Estonian vs Finnish. Will I sound ridiculous?

[maxcrylov]

Guys, they may kill me , but I'll agree with everything Loiks listed (I mean, occupation, terror, deportation and colonialism) except colonialism. Well, what happened in 1940 can hardly be called a pure colonialism. There wasn't so much of a development gap between Soviet Union and Baltic States. And colonialism is generally about civilized's aggression against less or uncivilized, not strong against the weak. Anschlus of Austria by fascist Germany can be called a colonial act just the same way.
Though it remains a tragedy of three nations, whatever it's called. And, thank God, they're recovering. As well as we do.

Well, it seems so strange that, whenever I launch a thread about Estonian language it turns out to be politics. A tricky question indeed.

I've expressed myself enough I think.

I'm definitely in favour of independence and free progress for Estonia.

I'm definitely against unlawful Soviet aggression.

I'm definitely against worshipping those who colaborated with fascism (I beg you to understand - my ancestors fighted the invaders and won not for the sake of enslaving someone but for the sake of peaceful sky above them and peaceful life for their children).
Though I understand Estonians quite well since there was no way out - collaborating with Stalinism that carcelled its own citizens once captured by fascists was no better. I also realize that Estonia needs national heroes. It has.
Moreover, we're not ones to criticize them since we still have Lenin's monuments undemolished regardless to the fact that this very man (I don't mean any further positive moments about USSR) did nothing but bad for Russia and killed thousands of people PERSONALLY (and millions INDIRECTLY).

Finally, I'm most definitely against borders and old reproaches, the will for retaliation etc. that worsen our lives and prevents us from making steps towards each other.

So if you go on with politics any further I'll simply listen to you

By the way, Sergei, you really interviewed Jelle Guus?
That's cool!

[Sergei]

Oh I interviewd many football people and Jelle Goes is one of them. He seems to be quite a competent guy. Maybe under his lead Estonia team will get better.

[Loiks]

One last thing about politics: in WWII we were forced to choose between two evils for us; Estonia was actually very much anti-German in 1940, but 'The First Soviet Year' changed it all and that's why there was some relief when the Germans came. In Hitler's dreams we were to be germanised not destroyed (thank God it hasn't happened). About 3000 young men decided the third variant, mentally the best: to cross the gulf and fight for Finnish freedom and Estonian honour in the Winterwar (that time the bombers took off from Estonia to bomb Helsinki).

Some of Estonian guys were in Soviet labour camps during the WWII, they were 'evaquated'. In 1943, I think, they managed to get 'dobro' to form an Estonian division in red army.

Meanwhile, under German occupation, when the things got bad for Germans after Stalingrad Estonians were recruited into Police battallions and afterwards into Waffen-SS's Estonian Legion and other parts of SS's military forces. I have to admit that some of them have been active in some shamable activities in Belarus, killing the Jews by orders of their German superiors.

Still the majority of those Estonian (and Latvian) SS-men were just fighting against this 'First Soviet Year'. In 1944 those guys came back from Finland even, but as the Germans didn't leave us any weapons and ammunition we were defeated by the overwhelming power. The irony is that The Estonian division of Soviet Army and Estonian SS-Legion were fighting against each other including litterally brother against brother!

When the Germans left Tallinn there was a little interludium and Republic of Estonia was restored again but occupied at once again. The government of Jüri Uluots fled to Sweden and afterwards to Canada. That is the cause we can hold the continuity, this exile government of ours gave its rights over to the rightly elected parliament in 1992. That's also why our local Russian speaking contingent didn't get the citizenship right away. When I got 16 I had to show my grandfather's and grandmather's proof of marriage from 1936 to show that I am a rightful Estonian citizen.

