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The Võru Language in Estonia: an Overview of a Language in Context

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The Võru Language in Estonia: an Overview of a Language in Context Working Papers in European Language Diversity 4 Kadri Koreinik The Võru language in Estonia: An Overview of a Language in Context Mainz Helsinki Wien Tartu Mariehamn Oulu Maribor Working Papers in European Language Diversity is a peer-reviewed online publication series of the research project ELDIA, serving as an outlet for preliminary research findings, individual case studies, background and spin-off research. Editor-in-Chief Johanna Laakso (Wien) Editorial Board Kari Djerf (Helsinki), Riho Grünthal (Helsinki), Anna Kolláth (Maribor), Helle Metslang (Tartu), Karl Pajusalu (Tartu), Anneli Sarhimaa (Mainz), Sia Spiliopoulou Åkermark (Mariehamn), Helena Sulkala (Oulu), Reetta Toivanen (Helsinki) Publisher Research consortium ELDIA c/o Prof. Dr. Anneli Sarhimaa Northern European and Baltic Languages and Cultures (SNEB) Johannes Gutenberg-Universität Mainz Jakob-Welder-Weg 18 (Philosophicum) D-55099 Mainz, Germany Contact: [email protected] © European Language Diversity for All (ELDIA) ELDIA is an international research project funded by the European Commission. The views expressed in the Working Papers in European Language Diversity are the sole responsibility of the author(s) and do not necessarily reflect the views of the European Commission. All contents of the Working Papers in European Language Diversity are subject to the Austrian copyright law. The contents may be used exclusively for private, non-commercial purposes. Regarding any further uses of the Working Papers in European Language Diversity, please contact the publisher. ISSN 2192-2403 Working Papers in European Language Diversity 4 During the initial stage of the research project ELDIA (European Language Diversity for All) in 2010, "structured context analyses" of each speaker community at issue were prepared. These context analyses will act as a starting point for further deepened research by linguists, sociologists and lawyers. Thus, they will form the basis of further case-specific reports and the comparative report which will be the main outcome of the whole project. However, as these will be available for interested readers only at the end of the project, we wanted to publish shorter versions summarising our work so far already at this stage, thus providing up-to-date information for both the academic community and stakeholder groups. This paper, based on the context analysis by Kadri Koreinik, gives a brief and up-to-date overview of the status of and research about the Võru language in Estonia. As all papers appearing in the series Working Papers in European Language Diversity, these context analyses have been subject to an anonymous peer- reviewing process. Whenever the present document is referred to, due reference to the author and the ELDIA project should be made. For more information about the ELDIA project see http://www.eldia-project.org/. Working Papers in European Language Diversity 4 Table of Contents 1 INTRODUCTION: SPEAKERS OF VÕRU IN ESTONIA .................................... 1 2 SOCIO-POLITICAL CONTEXT ...................................................................... 2 2.1 LEGAL AND POLITICAL POSITION ....................................................................... 2 2.2 ATTITUDES .................................................................................................. 3 3 CULTURAL CONTEXT ................................................................................ 3 4 LANGUAGE .............................................................................................. 5 4.1 GENERAL DESCRIPTION OF THE LANGUAGE .......................................................... 5 4.2 LANGUAGE CONTACT AND MULTILINGUALISM ...................................................... 6 4.3 LANGUAGE USE AND MAINTENANCE .................................................................. 7 5 SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY ............................................................................. 