Language Authority (Estonia)

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The Language Inspectorate ( Estonian Keeleinspektsioon ) is an authority subordinate to the Estonian Ministry of Education and Science, based in Tallinn .

Foundation and name

The history of the authority goes back to 1990, when Estonia was still occupied by the Soviet Union , but had already taken significant steps towards regaining independence during the Singing Revolution . The Language Office (Estonian Keeleamet ) was founded on November 23, 1990 , after an Estonian Language Law had been passed in January 1989 just two years earlier. This language law of the Estonian Soviet Socialist Republic , as it was called correctly in the linguistic usage at the time, established Estonian as the state language. The law went well beyond regaining independence and was only replaced by a new language law in 1995.

From 1993 there were various renaming and restructuring, the current name Keeleinspektsioon has been the institution since January 1, 1998. The director of the authority has been Ilmar Tomusk since 1995 .

Goals and responsibilities

The main task of the authority is to monitor compliance with the Estonian language law. The aim is "to ensure that everyone everywhere in Estonia can deal with their affairs in Estonian and that Estonian-language information and services are guaranteed for everyone." These include, for example, the use of Estonian in various areas of public life and the language skills of public service employees and supervises the implementation of language tests.

In 2019, 11 of the 16 employees were directly entrusted with monitoring the language law. To this end, 2712 controls were carried out, 1652 of which were repeat controls. A fine was imposed in 395 cases.

Web links

(Estonian) Homepage of the authority.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ ENSV Teataja 4-1989, p. 60, also published separately: Eesti NSV Keeleseadus. Tallinn 1989. German text (after the Russian translation!) By Carmen Schmidt: The protection of minorities in the Baltic states. Bonn 1993, pp. 37-44.
  2. ↑ Cornelius Hasselblatt : On the new Estonian language law, in: WGO, Monthly Issues for Eastern European Law 37 (1995), pp. 243-252.
  3. ↑ Translated from the authority's homepage, see (Estonian) https://www.keeleinspektsioon.ee/et .
  4. ↑ From the activity report for 2019, s. (Estonian) https://www.keeleinspektsioon.ee/sites/default/files/keeleinspektsiooni_2019._aasta_tegevuse_aruanne.pdf .