Estonian dialects Finnic languages The northeastern coastal dialect () is a Finnic

dialect A dialect is a Variety (linguistics), variety of language spoken by a particular group of people. This may include dominant and standard language, standardized varieties as well as Vernacular language, vernacular, unwritten, or non-standardize ...

(or dialect group) traditionally considered part of the

Estonian language Estonian ( ) is a Finnic language and the official language of Estonia. It is written in the Latin script and is the first language of the majority of the country's population; it is also an official language of the European Union. Estonian is sp ...

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

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 ...

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 and South Estonian).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 a phonological rule in which the vowels of a given domain – typically a phonological word – must share certain distinctive features (thus "in harmony"). Vowel harmony is typically long distance, meaning tha ...

(''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 ca ...

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

plosives 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 ...

are unvoiced unlike in other dialects of Estonian (''mägi'', cf. Finnish ''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 or persons, depending on context) is a being who 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 suc ...

and

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

: ''en'', ''et'', ''ei'', ''emma'', ''etta'', ''evad''. Cf. Standard Estonian 'ei' for all persons sg/pl, versus Finnish ''en'', ''et'', ''ei'', ''emme'', ''ette'', ''eivät''. * The

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

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 p ...

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 (; abbr. ) 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 a verb and used as an adject ...

, as in Finnish: (''juobune piaga'', cf. Standard Estonian ''joobnud peaga'', literally 'with drunk head'; '' aabsurne sõnumi'', Standard Estonian '' aabsurnu sõnumi'' ' etsthe dead man's message'). According to some authors, the "Finnish-like" features of the coastal Estonian dialects are archaisms (

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

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 group.

Notes, citations and references

Cited sources

* * * *

External links

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