What I wanted to underline: NO FASCISM OR NAZIS! Just wanting to be ourselves! (despite all the Russian speaking media wants to say)

[Loiks]

Sergei, that football match was nice! Our only victory in this year! As we say: there is only one Andres Oper! He had a bloody good chance to score against Russia in St. Petersburg too but... Jelle Goes (not Guus! pronounced HHUSS) was actually brought to Estonia by his countryman Arno Pijpers [päipers] who had some problems with the president of the federation and is now the head coach of Kazakhstan . Jelle was at first Arno's assistant and coach of U21. But under him we beat Latvia which is most important

Nice thing was that Belarus's big star Hleb said that he's going to score agains his Arsenal team mate Mart Poom but I could see his brother more on the pitch actually

[Zorba]

What I wanted to underline: NO FASCISM OR NAZIS! Just wanting to be ourselves! (despite all the Russian speaking media wants to say)

I can sympathise with this. It's very strange, though, when you encounter Estonians (as I did) who openly and proudly say that "My grandfather fought for Hitler". It's a huge taboo subject in the West and I was shocked and horrified to hear that. But let me go on to explain why.

There is this master narrative taught in Western schools that the Second World War was basically a good vs. evil battle - "Free and democratic forces of Britain (with a bit of help from USA) fought against the racist and murderous regime of Nazi Germany, liberating Europe along the way". This is the way British government, British textbooks, both of the British media style World War II.

Of course, this omits to mention that 80% of the fighting in WWII was done by Stalinist USSR (which lost about 18 million people, British/French/America losses total just over 1 million - see here for the stats: http://worldwar2database.com/html/frame5.html). The Eastern front was a much more important theater of conflict than the Western front. Equally important, it fails to mention that the Stalinist regime was not "free" nor "democratic". It would be silly to attempt a comparison of whether Nazi Germany or Stalinist USSR was more "evil", both committed terrible atrocities.

If we consider this, WWII is more about a clash between two autocratic, heavily militarised, powers than a clash between democracy and dictatorship on world scale. You can really see this when you visit the Baltics, where 1945 did not mean liberation and the beginning of a post-war boom economy helped by Marshall Aid, as it did for West Germany, France, Belgium etc. Rather WWII and its eventual result paved the way for a dark fifty years of oppression.

I think that what we need is more mutual understanding on both sides here. Westerners need to accept that the idea WWII was a clash of good/evil to be a myth (a very hard pill for many to swallow); this will help them understand the complex set of attitudes in the Baltics to Nazi Germany. Estonians need to understand that Nazi Germany was not a benign regime that would have helped their country (do they really think that Hitler's domestic policies would have been any nicer than Stalin's?).

Greater education about WWII and the willingness to sacrifice our myths will help us put this terrible atrocity behind us and prevent something similar happening again.

[Loiks]

If I return to the topic: BTW in early 1980's our family watched only Finnish tv. You were nobody in the kindergarten if you hadn't seen the last episode of Knight Rider or MacGyver last evening, all the games were about it, at first my mother translated the Finnish subtitles, afterwards I started to read myself. At school all the boys had their hair done as MacGyver .

At the same time there were Russian speaking kids at the other corner who couldn't possibly share those games of us, the only Russian words I learned from kindergarten were 'perestann' and 'uhhadii' and one mongolite looking girl Tanja who hit me with a toy pot so I was bleeding .

So, Northern Estonia kind of lived mentally in Finland, envying this wonderful world of commercials of Mainostelevisio and bying blue-jeans from Finnish tourists. The ferry to Finland (m/s Georg Ots) was a ship to heaven! (now there are tens of ships of every size and kind, the Tallinn-Helsinki line is one of the busiest in Europe, there are even dreams about a railway tunnel).

Being a relative has also some dark sides. Tartu university produces doctors for Finnish hospitals. Finland has a crisis of labour force, who would be more suitable for that than Estonians that have the least of all problems to learn the language? (Of course, they have this bottomless labour force market of Russia, and in some funny way in Finland they ARE able to learn the language .) But the demografic situation is even worse in Estonia, when Estonian builders work in Finland there are Polish builders here. OK, there were Polish farmhands even in 1930's here but it is a big problem now. We just can't have any foreign investments any more because we have nobody to be employed

[Loiks]

What I wanted to underline: NO FASCISM OR NAZIS! Just wanting to be ourselves! (despite all the Russian speaking media wants to say)

I can sympathise with this. It's very strange, though, when you encounter Estonians (as I did) who openly and proudly say that "My grandfather fought for Hitler". It's a huge taboo subject in the West and I was shocked and horrified to hear that. But let me go on to explain why.

