ESTONIAN | EESTI KEEL

There are three things to keep in mind about how the Estonian language works: final vowel drops, vowels being altered, and constanants being altered. The Estonian language also has longer syllables with not only vowels, but constanants as well.

 

I will give an example of each of the above, because in English we don't have these!

 

1. When going from the genetive singular form of the word "song" (laulu) the final vowel "u" gets dropped off when going to the nominative singular form. Thus becoming laul.

 

2.A similar thing happens here as well with the same process. Let's look at the word for "maple" in the singular genetive form, vahtra. When going to the nominative form it changes to vaher.

 

3. The nominative/genetive/partitive case of the word for "fog" is udu "[utu]". When the word goes into the illocative case to mean "into the fog" the constant "d" changes to  "tt" becoming "uttu" "[ut:tu]". The syllables are also longer here too!