Research
The University of Tartu is ranked in the 151.-200. position in the field of Linguistics among the 1000 best universities of the world (QS World University Rankings 2024 by Subject). Our Institute is one of the foremost centres of linguistic research in Estonia.
The research conducted in the Institute focuses mainly on Estonian, but also tackles other Finno-Ugric languages, such as Izhorian, Votic, Komi, and other languages. The University of Tartu has become one of the leading research and teaching centres of Finno-Ugric languages. We belong to a collaboration network of nine European universities who share a passion for teaching and researching Finno-Ugric languages. The Institute’s research involves diverse directions both in terms of the phenomena under investigation as well as the methods and approaches used.
Language documentation forms an important part of our research, and we maintain a number of important language corpora used in research on Estonian and related languages. Language corpora are extremely valuable from the point of view of the preservation of linguistic diversity and affords the opportunity for researchers to investigate Estonian outside of Tartu and Estonia, fostering international collaboration. One of the institute's international projects is MEDAL, a consortium to develop and teach linguistic methodology.
We also conduct interdisciplinary research. We participate in various larger projects, such as those of the Centre of Excellence in Estonian Studies and BEDLAN, as well as a large number of medium-sized and small research projects. The nature of human language means that our research interests often overlap with those of psychology, genetics, informatics, arts and culture.
Research fields
Computational linguistics is an interdisciplinary field that combines elements of linguistics, informatics, data science, statistics, and machine learning. Computational linguistics research at the Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics focuses on the development of automatic syntactic analysis of the Estonian language, automatic classification of texts and automatic analysis of older language usage.
Digital humanities also combines methods, knowledge, and skills from computer science and data science and brings them together to address the research questions in humanities.
In dialectology, the historical formation of Estonian dialects and the subsequent variation in their phonetics, morphosyntax and vocabulary are examined. The South Estonian languages of today – Võro, Seto, Tartu and Mulgi – are a separate field of research.
Several Finnic languages, such as Livonian, Votic, Ingrian and Veps, are studied at the institute. This is done using a variety of approaches, from experimental phonetics to sociolinguistic methods.
The field of language typology focuses on the position of Estonian language among other European languages as well as in the entire Uralic language area. The structural features of Estonian language are studied comparatively, using both qualitative and quantitative methods.
The field of old literary language studies vocabulary and grammar of Estonian from the beginning of the literary language, focusing on the language use and views of the people who shaped the literary language. The aim is to give a comprehensive picture of the development of the Estonian literary language.
Phonetics and phonology investigate pronunciation. The main language in focus is Estonian, but several other Finnic languages are studied as well.
In the field of semantics and pragmatics, the focus is on the meaning of linguistic expressions and the connection between meaning and function in grammar and language use. Our research includes usage-based approaches such as functional linguistics, cognitive linguistics, and interactional linguistics.
Psycholinguistics investigates the cognitive and psychological processes underlying language, lying in the overlap between linguistics and psychology. Psycholinguistic research in the Institute centres around first and additional language acquisition, language processing and multilingualism, in collaboration with researchers in psychology, social and educational sciences and computational linguistics.
Research on second language acquisition focuses on the L2 acquisition of Estonian, and the effects of language teaching and sociolinguistic factors on language acquisition.
Sociolinguistic and language policy research investigates language variation and multilingual usage, and the connections between social factors which affect usage.
The area of spoken language and communication research focuses mainly on Estonian in spoken communication and the mechanisms guiding communication. Research focuses mainly on everyday conversation, as well as more specific contexts of language use and varieties.
In the field of syntax and morphology, the research focus is on the grammar and morphology of Standard Estonian, Estonian dialects and other Finno-Ugric languages.
Text research includes both text analysis and text teaching. The research focuses on various texts: while text analysis studies how texts both reflect and construct reality, text teaching focuses on text-based language learning both in general education and higher education.
The Uralic languages are comprised of the Finno-Ugric and the Samoyed languages. These are distant relatives of Estonian (Baltic languages are closer, see separately). The institute documents Uralic languages, describes their structure, vocabulary and their relationship with speakers, cultures and contact languages.
