xBlackHeartx wrote:Nouns taking grammatical endings for case obviously force a language to have all its nouns (or at least their nominative form) end with a limited set of endings.
xBlackHeartx wrote:Is this the way all languages with grammatical case deal with foreign names?
As was already mentioned, not all languages with grammatical case require nominative forms to end with a limited set of endings. It sounds to me as though your question may have more to do with endings that indicate gender as opposed to endings that indicate case?
The nominative case is not an issue for foreign names in Estonian, because the nominative case can have pretty much any ending. There is no gender, but there are a variety of word classes. Estonian does need rules for how to deal with foreign words in the non-nominative cases, because it has to be able to add suffixes onto the genitive stem.
Estonian:
- If the name ends with a vowel, that vowel is used for the nominative
and genitive case and all cases that use the genitive stem
- If the name ends with a consonant, a vowel is added for the genitive case (etc). As with all Estonian words, the specific vowel that should be used must be learned (this is where the word classes come in, or just plain memorization). Often, but not always, with foreign names the vowel is -i.
Exceptions to the above:
- If the name ends with a
silent consonant, the genitive case will end with an apostrophe, and other cases will end with an apostrophe followed by the case ending (note that apostrophes are not used this way in native Estonian names or words)
- If the name ends with a
silent vowel, an apostrophe + vowel (
'i) is added for all cases except nominative, followed by the case ending (again, apostrophes are not used this way in native names/words)
nominative: Jessica, Mary, Mark, Eric, Andrew, Shakespeare, Youtube
genitive: Jessica, Mary, Marki, Ericu, Andrew', Shakespeare'i, Youtube'i
partitive: Jessicat, Maryt, Marki, Ericut, Andrew'd, Shakespeare'i, Youtube'i
illative: Jessicasse, Marysse, Markisse, Ericusse, Andrew'sse, Shakespeare'isse, Youtube'isse
ablative: Jessicalt, Marylt, Markilt, Ericult, Andrew'lt, Shakespeare'ilt, Youtube'ilt
(There are 14 cases, but the 9 that I'm not listing all work pretty much the same way as the last two, with different endings)There are situations in which consonant gradation applies (New York > New Yorgi) and some names of biblical figures and historical figures have their own Estonian versions:
nominative: New York, Jeesus
genitive: New Yorgi, Jeesuse
partitive: New Yorki, Jeesust
illative: New Yorgisse, Jeesusesse
ablative: New Yorgilt, Jeesuselt
Except for the names of historical figures (which were in some cases given Estonian forms in the past), the names are written the way they are in their native language. For example, above there are the examples Mary, Eric, and Andrew. The Estonian alphabet doesn't have the letters y, c, or w, but it keeps them in foreign names. It also doesn't have silent letters, but keeps them in foreign names if they exist in the source language.