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EESTI ELU reedel, 13. novembril 2020 — Friday, November 13, 2020
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Language Lounge: the Saaremaa dialect and accent Vincent Teetsov “Õ-hääliku lõpp.” “The end of the ‘Õ’ vowel.” In May 2019, this brown road sign was a short-lived symbol of pride for residents of the island of Saaremaa, reminding those who drove along the Kuivastu-Kuressaare road of the well-known distinction between Estonian as spoken in Saaremaa and Estonian spoken on the mainland. The Saaremaa identity isn’t re vealed by pulling off a mask, but by removing the letter “Õ” in favour of the letter “Ö.” While this sign was removed by the Maanteeamet (Road Administration) due to its in correct dimensions, a gigantic metal letter “Ö” is soon to be placed in the same area. The municipality will foot the bill for the letter, while the Maan teeamet will install information boards and benches, as well as cleaning up the adjacent park ing lot. While the Õ-Ö exchange is intriguing, it is but one aspect of this murre (“dialect”). Estonia’s murded can be separated into regional groups of north and south Estonia. If you look past these groups, there are eight broader murded. Saarte murre (“island dialect”) includes Saaremaa, Hiiumaa, Muhu, and Kihnu, although there are differences between all of these sub-dialects. Saare maa’s sub-dialect is divided be tween West Saaremaa and East Saaremaa, and then even further into village-based variants. Based on data from Estonia’s 2011 census, 2.8% of Estonia’s population can speak Saarte murre. As a reference point, 9.8% of Estonians can speak Võru dialect, the largest per centage of any Estonian dialect. Speakers of Estonian on Saare maa are commonly noted to have a “sing-songy” style of speech. In 1980, Estonian dia lect specialist Ellen Niit argued that in this type of speech, unstressed syllables following stressed syllables have a higher pitch. Niit and linguist Mart Remmel both believed that Estonia’s western islands formed a “transitional area” between Swedish and Standard Estonian. Eva Liina Asu-Garcia, Senior Research Fellow in Phonetics at the University of Tartu, made progress in documenting these tonal subtleties in 2004, when she recorded the voices of six women, university students
between 21 and 35 years old, reading words from a list in Standard Estonian. Six women of the same age range, who were born and spent most of their life in Kuressaare, were chosen to represent Saaremaa Estonian. Although it is pos sible that the formal nature of the experiment and the increased influence of Standard Estonian may have reduced the differen ces between the sample group of speakers, there were notice able differences in spoken pitch. Subjects from Saaremaa started their words at a lower pitch. Listening to the countless audio recordings from the Institute of the Estonian Language shows the prevalence of long combinations of vowels in the first syllables of words. There is also a preference for the word ning instead of ja when saying “and.” Some deviations from Stan dard Estonian words include lauba (instead of laupäev for “Saturday”), patsikakk (instead of pannileib for “pan bread”), soo oma (instead of sinu oma for “yours”), and map tea (instead of ma ei tea for “I don’t know”). Research conducted by Enel Põld from the University of Tartu illuminated even further defining characteristics. One example is how speakers of the Saaremaa dialect may not emphasize the particles within a word (such as kassi or bussi) when there is a vowel at the end. However, standard empha sis will be applied if the word is in the nominative case and the vowel is not there. Counter to what you might expect, Põld’s research points to a higher usage of island pro nunciation in some youngsters and a decline in that same pronunciation in people of 60 years of age and up. Still, other dialect intricacies have di minished in younger speakers as a result of higher mobility and linguistic influence from mainland Estonia. Efforts have been made to reverse this trend, including the development of a Saaremaa dialect textbook by MTÜ Keelekajal. Admittedly, for someone still learning Estonian (and that designation may never end considering the depth of any language learning pursuit), I find it difficult to identify who is from where in Estonia based on their speech. In writing, you might have some luck in spotting the Võru language of
Photo: Eesti Rahvusringhääling
southern Estonia, due to the occasional appearance of the letter Q. But when you start listening to the voices of these many people who have been recorded by linguists, or when you listen to the voice of Kati Laev sing ing “Kaugel sinust” for the 2016 edition of Eesti Laul, one can start to tune their ears to these micro-distinctions, that for many, add to an identity that makes them proud.