Ongoing projects
The latest overview of all projects of the Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics can be found in ETIS.
The project is aimed at the investigation, description and documentation of those minor Finno-Ugric languages that have especially intricate inflectional systems. We are interested in mutual correlations between morphological and phonetic features, both segmental and suprasegmental, that result in numerous alternations within a paradigm. The primary focus of the research is on Ingrian, Karelian and Inari Saami, but the data from other minor Finnic and Saami languages will also be considered. The main goals of the project are (a) to elaborate a unified theoretical approach to the description of inflection in these languages, (b) to investigate main principles of interaction in the phonology-morphology interface, (c) to compile several language resources (primarily, morphological dictionaries and phonetic data bases) targeted at both the academic circles and language communities, (d) to investigate morphological variation and the role of language contacts in morphological developments.
Principal investigator: Fedor Rozhanskiy
The project is funded by the Estonian Research Council.
When children learn to speak, they start to develop control over their vocal tract, and they learn the set of motions to reliably produce sounds that are native to their language. With time, the gestures get more complex, and the speech gets faster. Children need to learn how to control their tongue so that they can communicate their linguistic goals. There is currently very little knowledge about the process by which children refine the coordination of multiple parts of the tongue and how this develops as they get older. Also, previous work has only focused on a small number of large West-European languages. Here, we use ultrasound tongue imaging to investigate how children learn consonants requiring multiple tongue movements in Estonian to chart development at different ages. In addition to academic papers, our project will provide research-informed normative data for speech therapists and educators working in Estonia about typical patterns of child speech development.
Principal investigator: Anton Malmi
The project is funded by the Estonian Research Council.
Rapidly expanding developments in computational methods and capacity in recent decades have significantly and sustainably
changed the opportunities that Humanities disciplines have at their disposal to carry out effective investigations using text-based
data. This subfield of Digital Humanities research is particularly relevant for linguistics, literary scholarship, folkloristics and history,
and yet relevant modern methodologies for computational approaches to processing textual data for Humanities research are often
practiced and taught in a fragmented, individualistic way. The very recent arrival of generative AI and LLMs promises even more
opportunities, but these uncharted waters are still waiting for exploration and potential exploitation in the Humanities, especially
concerning smaller, less-supported European languages. This ERA-Chair project will permanently improve this landscape in Europe by
creating the Center for Digital Text Scholarship – DigiTS – as an interdisciplinary pocket of excellence at the University of Tartu in
Estonia for applying cutting-edge computational methods in text-based Humanities research at the European periphery. Prof Maciej
Eder, a renowned expert in expert in computer-assisted text analysis, will lead DigiTS and its international interdisciplinary team in
carrying out world-class Humanities research using established and novel methods in neural networks and data analyses for exploring
textual data. In addition, the team will teach the next generation of Estonian and other European Humanities scholars in these
methods at BA, MA and PhD levels, and also consult DH researchers at all levels. Simultaneously, the center will promote the creation
and application of LLMs for Estonian, as an exemplary smaller European language. These activities, combined with collaboration with
Humanities researchers in other institutes and consortia, will ensure that UTARTU becomes synonymous with text-based Digital
Humanities research.
Principal investigator: Liina Lindström
The project is funded by the European Commission.
The activities of the project include the continuation of the compilation of Häädemeeste, Mulgi, Saaremaa and Seto dictionaries, development and systematization of vocabulary collections.
Principal investigator: Eva Saar
The project is funded by the Institute of the Estonian Language.
The aim of the project is description of the structure of the Komi language. The perspective result is envisaged as the manuscript of the grammar of Komi.
Principal investigator: Nikolay Kuznetsov
The project is funded by the Institute of the Estonian Language.
We live in an era of information abundance, where media, politicians, and influencers vie for attention. In this fast-paced, condensed communication landscape, it's vital to recognize how systematic metaphors in language and thought shape societal attitudes. For example, during the Covid-19 pandemic, we rallied against the virus as an enemy, but in real war, the EU countries really need to act together like a family. Highlighting how language molds thought patterns promotes awareness and enables shifts in discourse about phenomena. The project's theoretical goal is to study patterns in understanding crucial topics like crises, ecology, and health. The practical aim is to create a database of Estonian language conceptual metaphors for public access.
