Standardisation and the role of language editors in synchronising Võro hybrid literacy practices

ABSTRACT

Our paper focuses on the standardisation of Võro, the most spoken and cultivated South Estonian language. According to the 2021 census, there are ca 100,000 Võro and Seto speakers with varying bilingual backgrounds from activist L1 speakers – who have been developing Standard Võro and language technologies (LT) for language transfer – to people with receptive knowledge, L2 speakers, whose Võro (and Seto) literacy can be described as hybrid. The bulk of speakers, however, have only embraced reading and writing Võro in their adult life and are socialised into Standard Estonian literacy. Standard Estonian was cultivated mostly from North Estonian varieties whose speakers outnumbered their South Estonian counterparts. In this paper, we aim to understand the process of standardisation and especially the role of language editors in it by reviewing and examining the principles of codification and analysing interview data.

KEYWORDS:

• Codification
• lexicography
• collateral language
• Finnic languages
• Estonia

Acknowledgement

The authors are grateful to Prof. Sanita Martena and dr. Heiko F. Marten, and reviewers for their helpful comments, to the informants for their participation in this research, and finally, dr. Uldis Balodis for his English language editing.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 A comprehensive grammar of Võro is being compiled.

2 In an editorial published in a turn-of-the-century-weekly: “The Võro language has no hope or future as a literary language whatsoever. However long it may live in the mouth of the people, literature in the Võro language – no one can give birth to it, and we don’t want it either, because it would be a weakening of Estonian people’s literature” Võru keelel ei ole mingisugust lootust ega tulevikku kirjakeeleks. Rahvasuus elagu ta kui tahes kaua, võrukeelne kirjandus – seda ei jõua keegi sünnitada, seda meie ka ei soovigi, sest et ta Eesti rahvakirjanduse nõrgestamine oleks (Olevik no. 30 1895).

3 According to the Institute’s statutes, one of its tasks is “researching the features of the local language and standardising its public use, as well as publishing related publications” (§ 4 (3)).

4 For example, oral literacy is understood as something beyond words; it facilitates children to be imaginative, communicate their experiences, and share and respond to others (Smoldon and Howell 2014).

5 While “vernacular literacy” serves to distinguish the literate culture of ordinary people from that of the dominant classes (Lyons et al. 2015: 283), it is also used synonymously with “grassroots literacy” (Kikas 2021).

6 While in the 1881 census, the bulk of Estonian-speaking residents of the Baltic provinces were counted as literate, they most likely were educated or home-schooled in their respective – North or South Estonian – literary language; the latter was used to a certain extent for elementary schooling in southeastern Estonian schools, but secondary and tertiary education was predominantly Russian- and German-medium.

7 In fictional genres, especially in dialogues, and in liberalised TV markets, non-standard varieties and idiolects, but also hybrid linguistic practices, have either always been embraced or recently been valorised (Planchenault 2017; Van Hoof 2018).

8 Then it also became clear that available fonts failed to represent some Võro-specific phonemes, which led to the development and introduction of specific Võro fonts in 1997. Now, there are few technological limitations to reproduce any signs incl. Võro-specific ones; the Võro fonts can be freely downloaded online.

9 Its usage has increased from 14,000 searches in 2019 to 29,700 in 2023. In 2023, the average length of a search was 18 s; there were 154,000 searches with around 3,200 different words. The most searched lexical items were: different forms of the verb olema ‘to be’ (559 times in total), tere ‘hello’ (415), tolmuimeja ‘vacuum cleaner’ (395), and koer ‘dog’ (270). One of the other most searched for words is suitsusaun ‘smoke sauna’ (189), which indicates that the inclusion of the sauna tradition in the UNESCO Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity may have triggered public interest in the phenomenon and the word.

10 As small speech communities such as Võro speakers cannot benefit from LT applications developed by market-based language tech companies (Jüvä 2022, 147), project-based development is one of the problems that the communities face.

11 Ma pigem tahan kasutada sellist [keeleüksust], mis inimene on kasutanud, mitte aga sellist [keeleüksust], mis peaks olema.

12 Lauseõpetuse puhul ma väga ei järgi vanapärasuse printsiipi, sest see ikkagi on võõras inimestele. See ei ole see koht, kus hakata peale suruma inimestele. Kui me õpime, siis muidugi õpime kõiki variante, aga toimetamises ei toimeta neid sisse.

13 Grammatika puhul võiksid eelistatud olla need vormid, mis on eesti keelest erinevamad, aga kui sõnavarale mõtlen, siis valiksin eesti keelele lähema sõna.

14 Kogu aeg on olnud vähemalt kaks suunda võru kirjakeele toimetamises – puristlikum suund ja eesti keele suhtes sallivam, vabam. Nende vahel tuleb endal ka kogu aeg valida.

15 Ma arvan, et see on väga hea ja väga õige ja iga küla võibki rääkida omamoodi. [---] Selles suhtes oleks toimetajatöö muidugi lihtsam, kui meil olekski üks kirjakeel, kokkuleppitud ainult ühed reeglid, igal pool ainult ühte moodi. Toimetajal on lihtne, aga mis see teeb keelerikkusega?

16 Ma arvan, et olen vähem puristlikuks muutunud. Kunagi ammu olin idealistlikum. Nüüd olen rohkem leppinud sellega, et olgu milline võru keel tahes, see on parem kui mitte midagi. See mõte on loomulikuks saanud.

17 Elu on näidanud seda, et kui sa oled väga radikaalne ja me oleme olnud keeletoimetamises pigem radikaalsed, siis pigem tekib vastumeelsus keeletoimetamise suhtes. [---] Ise olen muutunud ka leebemaks, üldse keeletoimetamine on läinud tunduvalt leebemaks.

18 See oli ka vahepeal selline põhimõte, et tagaeitus, kuna ta on eesti keelest erinevam, siis hästi palju tagaeitust kasutada. Siis sai ka kriitikat, et võru instituudi keel on setopärane. See on üks põhjus võib-olla, mille pärast seda on setopäraseks peetud, et nii palju tagaeitust. Pärast seda olengi hakanud panema vähem tagaeitust.

19 Mitte keegi ei ole keeletoimetaja tööga rahul – ei ole autor rahul, kes tunneb ennnast halvasti, kui ta tekst on liiga ära toimetatud; ei ole lugeja rahul, sest oled valinud tema jaoks võõraid sõnu sisse; ja ei ole lõpuks ka aktivistid rahul, sest ei ole valitud vanapäraseid sõnu. Ühe jaoks on liiga pealiskaudne, teise jaoks on liiga põhjalik.

Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by Haridus- ja Teadusministeerium: [grant numbers EKKD-TA2 and EKTR7].