Estonian alphabet

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The Estonian alphabet ( Estonian eesti tähestik ) is based on the Latin alphabet . It is based on the principle of phonetic orthography .

Letters

The basic Estonian alphabet contains 27 letters . They are in the official order

Aa , Bb , Dd , Ee , Ff , Gg , Hh , Ii , Jj , Kk , Ll , Mm , Nn , Oo , Pp , Rr , Ss , Šš , Zz , Žž , Tt , Uu , Vv , Õõ , Ää , Öö , Üü

particularities

The two letters with Hatschek - Šš and Žž - can be replaced by sh and zh .

The four letters Ff , Šš , Zz and Žž occur only in foreign words and proper names .

Foreign letters

The five letters

Cc , Qq , Ww , Xx and Yy

are also allowed in the Estonian alphabet. However, they can only be found in non-Estonian proper names or foreign-language place names. With them, the Estonian alphabet has 32 characters that are arranged in order

Aa , Bb , Cc , Dd , Ee , Ff , Gg , Hh , Ii , Jj , Kk , Ll , Mm , Nn , Oo , Pp , Qq , Rr , Ss , Šš , Zz , Žž , Tt , Uu , Vv , Ww , Õõ , Ää , Öö , Üü , Xx , Yy . As in Swedish and Finnish, v and w can be sorted identically in the alphabet.

According to a controversial representation, this group also includes the letters Čč (after c ) and Åå (after õ ).

Phonetic designation of the letters

A. [ɑː] B. [b̥eː] C. [tseː] D. [d̥eː] E. [eː] F. [ef]
G [ɡ̊eː] H [hɑː] or [hɑʃ] I. [iː] J [jotʲː] K [kɑː] L. [el]
M. [em] N [en] O [O] P [peː] Q [kuː] R. [he] or [ær]
S. [it] Š [ʃɑː] Z [zeː] , [seː] or [tsett] Ž [ʒeː] or [ʃeː] T [teː] U [uː]
V [veː] W. [kɑksisveː] O [ɤː] Ä [æː] Ö [O] Ü [yː]
X [iks] Y [iɡrek] or [ypsilon]

development

The development of the Estonian alphabet was heavily influenced by the German . The upper class of Estonia was German-speaking until the end of the 19th century.

In 1637 the Baltic German pastor Heinrich Stahl published his citation to the Esthnian language , which was to lay the foundation for the development of Estonian grammar and spelling. The older spelling of Estonian based on High German was particularly influenced by Bengt Gottfried Forselius and Johann Hornung at the end of the 17th century.

German-speaking clergymen and linguists in particular contributed to the development of the Estonian written language during the 19th century. This is why the letters ä for the phoneme [æ], ö for [ø] and ü for [y] can be found in Estonian . Unlike in German, however, they are not umlauts , but separate letters.

The letter õ for the vowel sound [ɤ] goes back to the pastor and linguist Otto Wilhelm Masing (1763–1832) .

Until the 1930s, v was always written as w . Then the official spelling was based on the Finnish spelling and replaced w with v .

The Estonian linguist Johannes Aavik (1880–1973) was unable to assert himself at the beginning of the 20th century with his further demand to replace ü by y (analogous to Finnish ). In the SMS language today, however, ü is often written y .

Fraktur was used in printed script in Estonia until 1940 , followed by Antiqua .

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