Olari Koppel: Electoral Committee does not falsify election results in Estonia ERR, November 2020 Minister of the Interior Mart Helme (EKRE) said that election results are falsified in favor of a particular political party in Estonia by those with access to electronic votes – members of the National Electoral Committee. As a member of the committee, I regard these allegations as serious, Olari Koppel writes. Comments by the interior minister, finance minister and member of the European Parliament (Mart Helme, Martin Helme and Jaak Madison – ed.) on the likely next president of the United States and the integ rity of elections in America need to be analyzed by those responsible for Estonia’s national security, foreign policy and relations with the U.S. Luckily, what the interior minister said on Sunday about election results being tampered with for the benefit of a particu lar party by those who have access to e-votes in Estonia – members of the National Elec toral Committee – received much less public attention. As a member of the said committee, I regard these allegations as serious. Intentional, conscious and systematic falsification of elec tion results is a criminal offense the punishment for which is likely incarceration. It is also a crime against one’s country in my eyes as secretly and arbi trarily tampering with the will of the people constitutes a coup – giving power to those who should not have it according to the law. E-voting is at its core an un fathomable series of ones and zeroes, a secure digital process organized through complicated keys and procedures, the results of which are verified at several stages. It has been studied in side and out by an uncountable number of times over the last 15 years. There have also been at tempts to break it both consciously (when testing the security of the system) and with slightly more malicious intent. We do not know of a single
Welcome to the neighbourhood! The International Estonian Centre shared some local Annex community spirit on November 9, 2020, by gifting five birch trees that were planted in the Paul Martel Park, directly opposite the IEC site on Madison Avenue. Pictured top, from left to right are park stewards Donalda and Paul; Thomas Heinsoo, owner of Heinsoo Insurance; Anita Saar, CEO of Northern Birch Credit Union; Ellen Valter, Board Chair of NBCU; David Kalm, IEC Project Manager; Linda Karuks, General Manager of Tartu College; Brian Burchell, Chair of the Bloor Annex BIA; Kairi Taul Hemingway, President of Estonian Central Council in Canada; and Anita Nippak Genua, a Viru Vanemad donor to the IEC project and Annex resident. Pictured below are Veiko Parming, President of Estonian House and Chair of International Estonian Centre, left, and David Kalm, IEC Project Manager, right, planting the birch trees. Please sign up for the monthly newsletter to keep apprised of project progress, at estoniancentre.ca.
verified incident of anyone having succeeded in changing, erasing or adding an electronic vote in a way not in accordance with the Elections Act and other public rules. Allow me, as a member of the electoral committee, to pro vide a short and unprompted overview of how e-votes are counted. All phrasal or termino logical inconsistencies are my mistakes, nor is this in any way an official protest against the Sunday radio show by the electoral committee. Every member of the com mittee is given a personalized encryption key that resembles a credit card before elections. The keys are personalized and issued to members in front of observers. The act is recorded in writing as well as using audiovisual means. The keys stay with members of the committee at all times. E-votes can only be counted on election night by entering all five keys into the reader. The five members of the committee whose keys will be used are determined immediately before the counting of votes. This means that anyone with the intent of falsifying the results would have to turn all seven
members of the committee. E-votes are counted in the presence of observes in a closed room to avoid the results of e-voting leaking before polling divisions close (8 p.m. for national and 12 a.m. for European Parliament elections). The e-voting result is verified – all rows must match: every row and column must return exactly the same result for all digital inquiries. There is no margin of error (unlike with paper ballots). Not a single vote can be add ed, removed or changed after the fact. The e-vote count is final. The entire process is re peated in the morning following the election day when e-votes are recounted and the final results determined – all under the eyes of observers. The results are confirmed if the system detects that the data is uniform. The encryption cards are destroyed then and there. The interior minister sug gested that the system “freez ing” on election night when the results are gradually being published is indirect proof and a sign of fraud. As I’m sure everyone in terested in politics knows, the (Continued on page 11)