Principal investigator: Ann Veismann
The project is funded by the Ministry of Education and Research.
The transition to Estonian-language education has increased interest in learning Estonian. While materials are available for learning grammar and vocabulary, there are limited resources for learning pronunciation. This project aims to create a pronunciation verifier tool for learners of Estonian (L2) and to develop the mobile application SayEst further. Currently, there are no automatic tools for assessing L2 pronunciation. Pronunciation is an important part of language learning, and clear pronunciation helps with better integration into society. Creating a pronunciation verifier will enable learners to receive immediate feedback on their pronunciation to learn at one's own pace in a stress-free environment. The L2 pronunciation verifier will provide feedback on each phoneme using a traffic light system. Additionally, we will develop an iOS version of SayEst in response to user feedback and also diversify the exercise content within SayEst.
Principal investigator: Anton Malmi
The project is funded by the Ministry of Education and Research.
The current psycholinguistic project investigates how morphological structure influences adult native speaker’s language processing. Estonian inflectional paradigms consist of 14 inflectional cases in both the singular and plural (e.g., jalg ‘foot’, jalad ‘feet’). However, in everyday language, the number of cases actually used from a paradigm varies depending on the word’s semantics and context. It is currently not well understood how this realized inflectional paradigm size is represented in the mind’s of language users or how it influences language processing. The current project combines large-scale language experiments with advanced statistical methods across different language modalities. The expected outcome is that variation in paradigm size will influence visual language processing (reading) more than auditory processing (listening). This research will advance our knowledge about the role of morphological structure in language comprehension and production.
Principal investigator: Kaidi Lõo
The project is funded by the Estonian Research Council.
The project studies book history during the emergence of popular literacy. Popular literacy emerged in different communities across Europe at different times, and the project looks at whether there are similarities in how different communities develop. For this, the project will rely on aggregated bibliographic data and methods from evolutionary approaches to culture. The focus is on three themes: the impact of literacy on processes of secularization, the population dynamics in the formation of new native written language communities, and the geographic patterns of the diversity of books. The studies will use quantitative methods to analyse each of these cases, centered on critical periods in selected communities, with an initial focus on Northern and Western Europe 1600-1900. Combining expertise from cultural evolution and bibliographic data science, the project develops a new field of cultural evolution of books. The project advances data-intensive studies in the humanities.
Principal investigator: Peeter Tinits
The project is funded by the Estonian Research Council.
In the second stage of basic education in Estonia, where the transition from a classroom to a subject-based system is taking place, teachers often find themselves in a difficult situation: in addition to the fact that the subject language itself can be difficult for the pupils, there are often children in the class whose first language is not the language of instruction, i.e. Estonian; in addition, there are also children with special needs in almost every class who speak other languages than Estonian and who need extra attention, adapted teaching and learning materials from the teacher. However, subject teachers with different professional qualifications often lack the knowledge, skills and tools for helping these pupils. Nor do students in teacher education programmes gain the necessary knowledge, skills and practice in how to teach children with special needs who speak Estonian as the second language. There is also a lack of guidance to help teachers. The project will produce materials to fill this gap. The materials will consist of guidelines for teaching children with special needs speaking Estonian as the second language and sample training materials. In addition, the materials can be used as a basis for a further training curriculum to support teachers of children with special needs speaking Estonian as the second language in the future. The materials are intended primarily for teachers, but also for support professionals and learning resource developers, to help them adapt teaching processes and materials to these pupils, taking into account the principles of language-sensitive teaching and the specificities of HEV children. More generally, the materials will support the acquisition of knowledge and skills in teacher training in universities and will also provide support for practising teachers.
Principal investigator: Kristiina Praakli
The project is funded by the Ministry of Education and Research.
