Words, Forms, and Phrases in Estonian Folksongs and Hymns
Words, Forms, and Phrases in Estonian Folksongs and Hymns

Summary/Abstract: In the eighteenth century, songs of two essentially different types of culture were present in the repertory of the Estonian-speaking community: folksongs and hymns. The old tradition of folksongs (regilaul or runosong) representing the indigenous oral culture was still alive. At the same time, since the sixteenth century, more and more elements of European (Christian) written culture had penetrated into the mental world of Estonians. The structures of literary language (and thinking based on written texts in a broader sense) were transferred into Estonian mainly by means of translations of ecclesiastical literature. For certain socio-historical reasons, influences of literacy may have mainly reached Estonians through the translations of Lutheran hymns, which became especially popular in the eighteenth century. This was the century in which structures of indigenous oral culture and those of European written culture probably still functioned in the mental world of Estonians separately from each other. Only in the nineteenth century the two sets fused into literary Estonian, and the modern Estonian culture was born. In order to understand the mechanics of the genesis of modern Estonian, the present article juxtaposes the sublanguages representing the situation in the eighteenth century (prior to the fusion). The text-corpora of folksongs and Lutheran hymn translations are analysed on lexical, morphological, and morphosyntactical levels.

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