There is this master narrative taught in Western schools that the Second World War was basically a good vs. evil battle - "Free and democratic forces of Britain (with a bit of help from USA) fought against the racist and murderous regime of Nazi Germany, liberating Europe along the way". This is the way British government, British textbooks, both of the British media style World War II.

Of course, this omits to mention that 80% of the fighting in WWII was done by Stalinist USSR (which lost about 18 million people, British/French/America losses total just over 1 million - see here for the stats: http://worldwar2database.com/html/frame5.html). The Eastern front was a much more important theater of conflict than the Western front. Equally important, it fails to mention that the Stalinist regime was not "free" nor "democratic". It would be silly to attempt a comparison of whether Nazi Germany or Stalinist USSR was more "evil", both committed terrible atrocities.

If we consider this, WWII is more about a clash between two autocratic, heavily militarised, powers than a clash between democracy and dictatorship on world scale. You can really see this when you visit the Baltics, where 1945 did not mean liberation and the beginning of a post-war boom economy helped by Marshall Aid, as it did for West Germany, France, Belgium etc. Rather WWII and its eventual result paved the way for a dark fifty years of oppression.

I think that what we need is more mutual understanding on both sides here. Westerners need to accept that the idea WWII was a clash of good/evil to be a myth (a very hard pill for many to swallow); this will help them understand the complex set of attitudes in the Baltics to Nazi Germany. Estonians need to understand that Nazi Germany was not a benign regime that would have helped their country (do they really think that Hitler's domestic policies would have been any nicer than Stalin's?).

Greater education about WWII and the willingness to sacrifice our myths will help us put this terrible atrocity behind us and prevent something similar happening again.

You have still this misunderstanding that Finland was an axis power! The Winterwar was a defensive war against Soviet aggression! The Jatkusota (Continuation War - is it in English?) was an attempt to get back the occupied territories of Karelia, but maybe the Finns went just too far with it. They really never declared themselves as allies of The Reich. They just unfortunately had common enemy. The Anglo-American world worshiped Oncle Joe with his pipe but nobody didn't want to see his dark sides.

Then again, the losses of Estonia or other nations which are shown under SU are not separately shown. Those numbers should be shown in percentage. And nobody counts the fact that cultural and economical elite was partly killed, deported or fled to Sweden or via Sweden to USA/Canada or Australia and the traditional way of life changed into stupidities.

[maxcrylov]

I'm considering renaming the thread

Loiks, sorry for misspelling. I'm not so hot in Dutch, and our media tend to make anecdotes about our head coach GUUS Hiddink and Jelle GOES which are pronounced in Russia much the same. I thought it's spelled the same

Okay, folks, I've promised I'll abstain from any politics commentaries any further. Just one correction - not Stalinist USSR, but USSR if you're talking about who fought fascism. It's a tricky question about us Russians. When you're discussing repressions of 1932-1953, you're welcome - it's Stalinist regime in Stalinist USSR (just as "big jump policy" in Maoist China), but the war was fought by Soviet people. Stalin is one to be blamed in this special case for huge losses in 1941 and irresponsible military offensive early in 1942 (operation "URAN").

I'm started being seen somewhat anti-Russian by my peers Even my girlfriend says I'm the victim of Western propaganda.
Well, it's my view. Not that my family suffered from repressions too much. But if they start infringing on my freedom of opinion (which I don't see here yet - infringement I mean - European media are too gloomy about Putin, he's a leader indeed, unlike that idiot Yeltsin they praise so much; it's just not advisable to think here at all - watch and believe ) I'll defend it till the last drop of blood. I love my country.

Go on guys

By the way, Zorba, you're a native English speaker... I'd like to ask you whether my English is okay. I'm under impression that it's too official and all... Dull to read and listen to

Elagu demokraatlik Eesti ja tema rahvas!

