or "oblique" mode) with no equivalent in Finnish. The main innovation is a very complete system of verbal particles, almost identical to that of German.
Syntax is strongly influenced by German, particularly in terms of word order. There are also convergences with Russian.

Lexicon

The vocabulary, which is very composite, is overall more "international" than that of Finnish. Where Finnish says lokakuu, ongelma, vallankumous, Estonian, as we have seen, says oktoober, probleem, revolutsioon. Yet many finnisms have been imitated or acclimatized, particularly in literary language. Neologisms such as kunstnik "artist", derived by adding a Russian suffix to a German word, are not uncommon.

Jean-Luc Moreau

The teaching of Estonian began at Langues'O in the 1930s, on the initiative of Aurélien Sauvageot, holder of the chair of Finno-Ugric languages.

The first teacher seems to have been Valter Niilus (1913-1978), who arrived in Paris in 1936 on a scholarship and is said to have taught Estonian to five students for one academic year. When he left Paris, the classes were discontinued, until Aleksander Aspel arrived in 1938 to take up a position as lecturer or repetiteur. 
After Aleksander Aspel's departure (1946), teaching was taken over by Jenny Neggo-Vyssokotsky for a year, before she in turn left France. Estonian language teaching was then interrupted for two years. From 1949 to 1951, classes were taught by Tamara Kann-Ainsaar, who had to stop for health reasons. In 1951-1952, Pastor Ilmar Ainsaar took her place. A further two-year interruption followed, until Aleksander Aspel, who had returned from the USA, re-established teaching in December 1954. In 1959, Vahur Linnuste, an Estonian exile from Sweden, was recruited as a lecturer. 

The Estonian diploma was once again issued, until 1971, when various school diplomas were created for the languages taught at Langues'O, including the two-year Certificate of Language and Civilization (CLC), the three-year Diplôme unilingue de langue et civilisation orientale (DULCO) and the four-year Diplôme supérieur (DS). In the case of Estonian, the low number of teaching hours made it impossible to set up a DULCO, and only the Certificate of Language and Civilization was issued.

After Vahur Linnuste's retirement (1990), the Professor responsible for Finno-Ugric languages, Jean-Luc Moreau, stepped in for a year, giving an optional course in Estonian grammar as part of the Finnish diploma.

The following year, an Estonian curriculum was re-established, leading to the Certificate of Language and Civilization. Practical classes were taught by Malle Talvet, the Estonian government's chargé d'affaires in France and a French government scholarship holder, while Jean-Luc Moreau taught grammar.

After Malle Talvet's departure (1994), a number of Estonian students on French government scholarships took over the practical classes: Tiiu Grünthal (1994-1996), Tanel Lepsoo (1996-1997 and 1998-1999), Lembe Lokk and Meelike Naris (1998), Marek Tamm (civilization, 1998-1999). Lecturers were also brought in, either to compensate for the temporary absence of a scholarship student, or to teach more specific courses: Antoine Chalvin (1994-1998), Jean Pascal Ollivry (1998-1999), Suzanne Champonnois (History of the Baltic States, History of Estonia).

At the start of the 1999 academic year, the recruitment of Antoine Chalvin to a new position as lecturer in Estonian and Finnish languages and literature led to the introduction of a third year and the creation of a DULCO in Estonian.

Estonian fellows were: Marge Käsper (1999-2000, first semester), Marrit Sink (2001-2002), Viivian Jõemets (2002-2003); lecturers: Krista Pikkat (from 2nd semester 1999-2000), Sigrid Kristenprun (2000-2003).

At the start of the 2003 academic year, the arrival of an Estonian government-funded lecturer, Malle Rüütli, enabled the creation of a higher diploma (4 years of study).

The so-called "LMD" reform enabled a further development of Estonian language courses. At the start of the 2006 academic year, an "Estonian" course was set up as part of Inalco's Master's degree in European Studies. At the start of the 2007 academic year, an Estonian bachelor's degree was launched. That year, Malle Rüütli was replaced by a new lecturer, Katre Talviste. Jean-Luc Moreau, who had retired, was replaced by Eva Toulouze, recruited as a lecturer in Finno-Ugric languages and literature. The DULCO has been replaced by three separate institutional diplomas, comprising the core courses of the three-year bachelor's degree. The 4th-year diploma is renamed "Diplôme approfondi".
In 2011, the first Estonian textbook for French speakers is published, designed by Antoine Chalvin, Malle Rüütli and Katre Talviste on the basis of teaching materials developed for the needs of Inalco courses (Manuel d'estonien, éditions l'Asiathèque, collection Langues-INALCO). The Estonian section returns to a university professorship, held by Antoine Chalvin.
From 2012 to 2017, the lecturer position is held by Viivian Jõemets.
At the start of the 2014 academic year, a distance-learning formula for Estonian is introduced, combining online courses on the Moodle platform and participation in the oral expression course via videoconferencing.
From the start of the 2017 academic year, the new lecturer is Merit Kuldkepp, and the Estonian curriculum benefits from the recruitment of Katerina Kesa on a lecturer position in Baltic civilization. Eva Toulouze, appointed for five years as a senior member of the Institut Universitaire de France, has had to give up teaching the Explanation of Text course, which was taken over first by Jean Pascal Ollivry (2017-2018), then by Antoine Chalvin. Distance students now outnumber face-to-face students.
Merit Kuldkepp is replaced from October 2021 by Riina Roasto.

Sources

• Bernard Le Calloc'h, article in the Languages O' bicentenary book.
• "Eesti keel Pariisi ülikoolis. Jutuajamine Prof. Alexander Aspeliga", Meie Kodu, March 31, 1955.
• Aleksander Aspel, "Hommage estonien à Aurélien Sauvageot", in Vingt-cinq ans d'enseignement en France des langues finno-ougriennes, Paris, 1958, p. 29-30.