The northeastern coastal dialect (Estonian: ''kirderannikumurre'') is a Finnic

dialect The term dialect (from Latin , , from the Ancient Greek word , 'discourse', from , 'through' and , 'I speak') can refer to either of two distinctly different types of linguistic phenomena: One usage refers to a variety of a language that is ...

(or dialect group) traditionally considered part of the

Estonian language Estonian ( ) is a Finnic language, written in the Latin script. It is the official language of Estonia and one of the official languages of the European Union, spoken natively by about 1.1 million people; 922,000 people in Estonia and 160, ...

. The Estonian coastal dialects were spoken on the coastal strip of Estonia from

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju '' ...

to river Narva. It has very few speakers left nowadays. Treating the northeastern coastal dialect as a single unit dates back to Arnold Kask's classification of Estonian dialects from the year 1956. According to some authors, the coastal dialects form one of the three major dialect groups of Estonian (the other two being

North Estonian Estonian ( ) is a Finnic language, written in the Latin script. It is the official language of Estonia and one of the official languages of the European Union, spoken natively by about 1.1 million people; 922,000 people in Estonia and 160, ...

and

South Estonian South Estonian, spoken in south-eastern Estonia, encompasses the Tartu, Mulgi, Võro and Seto varieties. There is no academic consensus on its status, as some linguists consider South Estonian a dialect group of Estonian whereas other linguist ...

).Such a division is used in ''Eesti nõukogude entsüklopeedia'', 2. kd, as well as by Mari Mustbr>On Eastern Viru languages
. Other sources may group the coastal dialects as subdivision of Northern Estonian dialects or just as one of the dialect groups of the Estonian language, without a binary division into Northern and Southern Estonian

Features

The characteristics of the dialect group are mostly shared with the Northern Finnic languages. * There are remnants of

vowel harmony In phonology, vowel harmony is an assimilatory process in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – have to be members of the same natural class (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, me ...

(''räbälä'' 'rag' (

genitive case In grammar, the genitive case ( abbreviated ) is the grammatical case that marks a word, usually a noun, as modifying another word, also usually a noun—thus indicating an attributive relationship of one noun to the other noun. A genitive can a ...

), cf. Standard Estonian ''räbala'') * There is no palatalization * Short

plosive In phonetics, a plosive, also known as an occlusive or simply a stop, is a pulmonic consonant in which the vocal tract is blocked so that all airflow ceases. The occlusion may be made with the tongue tip or blade (, ), tongue body (, ), lip ...

s are unvoiced unlike in other dialects of Estonian (''mägi'', cf.

Finnish Finnish may refer to: * Something or someone from, or related to Finland * Culture of Finland * Finnish people or Finns, the primary ethnic group in Finland * Finnish language, the national language of the Finnish people * Finnish cuisine See also ...

''mäki'') * Recent quantitative changes in consonant gradation are absent (''silm'' : ''silmad'' , cf. Standard Estonian : , 'eye' : 'eyes') * The negative verb inflects for

person A person ( : people) is a being that has certain capacities or attributes such as reason, morality, consciousness or self-consciousness, and being a part of a culturally established form of social relations such as kinship, ownership of prope ...

and

number A number is a mathematical object used to count, measure, and label. The original examples are the natural numbers 1, 2, 3, 4, and so forth. Numbers can be represented in language with number words. More universally, individual number ...

: ''en'', ''et'', ''ei'', ''emma'', ''etta'', ''evad''. Cf. Standard Estonian 'ei' for all persons sg/pl, versus

''en'', ''et'', ''ei'', ''emme'', ''ette'', ''eivät''. * The

plural The plural (sometimes list of glossing abbreviations, abbreviated pl., pl, or ), in many languages, is one of the values of the grammatical number, grammatical category of number. The plural of a noun typically denotes a quantity greater than the ...

is marked with ''-i-'', in contrast to ''-de-'' being usual in North Estonian dialects: ''puhti käsiga'', cf. Standard Estonian ''puhaste kätega'', 'with clean hands' * The

preterite The preterite or preterit (; abbreviated or ) is a grammatical tense or verb form serving to denote events that took place or were completed in the past; in some languages, such as Spanish, French, and English, it is equivalent to the simple ...

is marked with ''-i-'' as well, in contrast to ''-si-'' being usual in North Estonian. * Unlike all other Estonian dialects, the coastal dialects have an inflected ''-nud''

participle In linguistics, a participle () (from Latin ' a "sharing, partaking") is a nonfinite verb form that has some of the characteristics and functions of both verbs and adjectives. More narrowly, ''participle'' has been defined as "a word derived from ...

, as in

: (''juobune piaga'', cf. Standard Estonian ''joobnud peaga'', literally 'with drunk head', '' aabsurne sõnumi'', Standard Estonian '' aabsurnu sõnumi'' '

ets ETS or ets may refer to: Climate change, environment and economy * Emissions trading scheme ** European Union Emission Trading Scheme Organisations * European Thermoelectric Society * Evangelical Theological Society Education * École de techn ...

the dead man's message'). According to some authors, the "Finnish-like" features of the coastal Estonian dialects are

archaisms In language, an archaism (from the grc, ἀρχαϊκός, ''archaïkós'', 'old-fashioned, antiquated', ultimately , ''archaîos'', 'from the beginning, ancient') is a word, a sense of a word, or a style of speech or writing that belongs to a hi ...

(

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization in ...

traits), rather than Finnish or Ingrian influence. The northeastern coastal dialect of Estonian is nowadays alternatively split into two dialects, the coastal dialect and the Alutaguse dialect, the former being more closely related to southern Finnish dialects (the sound ''õ'' �is absent like in Finnish), the Ingrian (Izhorian) and Votic languages, whereas the latter has also been influenced by the central dialect of the Northern Estonian dialects.

Notes, citations and references

Cited sources

* * Must, Mari. 1987. ''Kirderannikumurre: häälikuline ja grammatiline ülevaade'' 406 pages Tallinn: "Valgus" * Soderman, Tiina. 1996. ''Lexical characteristics of the Estonian North Eastern coastal dialect.'' Uppsala : Uppsala Univ. — 184 p. *

External links

* http://www.galerii.ee/panoraam/eesti/teemad/idaviru_keeled/index.html {{Uralic languages Estonian dialects Estonian language