9 Working Papers in European Language Diversity 4 The Võru language in Estonia | 1 1 Introduction: Speakers of Võru in Estonia As Võru is conventionally seen as a dialect of Estonian, the minority position of Võru- speakers as a linguistic minority is not fully acknowledged either by speakers or observers- researchers. Given the absence of clear definitions and official recognition, the size of the speech community remains a matter of interpretation. Nevertheless, Võru-speakers are an autochthonous speech community of bilingual Estonians, who have preserved their vernacular language in addition to Estonian, and who switch between Estonian and Võru depending on circumstances and audiences. The number of active and passive (potential) Võru speakers is estimated at 50,000. However, it is counted on the basis of self-reports and can easily be over-estimated. Despite the conscious building of an all-Estonian standard since the end of the 1800s, the vitality of Southern Estonian speech varieties has weakened only since the end of World War II. Southern Estonian, once a tribal language, has outlived the standardisation best in the peripheral South-eastern Estonia where Võru and Seto are spoken (Pajusalu et al. 1999). Since the late 1980s, activist Võru-speakers have been engaged in the revitalisation of Võro and in respective identity-building. The so-called Võro Movement has drawn public attention to language loss. Given everyday observations, many Võru-speakers have, in addition to a strong Estonian identity, a strong local identity and call themselves võrokõsõ, ‘the Võros’. They mostly call their tongue võro kiil or võru kiil, ‘the Võro language’ or ‘the Võru language’ and refer less to toponyms or micro-ethnonyms. Some out-group observers – both linguists and laypeople – have grouped the tongue of the Setos, a neighbouring ethnic group, with that of Võru-speakers. This classification is objected to by both Võru-speakers and Setos, who perceive linguistic similarities and differences of speech in their own way. Working Papers in European Language Diversity 4 The Võru language in Estonia | 2 2 Socio-political Context 2.1 Legal and Political Position Võru1 is not recognised as a language in Estonia but it is addressed as ‘regional variety’ by the Language Act (2011) which regulates official and public language use. There is no regulation on the use of Võru in the media, though it is used in National Public Service Broadcasting for short news and in the state-funded biweekly newspaper, which mostly has characteristics of print community media. Similarly, Võru is not addressed by educational legislation. The Võru language and literature is not present in the National Curriculum. However, the Place Name Act addresses Võru by stating that the spelling of a place name shall be in accordance with the rules of Estonian orthography and may reflect the local dialectal sound structure of the name. Estonia has neither signed nor ratified the Charter on Regional or Minority Languages. In 2004, there was a law proposal to the government by the council of the state programme “Language and Culture of Southern Estonia 2000-2004” to recognise Southern Estonian varieties, including Võru, as regional languages in order to expand the domains of Southern Estonian, to improve its prestige and to remove legal gaps. A number of parliamentary factions, ministries and other relevant bodies discussed the proposal, but no consensus was reached. The issue was re-opened in 2009, when the legal drafts of the Language Act were discussed, but again no decision that could please both the proponents and opponents of legal recognition was reached. Most likely, the main argument against the legal recognition can be found in discourses of (language) endangerment (Koreinik 2011). When in the Soviet era, Estonian became the symbol of psychological resistance and the basis of ethnopolitical mobilisation for Estonians, in the re-independent Estonia, there were political ambitions to protect and to promote Estonian and to replace Russian, which was a vehicular language in the Soviet Union (Vihalemm 1999, Hallik 2001). Estonian, being often represented as an endangered language threatened by either Russification or Anglification, is seen in need of both protection and regulation by law. Furthermore, the analysis of the Southern Estonian 1 Võro, in Northern/Standard Estonian Võru, is originally the name of a town and a region (Võrumaa). Both form variants are used by Võru speakers themselves to denote their language. In addition, Võro is also used for the Võro(-Seto) standard language. Working Papers in European Language Diversity 4 The Võru language in Estonia | 3 legitimation discourse has demonstrated that the recognition of Southern Estonian varieties is often represented as undermining Estonian vis-à-vis Russian; therefore it seems safer to position Southern Estonian varieties into the cultural enrichment framework (Koreinik 2011). Political representation of Võru-speakers among decision-makers has been inadequate to achieve the legal protection and institutional support for Võru. In the political agenda of Võru-speakers, language concerns, compared to employment issues and matters of regional policy, probably have a secondary place, which can be an illustration of a weakening desire to use the language. 2.2 Attitudes A survey from 1998 indicates that Võru is a less prestigious language which may have covert prestige among some users. Social groups that are sensitive to (language) prestige – women, young people, educated people, and urbanites – reported less frequent language use
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