Estonian is a famously difficult language for foreigners to learn. It is closely related to Finnish, distantly related to Hungarian, and basically not related to anything else. On the plus side, it is written in the Roman alphabet. More precisely, it is written in the Roman alphabet minus several letters. There is no letter c in Estonian, also no letter q, and no w, x, y, or z. (One of Chloe’s favorite songs is the alphabet song, “Now I know my a, b, c”. I suppose in Estonia this would come out as, “Now I know my a, b, d” …!
Another confusing thing about the Estonian alphabet is that the vowels can also have accents of various sorts, but these accented vowels are considered to come at the end of the alphabet, not in the same place as the unaccented vowel. For example, if a word begins with “a” then it appears towards the beginning of the dictionary, but if it begins with “รค” then it appears towards the end.
We did some more empirical research into Estonian orthography last night when we cooked up some alphabet soup that I had bought at the supermarket. We were wondering if any of the ‘non-Estonian’ letters would appear – and they did. Also, no sign of any accents … .
Vocabulary highlight: The Estonian word for child is “laps”, grandchild is “lapselaps”, and greatgrandchild is “lapselapselaps.”
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