V liseestlased ja nende keel. Pidepunkte uurimisloost / A study of the Estonian language in diaspora

The varieties of the Estonian language outside Estonia, differing from standard Estonian spoken in Estonia, are regional and generally oral language variants, influenced by local factors and variable intergenerational use. Containing loans from the dominant language, the oral language of the older generation still retains features either redundant or marginal in the current Estonian language geographic area. The first written documents on expatriate Estonians date back to the 19th century, but it was only after the Republic of Estonia was established in 1918 that a wider interest was taken in compatriots living abroad. In 1928, the Expatriate Estonian Society (V lis-Eesti ühing) was founded and the Expatriate Estonian Congress (V lis-Eesti kongress) started to be held every five years. After Estonia was annexed by the Soviet Union in 1940, the word v liseestlane ’expatriate Estonian’ was used only in connection with Estonians living outside the Soviet Union. In the 1950s and 1960s, linguists became specifically interested in the Estonian settlements of Caucasus, Siberia and Ussuriland. Scholars, hoping to find in Siberia or Caucasus the archaic language of former settlers still alive, discovered that vernacular Estonian was not influenced so much by archaisms (caused by separation from the homeland) as influences from long-term contact with other languages.Since the late 1990s, the study of the varieties of Estonian used outside Estonia has taken a new direction. This can be recognised by the increased interest in the varieties of Estonian in various new countries of residence (e.g. Denmark, Finland, Germany). The focus of interest moving to western countries did not mean a loss of interest in the areas of the former Soviet empire. In 1996, the Centre for Migration and Diaspora Studies was set up in the Tartu University Institute of Geography. Presently, one of the prestigious research projects (2010 2013) of Finno-Ugric languages, the EU-funded ELDIA (European Language Diversity for All) is underway. Besides other Finno-Ugric languages (e.g. Karelian in Finland and Russia, Hungarian in Slovenia and Austria), the project includes the Estonian language in Finland and Germany, and the language developments marking the multilingualism of recently established Estonian communities abroad.