Estonian Sign Language () 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 elements, no ...

Estonia Estonia, officially the Republic of Estonia, is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland across from Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea across from Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Ru ...

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 University ...

(2005) concluded that, based on the historical influence of the German and Russian communist oral methods of deaf education, the fact that the first deaf school in Estonia was established in 1866 in

Vändra Vändra () is a borough () in Põhja-Pärnumaa Parish in Pärnu County, Estonia. It has a population of 2,191 (in 2016) and an area of 3.28 km² (1.27 sq mi). Sights On Old Church Hill there is an underground cemetery called Kabelias, wh ...

in the

Governorate of Livonia The Governorate of Livonia, also known as the Livonia Governorate, was a province (''guberniya'') and one of the Baltic governorates of the Russian Empire, Baltic Governorate-General until 1876. Governorate of Livonia bordered Governorate of E ...

of the

Russian Empire The Russian Empire was an empire that spanned most of northern Eurasia from its establishment in November 1721 until the proclamation of the Russian Republic in September 1917. At its height in the late 19th century, it covered about , roughl ...

and the evident influence of

Russian Sign Language Russian Sign Language (RSL) is the sign language used by the Deaf community in Russia, with what is possibly additional presence in Belarus and Tajikistan. It belongs to the French Sign Language family. RSL is a natural language with a grammar ...

(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 ) 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 Language (VLSF), which developed among ...

. Taniroo (2007) found that 61% of Estonian and Russian signs of the 200-word

Swadesh list A Swadesh list () is a compilation of cultural universal, tentatively universal concepts for the purposes of lexicostatistics. That is, a Swadesh list is a list of forms and concepts which all languages, without exception, have terms for, such as ...

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 Finnic languages, Finnic language of the Uralic languages, Uralic language family, spoken by the majority of the population in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside of Finland. Finnish is one of the two official langu ...

s are closely related

Finno-Ugric languages Finno-Ugric () is a traditional linguistic grouping of all languages in the Uralic language family except for the Samoyedic languages. Its once commonly accepted status as a subfamily of Uralic is based on criteria formulated in the 19th centur ...

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, no ...

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, Cape Verdian Sign Language, Finnish Sign Language and Eritrean Sign Language, Eritrean Sign (although going throug ...

. Mahoney (2017) conducted the first-known 100-word Swadesh–Woodward list comparison of EVK and

Latvian Sign Language Latvian Sign Language () 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, which came into force on 1 Sep ...

, 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

; 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 letter (alphabet), 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 ...

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; ; ) is a Public university, public research university located in the city of Tartu, Estonia. It is the national university of Estonia. It is also the largest and oldest university in the country.Tallinn Tallinn is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Estonia, most populous city of Estonia. Situated on a Tallinn Bay, bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, it has a population of (as of 2025) and ...

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 of ...

among deaf ethnic Estonians; deaf Russians in Tallinn use

, 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

History and character

Current status

References

External links

Further reading