Estonian Sign Language
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Estonian Sign Language ( et, eesti viipekeel, EVK) is the national
sign language Sign languages (also known as signed languages) are languages that use the visual-manual modality to convey meaning, instead of spoken words. Sign languages are expressed through manual articulation in combination with non-manual markers. Sign l ...
of
Estonia Estonia, formally the Republic of Estonia, is a country by the Baltic Sea in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, a ...
.


History and character

Research into the origins and nature of EVK did not begin until the late 1980s, so many details remain unknown.
Ulrike Zeshan Ulrike Zeshan is a German-born linguist and academic specializing in the linguistics of signed languages. She is Professor of Sign Language Linguistics at the University of Central Lancashire, UK. Biography Zeshan obtained an MA at the Universi ...
(2005) concluded that, based on the historical influence of the German and Russian oral methods of deaf education, the fact that the first deaf school in Estonia was established in 1866 in
Vändra Vändra (german: Fennern) is a borough ( et, alev) in Põhja-Pärnumaa Parish in Pärnu County, Estonia. It has a population of 2,191 and an area of 3.28 km². Vändra is the birthplace of Estonian journalist and poet Johann Voldemar Janns ...
in the
Governorate of Livonia The Governorate of Livonia, also known as the Livonia Governorate, was a Baltic governorate of the Russian Empire, now divided between Latvia and Estonia. Geography The shape of the province is a fairly rectangular in shape, with a maximum ...
of the
Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire and the final period of the Russian monarchy from 1721 to 1917, ruling across large parts of Eurasia. It succeeded the Tsardom of Russia following the Treaty of Nystad, which ended the Great Northern War. ...
and the evident influence of
Russian Sign Language Russian Sign Language (RSL) is the sign language used by the Deaf community in Russia and possibly Ukraine, Belarus and Tajikistan. It belongs to the French Sign Language family. RSL is a natural language with a grammar that differs from spoke ...
(RSL) present in EVK, it most likely either derived from or was strongly influenced by RSL, thus making Estonian Sign Language a member of the
French Sign Language family The French Sign Language (LSF, from ''langue des signes française'') or Francosign family is a language family of sign languages which includes French Sign Language and American Sign Language. The LSF family descends from Old French Sign Langua ...
. Taniroo (2007) found that 61% of Estonian and Russian signs of the 200-word
Swadesh list The Swadesh list ("Swadesh" is pronounced ) is a classic compilation of tentatively universal concepts for the purposes of lexicostatistics. Translations of the Swadesh list into a set of languages allow researchers to quantify the interrelatedness ...
were identical, confirming the hypothesis that EVK is either related to or has been significantly influenced by RSL through language contact. However, as of 2016 there were 'no studies comparing EVK vocabulary with any other sign languages than Russian SL.' Although the spoken and written
Estonian Estonian may refer to: * Something of, from, or related to Estonia, a country in the Baltic region in northern Europe * Estonians, people from Estonia, or of Estonian descent * Estonian language * Estonian cuisine * Estonian culture See also

...
and
Finnish language Finnish ( endonym: or ) is a Uralic language of the Finnic branch, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official languages of Finland (the other being Swedish ...
s are closely related
Finno-Ugric languages Finno-Ugric ( or ; ''Fenno-Ugric'') or Finno-Ugrian (''Fenno-Ugrian''), is a traditional grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except the Samoyedic languages. Its formerly commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is ba ...
and there are some notable and probable
Finnish Sign Language Finnish Sign Language () is the sign language most commonly used in Finland. There are 3,000 ''(2012 estimate)'' Finnish deaf who have Finnish Sign Language as a first language. As the Finnish system records users by their written language, not ...
influences on EVK, there seems to have been 'no considerable historical language contact between EVK and Finnish Sign Language' (Hollman 2016). In the unlikely event that EVK originally derived from Finnish Sign Language, it would belong to the
Swedish Sign Language family The Swedish Sign Language family is a language family of sign languages, including Swedish Sign Language, Portuguese Sign Language, and Finnish Sign Language. Swedish SL started about 1800. Wittmann (1991) proposes that it descends from British ...
. Mahoney (2017) conducted the first-known 100-word Swadesh–Woodward list comparison of EVK and
Latvian Sign Language Latvian Sign Language ( lv, latviešu zīmju valoda) is a sign language commonly used by deaf people in Latvia. Linguists use LSL as an acronym for Latvian Sign Language. Policy and education The Official Language Law of 9 December 1999, wh ...
, concluding that a possible relationship between them – as descending from VLFS, perhaps via ÖGS and/or RSL, as Wittmann (1991) and Bickford (2005) proposed – was 'still uncertain as it is unclear how sign languages disseminated in Eastern European countries during the Soviet Union, but aside from superficial impressions that the core lexicons are similar, signs with shared parameters displaying small variation in handshape while retaining 4 selected fingers suggests that these languages share a parent'. She added that ' present there is no reason to assume that Estonian and Latvian sign language have a mother-daughter relationship'. In its formative stages, Estonian Sign Language was influenced by Russian and
Finnish Sign Language Finnish Sign Language () is the sign language most commonly used in Finland. There are 3,000 ''(2012 estimate)'' Finnish deaf who have Finnish Sign Language as a first language. As the Finnish system records users by their written language, not ...
; for example, the EVK sign for 'butterfly' developed from the Finnish sign for 'bird'. There are several dialects, the most archaic of which is the Pärnu variety. Like other sign languages, EVK is influenced by the local oral language. For instance, some signs are based on
fingerspelling Fingerspelling (or dactylology) is the representation of the letters of a writing system, and sometimes numeral systems, using only the hands. These manual alphabets (also known as finger alphabets or hand alphabets) have often been used in deaf e ...
the first letter of an Estonian word, as in the sign for ''restoran'', meaning 'restaurant'.


Current status

Instruction for parents of deaf children is available in Tallinn. Teaching and research began in 1990 at
Tartu University The University of Tartu (UT; et, Tartu Ülikool; la, Universitas Tartuensis) is a university in the city of Tartu in Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia. It is the only classical university in the country, and also its biggest ...
. In 1998 there were about 4,500 signers out of a deaf population of 2000 and a hearing-impaired population ten times that number. It is widespread in the cities of
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 ' ...
and
Pärnu Pärnu () is the fourth largest city in Estonia. Situated in southwest Estonia, Pärnu is located south of the Estonian capital, Tallinn, and west of Estonia's second largest city, Tartu. The city sits off the coast of Pärnu Bay, an inlet o ...
among deaf ethnic Estonians; deaf Russians in Tallinn use
Russian Sign Language Russian Sign Language (RSL) is the sign language used by the Deaf community in Russia and possibly Ukraine, Belarus and Tajikistan. It belongs to the French Sign Language family. RSL is a natural language with a grammar that differs from spoke ...
, Russians outside Tallinn tend to use a Russian–Estonian Sign Language pidgin, or may be bilingual. Estonian Sign Language was recognised as an independent language in 2007 under the Language Act.


References


External links


SPREADTHESIGN - Estonian Sign Language alphabet photo glossarySPREADTHESIGN - Estonian Sign Language online video dictionary Dictionary at the Institute of the Estonian Language


Further reading

*Hollman, Liivi, and Urmas Sutrop. "Basic Color Terms in Estonian Sign Language." ''Sign Language Studies'' 11.2 (2010): 130–157. {{sign language navigation Sign languages French Sign Language family Languages of Estonia