Estonian haiku () is a short poem in Estonian that has adopted the form and style of the original Japanese

haiku is a type of short form poetry that originated in Japan. Traditional Japanese haiku consist of three phrases composed of 17 Mora (linguistics), morae (called ''On (Japanese prosody), on'' in Japanese) in a 5, 7, 5 pattern; that include a ''kire ...

. Estonian haiku was first introduced in 2009. The so-called "Estonian haiku" is shorter than the Japanese one; the

syllable A syllable is a basic unit of organization within a sequence of speech sounds, such as within a word, typically defined by linguists as a ''nucleus'' (most often a vowel) with optional sounds before or after that nucleus (''margins'', which are ...

count in Japanese haiku is 5+7+5, while Estonian haiku also goes in three lines but only comprises 4+6+4 syllables. Estonian authors claim that this is a distinctively Estonian form.

History

Traditional

have been developed in Estonia since 1960s. Andres Ehin (1940–2011) was the most prominent Estonian-language haiku writer of the 20th century; his bilingual English-Estonian collection ''Moose Beetle Swallow'' was published in Ireland in 2005. Estonian poets Arvo Mets and Felix Tammi wrote haiku in Russian.Shamrock Haiku Journal No 3, 2007
/ref> Asko Künnap is credited as the inventor of Estonian haiku. The first collection of Estonian haiku was published in 2010: ''Estonian Haiku'' by poets Asko Künnap, Jürgen Rooste, and Karl Martin Sinijärv. An Estonian-language haiku competition was organized at the 2011 Helsinki Book Fair where Estonia was the guest of honor. A selection of Estonian haiku has been published by the Estonian Writers' Union's magazine '' Looming'' ("Creation"). Estonian haiku have been actively translated into Finnish.

References

{{Reflist Haikai forms Estonian poetry