The only time Estonia didn’t copy Finland

25 comments
  1. Maa = Land / Earth

    Maan = of land / of Earth

    Tiede = Science

    Maantiede = Science of Land / Earth

  2. Everyone: so Finland what are you gonna call the study of earth and countries and stuff, almost all of us called it geography or something similar.
    Suomi: ***Maantiede***

  3. Isnt the Czech one just geografy translated to Czech? (Ziemia – Earth, pisać – to write in polish, i assume its similar for Czechs)

  4. There’s plenty of German loanwords in the Estonian language. They were under Germanic influence for centuries.

  5. Not the only time that Estonian and Finnish differ in their choices with respect to made-up vs. internationally recognizable words. For example:

    – the days of the week:
    – Finnish: maanantai, tiistai, etc. (similar to Nordic languages)
    – Estonian: esmaspäev, teisipäev, etc. (although laupäev for Saturday resembles Finnish/Swedish)
    – the months:
    – Finnish: tammikuu, helmikuu, etc. (entirely local names)
    – Estonian: jaanuar, veebruar, etc. (like in English)
    – noun cases:
    – Finnish: nominatiivi, genetiivi, partitiivi etc. (pretend Latin)
    – Estonian: nimetav, omastav, osastav etc. (Finnish does have nimentä etc but no-one recognizes those, perhaps with the exception of things like sisäolento and ulkotulento which are more systematic and easier to remember than inessiivi and allatiivi)

  6. Estonian has frequenty borrowed word from other language, whereas Finnish has tried to construct and even invent words of its own(*.

    I think the reasons have been political, but the trend is not as strong as it used to be.

    *) plastic =muovi an entirely new word

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