In this project, we first aim to identify the best pedagogical and cooperative practices for and obstacles to the development of the Estonian skills of basic school students whose home language is not Estonian. Second, by means of interventions, we aim to promote the cooperation of key persons (teachers, parents, school leaders and municipalities) and teachers' self-efficacy to support students more uniformly in learning Estonian and in Estonian. We focus our research on (a) basic school subject and Estonian teachers, (b) parents, and (c) school leaders and municipalities. As a result, we shed light on the actors' abilities, resources, will and cooperative capacity to act for a common goal. Moreover, we show how to promote teachers' self-efficacy and key persons' cooperative practices in teaching Estonian and in Estonian, practicing CLIL, and supporting multilingualism. As a result of the project, action plans and recommendations are formulated for schools, families, and policy makers.
Principal investigator: Kerttu Rozenvalde
The project is funded by the Institute of the Estonian Language.
The synergy of Humanities and Natural Sciences allows the Center of Excellence (CoE) to clarify the formation of cultural and genetic diversity in Estonia and neighboring areas. CoE will develop a new transdisciplinary framework for the study of interactions between people, cultures, and environment. CoE focuses on the evolution of peoples and cultures on the eastern coast of the Baltic Sea since the first arrivals of people after the Last Glacial Maximum, analyzed in a novel areal and ecological context, allowing to map the impact of abiotic (climate) and biotic (flora, fauna) factors on human cultures and populations. CoE facilitates synergistic approaches in archaeogenetics, palaeoecology, studies of culture and linguistics, enabling detailed syntheses on the development of populations, environment, and culture of this region in the European context.
Principal investigator: Gerson Klumpp
The project is funded by the Ministry of Education and Research.
The sudden public availability of generative AI tools has acted as a catalyst for changes in pedagogy and learning. FLAIR will contribute to preparing learners to thrive in a society characterized by digital transformation by promoting an ethical and meaningful use of generative AI, thus fostering students’ AI readiness. Overall, FLAIR will provide insight into the ongoing discourse on AI literacy in Europe, contribute to the advancement of AI literacy education and promote transversal skills.
Initially, comparative research on AI literacy frameworks, guidelines and policies will be carried out, contributing to an overview of European approaches. Two different approaches will then be developed to support learners in acquiring the necessary skills to use genAI responsibly and efficiently. These will include versatile and adaptable self-learning modules for students and transdisciplinary learning activities that are ready to use and can be embedded in existing courses.
The research conducted in Phase 1 will result in a synthesis report that will form the basis of an AI skills framework identifying key transferable skills. Phase 2 will develop a blueprint and a comprehensive library of materials to enable educators to adapt the self-learning modules to their needs. In phase 3, a toolkit for lecturers will be published, focusing on skills that need facilitation. It will be complemented by learning nuggets ready to be embedded in courses in various disciplines.
Principal investigator: Helen Hint
The project is funded by OeAD-GmbH – Agentur für Bildung und Internationalisierung.
Estonian and other Southern Finnic languages differ structurally in many ways from their more distant relatives. Contact with the Baltic and other neighbouring languages located along the Baltic Sea has led to the development of special features which often differ from Northern Finnic languages. This project systematically studies typological shift in Estonian, several South Estonian varieties, Livonian, Votic, and the areally closest Northern Finnic language – Ingrian by using the capabilities offered by new databases. Their interrelationships are examined as well as the role of language contact in the development of structural changes and the mechanisms leading to the innovations. The effect of conscious language planning on language structure is also observed. The results of the comparative study make a significant contribution to areal linguistics by providing a better understanding of these changes and trends in the Southern Finnic area and its immediate neighbourhood.
Principal investigator: Karl Pajusalu
The project is funded by the Estonian Research Council.
The nature of human speech is multimodal. In addition to articulatory movements, gestures with head and hands also have communicative functions. Some of these gestures mark the speech rhythm: head, eyebrow and hand beats co-occur with prominent words in speech. Other gestures carry a large variety of functions, e.g. point in time or space, imitate actions, express negation, etc.
