Emkeele Seltsi üliõpilasliikmed eestlust sõnastamas 1920-ndate alguses
The contribution of the student members of the Mother Tongue Society to the Estonian national discourse in the early 1920s

Summary/Abstract: The Mother Tongue Society, founded at the university of Tartu in 1920, became a leading institution for the development of Estonian as the national language. Besides its scientific and language planning activities the society initiated various campaigns to promote the Estonian language. The humanities students August Annist, Oskar Loorits, Julius Mägiste, Paulopriit Voolaine etc., who belonged to the most active members of the society, soon became designers of a terminological system for the discourse of Estonian national ideology. The article discusses their contribution to Estonian nationalism and its terminological aspect. More specifically, it is analysed how the term eestlus ‘Estonian nationalism’ was introduced in the 1920s, what were the relations between Estonian and Livonian nationalisms, how Setos came to be included in the Estonian nation-family, and how Livonian and Seto literatures were relevantly developed. Another focus is the campaign of the Estonisation of personal names, initiated by the Mother Tongue Society, and the personal contributions of its student members to the endeavour. The conclusion states that the linguo-centricity of the Estonian identity already found its time-specific manifestation in the 1920s. In the process of cultivating the Estonian language, the student members of the Mother Tongue Society managed to create an Estonian-specific system of concepts which has been used ever since to express the self-perception and national aspirations of Estonians.

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