Taarapita - saarlaste suur jumal

Taarapita is a god known to us already from the 13th century Estonian chronicles. In different versions of the chronicle, the name is written differently: Tharapita, Tarapitha, Tharaphitam, etc. - leading to the conclusion that the name Taarapita is the most suitable for use in Estonian. The name has been interpreted as a shout "Taara, help!", or "Taara's flash". Today, Taarapita is often either misinterpreted (e.g. `owl god') or considered a minor god in the Slavic pantheon. Linguistically, it can be proved that Taarapita is not a Slavic loan. For a fact, in the 12th century on Rügen Island there was a monument erected for the great god of the inhabitants of Saaremaa. The ancient Scandinavian god name þórr has a clear consonant at the end, making it rather identical with the German thunder god Donar and thus also clearly not a loan from Baltic-Finnic languages. However, the Turupið in Knytlingasaga is definitely the Estonian Taarapita. Analysing the two parts of the name - taara and pita - while also considering kindred languages results in the interpretation of the name Taarapita as "Taara (is) great " or Taara-great. Taara itself, however, could be a loan from the name of the Scandinavian thunder god þórr

Livonian landscapes in the historical geography of Livonia and the division of Livonian tribes

There is no exact consensus on the division and sub-division of the former Livonian territories at the end of the ancient independence period in the 12th century. Even the question of the Coastal Livonians in Courland – were they an indigenous Livonian tribe or a replaced eastern Livonian tribe – remains unsolved. In this paper the anonymously published treatise on the historical geography of Livonia by Johann Christoph Schwartz (1792) will be analysed and compared with the historical modern views. There is an agreement on the division of the Eastern Livonian territories into four counties: Daugava, Gauja, Metsepole, and Idumea. Idumea had a mixed Livonian-Baltic population. There is no consensus on the parochial sub-division of these counties.Kokkuvõte. Urmas Sutrop: Liivi maastikud Liivimaa ajaloolises geograafias ja liivi hõimude jaotus. Tänapäeval puudub täielik konsensus, kuidas liivlaste territoorium jagunes muinasmaakondadeks ja/või -kihelkondadeks muistse iseseisvuse lõpul 12. sajandil. Lahendamata on isegi küsimus sellest, kas Kuramaa rannaliivlased on muistsete liivlaste või sinna 16. sajandil ümber asunud liivlaste järeltulijad. Käesolevas artiklis vaadeldakse 1792. aastal Johann Christoph Schwartzi anonüümselt ilmunud käsitlust Liivimaa ajaloolisest geograafiast ning võrreldakse seda tollaste ja tänapäevaste arusaamadega. Kokkulepe teadlaste vahel on üldisem idapoolsete liivlaste territoriaalses suurjaotuses: Väina jõe liivlase alad, Koiva jõe liivlaste alad, Metsapoole ja Idumea. Neist viimast peetakse liivlaste ja balti hõimude segaalaks. Samas puudub konsensus nende liivi maakondlike alade edasisest kihelkondlikust jaotusest.Märksõnad: Johann Christoph Schwartz, ajalooline geograafia, liivi hõimud, LiivimaaKubbõvõttõks. Urmas Sutrop:Līvõ mōpālgõd Līvõmō istōrilis geogrāfijs. Tämpõ tuņšlijid äb ūotõ īdmēļizt, kui līvlizt terītori vȯļ jagdõd muinižiz mōgõniž ja/agā pagāstõdõksks muiniz īžpīlimiz lopāndõksõs 12. āigastsadā āigal. Äb ūo arāntõt, või Kurāmǭ līvlizt ātõ muinizt līvlizt tagāntuļļid agā 16. āigastsadā āigal sīņõ lǟnõd līvlizt tagāntuļļid. Sīes kēras um vaņţõltõd 1792. āigastõs ulztund Johann Christoph Schwartz tuņšlõkst iļ Līvõmǭ istōriliz geogrāfij (ulzõtuldsõ se tuņšlõks vȯļ anonīmi). Siedā um ītõltõd sīeaigizt ja paldīņizt arusǭmiztõks. Tuņšlijid ātõ dižānist īdmēļizt mǭgõrpūoļizt līvlizt teritorij jagdõksõs: Vēna joug līvlizt mō, Koiva joug līvlizt mōd, Mõtsāpūol ja Idūmō. Idumō um mō, kus um līvlizt ja baltõd sugūd jelīzt siegāmõl. Īdmīel äb ūo, kui mōgõnd jagīzt kīlgõniž

Estonian traces in the tree of life concept and in the language family tree theory

In this paper the tree model – a well-formed tree is shortly described. After that the language family tree model by August Schleicher is treated and compared with the Charles Darwin’s tree of life diagram and metaphor. The development of the idea of the linguistic trees and the tree of life is considered historically. Earlier models – scala naturae – and tree models, both well-formed and not-well-formed are introduced. Special attention is paid to the scholars connected to Estonia who developed the idea of tree models: Georg Stiernhielm was the first who pictured a language tree already in 1671; Karl Eduard Eichwald published an early tree of animal life in 1829; and Karl Ernst von Baer influenced the tree of  life models and diagrams of Charles Darwin

Värvinimed ja värvid vendade Grimmide muinasjutu “Lumivalguke” variantides

The article discusses three versions of the Snow White fairy tale by the Brothers Grimm (1810, 1812, and 1857), delving into the meanings of colours and colour names occurring in them as well as changes in the names and meanings. The analysis proceeds from the structural method of fairy tale study and explores the symbolic meaning oppositions of colours and their names, such as in/out, light/dark, life/death, logical/mythological. The analysis is also based on the differentiation drawing on the theory of primary colours, according to which black, white, and red are the most fundamental colour names. However, the use of colour names (semantics and symbolism) is complicated in the versions of the Snow White fairy tale, as a colour may have several oppositional meanings. It is not just simple binary oppositions. The Brothers Grimm regarded the colours black, white, and red as beautiful. Jacob Grimm depicted them as the three colours of poetry

Basic colour terms in five Finno-Ugric languages and Estonian Sign Language: a comparative study

In this paper we compare five Finno-Ugric languages – Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, Udmurt and Komi-Zyrian – and the Estonian Sign Language (unclassified) in different aspects: established basic colour terms, the proportion of basic colour terms and different colour terms in the collected word-corpora, the cognitive salience index values in the list task and the number of dominant colour tiles in the colour naming task. The data was collected, using the field method of Davies and Corbett, from all languages under consideration, providing a distinctive foundation for linguistic comparison. We argue that Finno-Ugric languages seem to possess relatively large colour vocabularies, especially due to their rich variety of word-formation types, e.g. the composition of compound words. All of the languages under consideration have developed to Stage VI or VII, possessing 7 to 11 lexicalised basic colour terms. The cognitive salience index helps to distinguish primary and secondary basic colour terms, showing certain comprehensive patterns which are similar to Russian and English

Eesti viipekeele seisundikirjeldus

Kuna eesti viipekeel on Eesti territooriumil elavate kurtide seas tekkinud ning kasutatav loomulik keel, antakse käesoleva tööga lühiülevaade eesti viipekeele kasutajaskonnast ja selle kujunemisest