[geoff]

I spent a weekend in Tallinn after three months in Finland, so I knew some basic Finnish. I wasn't brave enough (or proficient enough) to use Finnish in daily life in Finland yet, but for some reason I thought I could try and use Finnish while in Tallinn. Let's just say it wasn't very successful

In the end I guess it depends on the individuals you end up interacting with, but if you have broken Finnish with a strong Russian accent (I have no idea how good your Finnish is) I don't think you generally need bother trying to speak Finnish in Estonia.

I didn't know a word of Russian back then, so I didn't pay any attention to that aspect. I guess I got on well enough in English, but then I was there with friends and we kept to ourselves most of the time, walking through the winter wonderland of christmassy Tallinn.

geoff

[Sergei]

Loiks, so, Estonians of older generations generally keep very negative memories from the Soviet time?
I am wondering about that because here, in Belarus, many people in their forties and fifties have quite good memories about that time. OK, in the 30-40's it was probably terrible: war, repressions... But in Brezhnev time, these people (like my parents) were young, they just lived and enjoyed the life... they say there were just two problems: very hard to go abroad, and pretty low choice of goods in shops. But in general there was nothing terrible as Westerners probably think about the USSR.

European media are too gloomy about Putin, he's a leader indeed, unlike that idiot Yeltsin they praise so much; it's just not advisable to think here at all - watch and believe

Yeah, that's true, Yeltsin's rule was a shame. But look, Western propaganda really does exist. It would be naive to claim that only dictatorships and authoritarian regimes brainwash people with the help of media. Democracies do it as well, absolutely. Probably they in the West are afraid to see a strong Russia, that's why they like presidents like Yeltsin because during his "reign" there was a total chaos in the country.
I mean, basically, in the West they don't care about us, they don't care about democracy in our countries, they do care only about their own interests and that's pretty logical...

[Sergei]

Loiks, and regarding war. Yeah I understand it that it was really hard for small Estonia to choose between two evils. But nowadays, Russian media likes to report that in Tallin, some parades of Nazi-veterans, very old people, take place, and some monuments to fascists have been built. Is it true? Yeah, I know that Russian media is biased against all ex-Soviet republics, but still I don't think it's normal if the government kind of gives honour to Nazis...

[maxcrylov]

I go on abstaining from comments

You may say what you want, I like Jaak Joala...

Я рисую,
я тебя рисую,
я тебя рисую,
сидя у окна...

Пусть образ твой
Хранят года,
Теперь со мной
Ты навсегда!..

[Sergei]

Getting closer to the origianl topic, I want to ask a question. When Estonians and Finns meet, what language they usually speak? English, or some Estonian-Finnish mixture will do?

[Loiks]

Loiks, and regarding war. Yeah I understand it that it was really hard for small Estonia to choose between two evils. But nowadays, Russian media likes to report that in Tallin, some parades of Nazi-veterans, very old people, take place, and some monuments to fascists have been built. Is it true? Yeah, I know that Russian media is biased against all ex-Soviet republics, but still I don't think it's normal if the government kind of gives honour to Nazis...

No monuments to Nazis have been or are to be built. There are some monuments for Estonians and men from other nations that fought in German military forces, either Wehrmacht or Waffen-SS. Those are monuments just to remember dead soldiers who had nothing to do with the Nazi ideology. Those monuments are on cemeteries and at some places major battles took place. One monument that had nazi-symbolics on it was taken down after some days in Lihula couple of years ago by the government!

The reason why this monument for Soviet soldiers is likely to be removed to some other place is that some Russian speaking people are used to openly drink vodka and show their hatred against the Republic of Estonia on days like May 9 or Nov 7 etc. Drinking is prohibited in open places and so are every kind of actions that provoke hatred on somebody for his/her nationality. We have already seen the reaction: some Estonian skinheads and other half idiots show their opinions. This monument has just too different meanings for two communities to let it stay in the very centre of the city.

I don't actually understand exactly what the official Moscow has in mind when speaking about growing and spreading fascism and nazism in EE and LV. Already during Soviet time we were always 'fašisty' for Russians, so it doesn't actually surprise anybody. Latin alphabet + Lutheran church = German = fascist and that's it.

