Common Roots of the Latvian and Estonian Literary Languages

ISBN-13: 9783631563441 / Angielski / Miękka / 2007 / 378 str.

Kristiina Ross;Peteris Vanags

Opis

Estonian and Latvian are members of different language families. Estonian is a Finno-Ugric language, while Latvian belongs to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European languages. The cultural and socio-political developments of Estonia and Latvia, however, have been remarkably similar since the Christianisation of the two peoples in the 13th century. The Estonian and Latvian cultures were both moulded to form part of Christian Europe by German-speaking mediators who worked hard from the 16th to 18th centuries in order to create the Estonian and Latvian literary languages by translating ecclesiastical texts. The authors assume that similarities in the cultural history must have left some similar traces in the structures of the two languages as well. This book represents a collection of papers on certain common developments in the Estonian and Latvian cultural history, which are obviously related to the formation of the two literary languages.

Spis treści

Contents: Kristiina Ross/P teris Vanags: Common roots of the Latvian and Estonian literary languages - Preface - Toomas Paul: Map of Livonia: Beschryvinghe van Lyflandt, ca 1630. Cultural context of the formation of written (literary) Estonian - Janis Kr sli s: Early modern textuality: A Baltic perspective - Aivar Põldvee: Peasant schools in Estland and Livland during the last quarter of the 17th century - Mara Grudule: Latvian poetry in Livland and Courland in the 17th century and beginning of the 18th - Kristi Viiding: The literary background of early Estonian secular writing: the current situation and future perspectives in research - Liina Lukas: Baltic-German literature and Estonian literary studies - P teris Vanags: Latvian texts in the 16th and 17th centuries: beginnings and development - Heli Laanekask/ Kristiina Ross: The language of Tartu and Tallinn in 17th-century Livonia - Lidija Leikuma: The beginnings of written Latgalian - Kristiina Ross: Estonian Bible translations - Everita Andronova: Research on the earliest (16th-17th c.) Latvian texts: the past twenty years (1985-2005) - Külli Habicht: Estonian studies of old literary Estonian.

O autorze

The Editors: Kristiina Ross, born 1955, is researcher at the Institute of the Estonian Language in Tallinn. Her main field of research is the early history of literary Estonian, especially the history of Estonian Bible translations.
P teris Vanags, born 1962, is professor of the Baltic languages at the University of Latvia in Riga and at Stockholm University. His main fields of research are connected with the history of the Baltic languages, especially the early written period (16th-18th century) of Latvian.