SAUCE – What is a nightless night? What is its opposite?
We are at Saue high school in Tallinn’s neighboring municipality, a good ten kilometers from the center of the capital. The class is tested by the teacher Piret Meresma.
About twenty students ponder the meaning of the nightless night. Just a year ago at this time, they were in the last grade of elementary school and were studying Russian as a B language.
Now they have studied almost a school year’s worth of Finnish. The motivation buds are in the southeast, unlike before.
– I really didn’t want to be Russian anymore, 17 years old Sander Kask gusts on break.
Studying Russian was not popular among Estonian youth before, but the Russian attack on Ukraine completely destroyed its reputation.
However, Russian has been an easy choice for schools until now as a B language. Unlike other languages, there have been enough Russian teachers. A little over 300,000 native speakers of Russian live in Estonia.
The law change forces schools out of their comfort zone
B-language means a second foreign language starting in the 6th grade in Estonia. In theory, it could have been any language. In practice, until last year, only Russian was available as a B language for 83 percent of schoolchildren.
Now the Education Act has been changed. Starting in the fall, all schools must offer at least two B language options.
– A new boom in the Finnish language has begun, Piret Meresma estimates.
Currently, you can study Finnish in nine Estonian schools. In the fall, the number will at least double, as more and more schools want Finnish in their language selection.
The change has been so fast that there is already a shortage of Finnish teachers.
Even in the 1990s, a large part of Estonians knew some Finnish, because Finnish TV channels were diligently watched in Northern Estonia. However, after the turn of the millennium, the popularity of Finnish and the number of people who know Finnish have been in sharp decline.
– The generations that have grown up with no longer dominate. England has taken over everything, says Meresma.
“Like learning your mother tongue”
16-year-old Mia Sinella Mitt is at home in Finnish class. His maternal grandfather was Finnish, so Mitti’s mother also speaks Finnish.
Mitt himself grew up speaking Estonian. He feels that his mother’s knowledge of the Finnish language is useful, for example, in expanding his vocabulary.
– Learning Finnish is quite easy. If you know Estonian, it’s easy because they are so similar as languages, he states.
His classmate Sander Kask agrees. He didn’t speak Finnish either until last fall.
– I understood to a certain extent, because my parents speak Finnish when we visit Finnish family friends, Kask says.
Finland has proven to be very easy.
– It’s so close to Estonian that it feels like you’re studying your mother tongue. Except that it’s new, Kask laughs.
In addition to certain grammar rules, students think the most difficult part of studying Finnish are “mistakes”. That is, words that mistakenly mean one thing in Estonian and completely different in Finnish.
– Estonians often think that there is no need to learn Finnish, as long as you put a little longer endings, and that’s it. However, similarity is also a challenge, says Piret Meresma.
For example, the word “castle” has aroused hilarity among young people from Saue. In Estonian, “linna” does not mean a castle or a prison, but “of the city” or “to the city”.
Another funny-sounding word from Estonians is bald. In Estonian, “kalju” is a rock and is also a fairly common male name.
– That’s what keeps you laughing when someone bald Balju goes to visit Finland, Meresma smiles.
The subject can be discussed until Saturday 10 June 2023 at 23:00.