[Loiks]

Getting closer to the origianl topic, I want to ask a question. When Estonians and Finns meet, what language they usually speak? English, or some Estonian-Finnish mixture will do?

It depends on whether the Estonian speaks some Finnish or not, if he/she does, the conversation goes usually in Finnish. It can be very bad and stiff Finnish on our side, but is understood. If the Estonian doesn't speak any Finnish we speak English. Nowadays some Finns have started to speak Estonian. Then I guess it depends on in which country you are, it would be polite to speak Finnish in Finland and Estonian in Estonia (at least I have done so with my friends). The rule is that Estonians know more about Finland and the language as vice versa.

Official meetings are held in English though to underline the equality of the languages, I think.

[Sergei]

Loiks, ok, thanks for the explanation, now I understand more about some things in Estonua, because to trust Russian media only wouldn't make any sense, they are pretty much biased and not objective.
Regarding Estonians and Finns: in which country do you think English is spoken better? There's an opinion that Finns are (almost) all excellent English speakers just like Swedes and Danes but from my experience, it's not always so. Couple of years ago Finnish junior hockey team played in Minsk, and after the game I wanted to take some post-match comments from Finnish players. These guys (18-19 year old) were very bad in English! THey struggled to make up even the simplest sentenses.
However, players of football HJK, who also played with our Gomel in 2002, spoke pretty good English. So it all depends somehow.

[maxcrylov]

Tervist!

So finally the motion comes back again to Finnish/Estonian (or Estonian/Finnish) language relations

As for me, this is already a bit out of date. Today I finally got an ESTONIAN COURSEBOOK
It's gonna ruin this forum, since I'll flood it up with my mistakes (and heavy Russian accent - thanks Loiks ).

It's "Räägime eesti keelt" by Helmi Leberecht... A bit old perhaps but still it's more than enough for the beginning.

As for Finnish and Estonian... It's a very good question indeed, how Finns and Estonians counteract in terms of the language. Thanks to Loiks for information again.

Ilusat päeva, guys

[Loiks]

Regarding Estonians and Finns: in which country do you think English is spoken better? There's an opinion that Finns are (almost) all excellent English speakers just like Swedes and Danes but from my experience, it's not always so. Couple of years ago Finnish junior hockey team played in Minsk, and after the game I wanted to take some post-match comments from Finnish players. These guys (18-19 year old) were very bad in English! THey struggled to make up even the simplest sentenses.
However, players of football HJK, who also played with our Gomel in 2002, spoke pretty good English. So it all depends somehow.

Very hard to estimate the skills of any foreign language of a whole nation. It depends so much on education, profession, interests etc of a person. I guess the skills of English of both nations are about equal if you take people of the age of 15-40. Older Estonians may have learned English at school but haven't had any practice when they were young, so now they've forgotten a lot and are just afraid to speak. One disadvantage regarding the Scandinavians that both Estonians and Finns share is that native languages don't help learning English or any other Indo-European languages. But English is pretty much a related language for a Swede, isn't it?

I've never spoken English with a Finn though, so I don't know exactly.

[Loiks]

Tervist!

As for me, this is already a bit out of date. Today I finally got an ESTONIAN COURSEBOOK
It's gonna ruin this forum, since I'll flood it up with my mistakes (and heavy Russian accent - thanks Loiks ).

It's "Räägime eesti keelt" by Helmi Leberecht... A bit old perhaps but still it's more than enough for the beginning.

Ilusat päeva, guys

Tervist!

Can you tell when this book has been published? I hope the first words are not kolhoos and sovhoos ?

[maxcrylov]

Tere, seltsimees Laugen!
Sorry, I just couldn't avoid kidding a bit.

It's exactly what you're afraid of. Now I'm learning the verb töötama on examples like "sa ei tööta kolhoosis"
Something like "elagu Nõukogude Liit"...
It's 1983. Published in Tallinn.
But I'm the happiest man on Earth, certainly I didn't hope to find anything.

By the way, I still ain't sure about the way Tallinn must be written in Russian. Таллинн или Таллин? In Soviet times it was Таллин only. Though it's a mistake. One "n" I mean.