Estonian Between German and Russian: Facts and Fiction About Language Interference

Abstract

German and Russian are the most important contact languages for Estonian. While the German influence has been described at different levels in several monographs (e.g. Ariste 1940, Pauley 1980, Hinderung 1981, Hasselblatt 1990) and numerous articles, the Russian influence still lacks a profound analysis. Some work has been done in the field of loanwords (e.g. Magiste 1962, Seppet 1983), but most of the work seems to lie before us.