The project looks at the relationship between gesture and speech rhythm in Estonian. The timing of gestures with prominence in speech is observed on three levels: 1) the articulatory movements of prominent syllables, 2) expressing prominence with head nods and eyebrows, and 3) the alignment of other gestures with prominent words. For the analysis of video recordings of spontaneous conversations automatic gesture detection methods will be developed. The results of the project can be applied in language teaching and speech technology with the ultimate goal to develop Estonian-speaking audiovisual avatars.
Principal investigator: Pärtel Lippus
The project is funded by the Ministry of Education and Research.
The project is aimed at the investigation and comparison of features of discourse particles in minor Uralic languages (Ingrian, Votic, Livonian, Erzya, Moksha, Udmurt, Komi, Kamas). Discourse particles have been studied intensively in languages with abundant documented written and spoken linguistic material. Considerably less has been done on the material of under-researched languages with limited linguistic resources, lack of long time written tradition and lack or limited size of spoken corpora. The main objective of the project is to discover linguistic patterns, variations and idiosyncrasies in the use of discourse particles in related indigenous languages in the situation of language contact. The workflow will include analysis of existing new corpora, compiling linguistic corpora, development of comparable experimental materials, and work with language consultants. The findings will be discussed in workshops, summarized in a volume, and become part of grammars and textbooks.
Principal investigator: Gerson Klumpp
The project is funded by the Estonian Research Council.
The project investigates the human-system interaction in digital environments through the study of microcopy – small texts that appear in the user interface. Microcopy is written during the design phase and unlike in usual communication, when problems occur, the writer does not receive feedback from the user. In the project, we investigate which linguistic tools are used in such communication, how text and design resonate with each other, and how users perceive the harmony of text and design. During the project, a tagged corpus of microcopy and designs will be compiled. Based on the corpora, Estonian microcopy will be described and analysed. Also, evaluation and perception experiments will be conducted to test which linguistic tools are the best for writing microcopy, and on which factors the processing and interpretation of linguistic and visual information depend. The results provide a basis for further research and the development of guidelines for writing microcopy.
Principal investigator: Maria Reile
The project is funded by the Ministry of Education and Research.
The aim of the project is to study Inari Saami word prosody and its relations to morphology by using experimental-phonetic methods and morphological analysis. The focus of the research is on the three-way consonantal quantity distinction, which knowingly only exists in Finno-Ugric languages. During the course of the project, the phonetic realization and morphological functions of the prosodic oppositions of Inari Saami will be studied. For investigating the prosodic language change and its impact on morphology, the pronunciation of younger and older generations of speakers will be compared.
Principal investigator: Helen Wilbur
The project is funded by the Institute of the Estonian Language.
This project will transform research on contemporary Estonian language usage. The project unites two research groups responsible for compiling and analysing corpora of spoken and instant-messaging (IM) language: (1) spoken conversations and (2) IM conversations from speakers of various ages, and (3) spoken and (4) IM conversations among teenagers. The united research team will make the corpora more uniform, to enable comparison, and publish them (with monitored access), to enable broader accessibility and an Open Science approach. The collaboration will also initiate a broader-scale investigation of differences between the registers and between age groups (charting change through both actual and apparent time methods). The complementary competence of the research groups enables a mixed-methods approach to the rich data, including qualitative (conversation analysis, corpus pragmatics) and quantitative (corpus-based variation and variationist sociolinguistics) methods.
Principal investigator: Virve-Anneli Vihman
The project is funded by the Ministry of Education and Research.
MEDAL is a consortium project aimed at reducing the recognised gap in access to expertise, training and research funding in Linguistics across Europe through a horizontal, network approach to engaging a new generation of researchers in empirically grounded, up-to-the-minute methodology. The consortium is comprised of four highly acclaimed research institutes:
1. the Institute of Estonian and General Linguistics at the University of Tartu (project coordinator)
2. the Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics in Nijmegen, the Netherlands
3. the Center For Language Studies and the Donders Institute at Radboud University in Nijmegen, the Netherlands
4. the Department of Modern Languages and the Department of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Birmingham in the United Kingdom.
