Dialect in Literature

Level 6

In Tammsaare's Tõde ja õigus, the farmer Pearu says Meie oleme puht muarahavas, reagime muakeelt. The spellings ua and ea show village speech; the standard is maarahvas, räägime and maakeelt.

How It Works

Estonian writers often let characters speak in dialect or everyday colloquial forms while the narration stays standard. This tells you where a person comes from, what their background is and how old they are.

A classic case: in A. H. Tammsaare's Tõde ja õigus (Truth and Justice), the villagers' speech has central and western dialect features. The farmer Pearu says:

Meie oleme puht muarahavas, reagime muakeelt. (We are pure country folk, we speak the country tongue.)

The standard would be maarahvas, räägime and maakeelt. The long vowels aa and ää are spelled ua and ea to show how they sound in that dialect, and muarahavas also adds a vowel inside rahvas. Maakeel is an old name for Estonian.

Other kinds of non-standard speech you will meet:

  • Spoken short forms in dialogue: mai tea (= ma ei tea), olnd (= olnud).
  • Whole works in a dialect: Mulgi, Võro and Seto are used most. There is prose, poetry and drama in South Estonian, for example by Kauksi Ülle and Madis Kõiv. A Võro verse book for children is called Läämi kaemi! (Let's go and look!).
  • Island speech in Juhan Smuul's Muhu monoloogid.

How to read it: say the word aloud and look for a standard word with a similar sound. Read dialogue with a spelling like reagime as a choice by the author. In your own standard writing, use the standard forms.

Examples (4)

  1. Meie oleme puht muarahavas, reagime muakeelt.

    We are pure country folk, we speak the country tongue.

    Pearu in Tammsaare's Tõde ja õigus I (1926). Standard: Meie oleme puht maarahvas, räägime maakeelt.

  2. „Mai tea,“ ütles poiss ja kehitas õlgu.

    "Dunno," said the boy, and shrugged.

    The character uses the spoken form mai tea; the narration is standard.

  3. „Ma olen olnd siin terve päeva,“ kurtis vanamees.

    "I've been here all day," the old man complained.

    olnd is the spoken short form of olnud.

  4. Läämi kaemi!

    Let's go and look!

    Title of a Võro verse collection for children. Standard Estonian: Lähme vaatame!

Common Mistakes

  • Copying a character's dialect spelling into standard writing.

    Me reagime kodus eesti keelt.
    Me räägime kodus eesti keelt.

    reagime is Tammsaare's spelling of a dialect pronunciation. In standard Estonian the verb form is räägime.

How It Connects

Tap a pattern to see what it builds on and what it leads to.

Dialect in LiteratureLevel 6

Learn This First

Literary dialogue uses dialect and slang.