Järgsilpide o ja u varieerumine ning traditsioonid vanas kirjakeeles
Variation of o and u in Non-Initial Syllables and the Traditions of Old Literary Estonian

Summary/Abstract: Old texts certainly belong to the sources of language history. But most of the old Estonian texts have been written by Germans who either did not grasp all the vernacular nuances or consciously ignored them for the sake of tradition. Georg Müller has been considered an Estonian by some scholars. As for the number of Germanisms the Estonian of Müller’s sermons (1600–1606) is hardly better than that of the other authors, but unlike the rest Müller always picks the right infinitive for his modal constructions and he also has a sense for quality alternation. His preference for German forms in the loanwords as well as for several constructions typical for German indicates that in his opinion ecclesiastical Estonian was better off following a German example. In forms and constructions without an unambiguous German equivalent, however, Müller has tried using an Estonian one. Therefore Georg Müller’s texts may reveal the actual situation of o and u in early 17th-century North Estonian. Old grammars usually claim that o belongs to open final syllables, while the other non-initial syllables have u. Müller’s sermons, however, reveal that the o > u variation could have depended on the length of the first syllable. Notably, Müller’s word-final u is more frequent in words with a long first syllable, whereas his word-final o tends to signal a short first syllable.

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