Together, these partners will jointly lead a concerted move to increase the global competitiveness of Linguistics in Europe by coordinating events and research aimed at bringing together world-class pioneers and early-career researchers, at developing excellence in methodological training, and at formulating a model of international collaboration on cross-linguistic, cross-modal, cross-disciplinary research. Ultimately, the MEDAL consortium will develop internal expertise, establish a sustainable joint training and research program and be poised for continued collaboration, and the University of Tartu will be an internationally recognized Linguistics research excellence hub for Northern Europe.
Project coordinators in Tartu: Virve Vihman, Joshua Wilbur and Liina Lindström.
The project is funded by the European Commission's Horizon Europe Twinning Program (for the three EU partners).
The project investigates morphosyntactic variation in contemporary Estonian, its dialectal background, and the impact of language planning on this variation. The project is primarily based on data obtained from several different Estonian language corpora, which are used to model the linguistic choices of speakers, depending on linguistic, social, and cognitive factors. In addition, the project explores the attitudes of language users towards variation, and examines the effects of variation and language planning on language production, processing and comprehension in order to find out whether and what kind of linguistic variation causes problems for the speakers. The project results in an extensive overview of language variation in contemporary Estonian, providing input for both language planning and language learning, and increasing general awareness in society regarding the diversity of the Estonian language.
Principal investigator: Liina Lindström
The project is funded by the Ministry of Education and Research.
This longitudinal, ethnographic research is situated in Narva, one of the last locations in the state gymnasia network plan and Estonia’s significant border city with Russia. Narva is a complex double language-minority context -- where Russian-speakers are dominant, and Estonian, the sole official state language, is used by a small percentage of the population. In Russian-speaking Narva, many children find challenges to learn Estonian. To serve this linguistically mixed community, two, new state upper secondary schools will be operating by 2023. In this research project, we compare, in these parallel educational settings, how the promise of quality education is imagined and implemented, and how state and local government officials, school leaders, teachers and students interpret it. These parallel Narva schools constitute a natural experiment that offers a unique opportunity to explore concepts of quality and belonging through the experiences of the first graduating class.
Principal investigator: Kadri Koreinik
The project is funded by the Estonian Research Council.
I am investigating the language attitudes of Russian-dominant parents in the transition process to Estonian-language education in Tartu, Ida-Virumaa and Tallinn. Riigikogu have adopted amendments to the Elementary School and Gymnasium Act, which oblige all state and municipal schools to gradually switch to teaching in the Estonian language. The action plan also includes information work aimed at parents in the transition process. Studies of the attitudes of Russian-dominant parents show that only 17% of residents of another nationality support their child's education in a school with only Estonian as the language of instruction (Integration monitoring 2020: 19-21). Parents' positive attitude towards language also creates a supportive environment that promotes the acquisition of a language, including a second language (Park 2013: 39).
The research questions are as follows: 1. What positive aspects do the parents of Russian-dominant children in primary schools in Ida-Virumaa point out in the transition to Estonian-language education? 2. What kind of problems/fears do parents raise when transitioning to learning in Estonian? 3. What solutions/suggestions do the parents make to mitigate these fears and solve the problems?
The proposed study continues the ongoing study of Russian-dominant parents of educational institutions in Tartu by the applicant's working group. I would like to use the involvement of parents (inclusive language policy) in the search for suitable solutions to the problems highlighted in the transition process, in order to mitigate fears of learning in another language, to increase language awareness and thus create a supportive and positive background for the transition to learning in Estonian.
A qualitative research method is used to conduct the study (Strömpl 2022). The main focus of the discussions is on the issues of language acquisition and language learning in the context of both preschool and elementary school: parents' awareness of the transition, their readiness, expectations, fears, proposed solutions. One of the goals of meetings and discussion evenings with children's parents is to raise parents' awareness and involve them in the process of transition to learning in the Estonian language.
With the research, I would like to test the possibilities of an inclusive language policy and contribute to the formation of a supportive background for the transition process among parents of children with a dominant Russian language.
Principal investigator: Birute Klaas-Lang
The project is funded by the Estonian Academy of Sciences.
The project focuses on a small variety of Estonian Swedish called Runska (runska or runömål in Swedish) that until World War II was spoken on the Estonian island Ruhnu in the Gulf of Riga. As the population of the island fled to Sweden during the war, and the dialect was not passed on to younger generations, it is today critically endangered surviving only as a language of a handful of elderly speakers. The dialect has not been studied in depth, and although there exist various older materials, these are scattered in archives and in private collections.
The aims of the project are two-fold. Firstly, we aim to document and systematise all linguistic materials, including dialect texts, recordings, word lists, etc., and to record the last few speakers of the dialect. The goal is to create an open research-oriented database with information about the content and location of the materials. Secondly, we aim to promote general knowledge about Runska on the Estonian-speaking Ruhnu Island where there is great interest in the cultural and linguistic heritage of the island. To this aim we plan to compile educational materials for use in the local school and different information materials for the locals and visitors of the island.
The project brings together academic institutions and local citizens' organisations from Estonia, Sweden and Latvia, thereby forming a joint effort of linguists, the local community and heritage speakers to document and promote knowledge about this critically endangered variety of Swedish.
Principal investigator: Eva Liina Asu-Garcia
The project is funded by the Nordic Council of Ministers.
The semantic database contains a total of 36,125 Estonian words. You can use the database in two ways: use the database in a web browser or download the entire file.
In 2021, the project was supported by the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research, and in 2022, the project received funding from the Kadri, Nikolai and Gerda Rõuk Research Fund.
We collect etymological references for all words of the Uralic languages from Uralistic journals published in Estonia after 2000. The references will be merged into a new etymological reference database of Uralic languages, Urevi, which is publicly and freely available. The reference database creates prerequisites for the study of the vocabulary of all Uralic languages, especially minority languages, and the preparation of etymological dictionaries. Based on the collected data, we analyze the development and current situation of the etymological study of the Uralic languages in an article written for the journal Linguistica Uralica.
Principal investigator: Gerson Klumpp
The project is funded by the Institute of the Estonian Language.
The project investigates ‘speed effects’ in language and cognition. It embarks on embodiment approaches to language, and is grounded in previous research of motion in usage-based linguistics, psycholinguistics, and cognitive psychology. More specifically, the project concentrates on the expression of speed in Estonian by examining expressions of fast motion ('ta jooksis ruttu koju' ‘(s)he ran home fast’) and those of slow motion (e.g. 'ta lonkis aeglaselt tänavail' ‘(s)he was wandering in the streets slowly’), and the impact of speed-informed language on behaviour. The research questions are as follows: (i) what is the semantic and grammatical structure of motion clauses with regard to speed information? and (ii) can linguistic patterns found by means of corpus analyses be used as indicators of the embodied nature of language? Corpus and experimental methods are applied to answer these questions.
Principal investigator: Piia Taremaa
The project is funded by the Estonian Research Council.
Teenagers are innovative language users and often themselves sources of broader language change, but their role in language change is not yet fully clear. Therefore, it is important to pay attention to the language use of teenagers for the purposes of describing their language and culture, studying language innovations, and monitoring longer-term linguistic and social processes. The main goal of the project is to compile the first comprehensive corpus of spoken and online language of teenagers in Estonia, in order to thereby boost the research on teenage language use in Estonia. The project will study teenagers' language use and code-switching, the variation in language use by age, gender, and region, and compare online language with spoken language.
The project “Teenagers' Language in Estonia” (November 2019 – 2022) is funded by the Ministry of Education and Research's research and development program “Estonian Language and Culture in the Digital Age 2019–2027”.
Journal of Estonian and Finno-Ugric Linguistics (JEFUL)
The Journal of Estonian and Finno-Ugric Linguistics (JEFUL) publishes original research papers on the linguistics of Finno-Ugric languages (the paper can be submitted either in Estonian or in English). We kindly ask you to submit your paper on the journal’s website from where you can also find relevant information about paper submission, formatting and such. The journal appears twice a year: a special issue in June and general issue in December. The editors of the journal are Pärtel Lippus and Helen Plado.
Twitter: @esukaJeful
email: [email protected]
