The document discusses the unique experience of language planning for Estonian in the EU. It outlines that Estonian is a small Baltic Finnic language with around one million speakers, and is the sole official language of Estonia. It describes the various organizations that work to develop, standardize, and promote Estonian, including establishing terminology and translating EU documents. Some challenges discussed are translating emotionally charged English phrases and broad concepts into more rational and concrete Estonian equivalents. The goal of EU language planning for Estonian is to enhance clear language usage in Estonian EU texts.

1. Unique Experience of the
Estonian Language Planning
in the EU Texts
Katre Kasemets
Katrin Hallik
Institute of the Estonian Language
Lisbon 2010 | October 13

3. The Estonian language
• Baltic Finnic branch of the Uralic languages
• Along with Icelandic, Estonian is one of the
smallest languages in the world that fulfils all
the functions necessary for a state to
"perform" linguistically

4. The Estonian language
• One million speakers
• The only official language in Estonia, also
in local government and state institutions

5. The Estonian language
• Teaching, at both primary school and
university level, is in Estonian; it is also the
language of modern science (including
molecular biology, computer science,
semiotics, etc.)

6. The Estonian language
• Small number of speakers has enabled to
establish solid rules for language planning
• Yet, terminology planning is a self-regulating
process in Estonia
• No governing official body whose decision about
Estonian terminology could become binding to
the users

7. Strategy for the Development
of the Estonian Language
2004–2010
The aim is to protect the Estonian language
and to guarantee its sustainable development
and create necessary conditions for its
functioning in all walks of life on the whole
territory of Estonia

8. The National Programme for
Estonian Terminology
2008–2012
• 30 terminology committees in different fields
• 10 regular terminology committees, for
instance the committees of military
terminology and education terminology

9. Estonian Terminology
Association ETER
• Founded in 2001
• A member of EAFT
• Compilation of terminological dictionaries
• Co-ordination of terminology work
• Participation in international terminology co-
operation

10. The Estonian Legal Language
Centre (1995–2006)
• Translation of Estonian legislation into English
• Translation of EU legislation into Estonian
• Creation and administration of a full-text
database of legal translations and of a
terminology database
• Publicly available databases

11. The Institute of the
Estonian Language
• Founded in 1947
• Planning and development of standard Estonian
• Compilation of dictionaries
• Creation and development of language technological
tools supporting the use of Estonian
• Research of modern Estonian usage
• Estonian language history
• Estonian dialects and its cognate languages

12. The Institute of the
Estonian Language
• ~ 70 people
• 5 departments:
Linguistics and Language Technology
Dictionaries
Finno-Ugric Languages and Dialects
Terminology
Language Planning

13. EU language planning
• EU language planning at the Institute of the
Estonian Language since May, 2008
• Complementary language training for the
translators of the Estonian language working in
the EU institutions
• Annual workshops for freelance translators
working in Estonia

14. EU language planning
• Linguistic and terminological consultation
• Co-operation with universities:
- research on eurolanguage and lectures on
good language usage
- supervision of Master students of
translation

15. EU language planning
• Compilation and publication of linguistic
support materials and brochures:
"The Language of the European Union
as Our Common Language"
"Is It Possible To Use Clear and Simple
Language in Eurotexts?"

16. EU language planning
• Homepage of the EU language planning
and terminology: up-to-date information,
linguistic and terminological consultation,
forum for translators etc.
eurokeelehoole.eki.ee

18. EU language planning
• Close co-operation between translators,
experts and linguists via the Permanent
Representation of Estonia to the EU
• Since 2005 regular terminology meetings of
the Estonian units of the EU institutions

19. EU language planning
• It is a paradox that often the translated EU
texts present a better linguistic quality than the
original legislative documents in Estonian
composed by Estonian officials and lawyers

21. English as a modern
lingua franca
• English is no longer the property of native speakers
but belongs to everyone who speaks it
• Native speakers of English may feel that the
language belongs to them, but it will be those who
speak English as a second or foreign language who
will determine its world future (Graddol 1997)

22. English as a modern
lingua franca
• EU texts are standardized in terms of terminology and
structure. This results in the creation of "hybrid" texts –
translations that are neither source-culture-bound nor
target-culture-oriented (Trosborg 1997)
• The EU has already left its mark on the linguistic
development of the languages of its member states by
imposing its own linguistic culture and conventions

23. English as a modern
lingua franca
• The semantic as well as grammatical structure of
Estonian as a Finno-Ugric language is different
from the Indo-European English (no future tense,
preference of singular forms, no gender etc.)
• Estonian offers more concrete and rational
equivalents for notions

24. English as a modern
lingua franca
• Strongly emotionally colored expressions in
eurotexts cannot often be literally translated
into Estonian – they seem ridiculous in an
official register (i.e. dramatic and drastic), and
need to be replaced with more neutral
synonyms

25. English as a modern
lingua franca – empowerment
• OED says that empowerment was used already in
the 17th century
• Empowerment – a floating concept which means
different things in different organizations and,
further, means different things to different people
within those organisations (Nicola Denham Lincoln
et al.)

26. English as a modern
lingua franca – empowerment
• In eurotexts this term has various Estonian
equivalents and none of them is exact
• Estonian defines the notions in a more
rational way, diffused notions with a wide
range of additional meanings is usually
causing problems for Estonian translators

27. English as a modern
lingua franca – flexicurity
• Flexicurity (a portmanteau of flexibility and
security) is a welfare state model with a pro-
active labour market policy. The term was first
coined by the Prime Minister of Denmark P. N.
Rasmussen in the 1990s

28. English as a modern
lingua franca – flexicurity
• The definition of the term shows how much content
can be encompassed by one term in English
• That is why a convenient Estonian equivalent has
not yet been coined and the translators are
creating new bureaucratic jargon constantly trying
to find equivalents to globalised terms

29. Vision and objective of the EU
language planning
• To enhance clear language usage in Estonian
EU-texts and to facilitate through this the
general idea of good language usage in
Estonian legislation

30. Eurogiggle
• Switzerland's finance minister collapsed into a fit
of giggles as he tried to read the unintelligible
bureaucratic language in his report while
answering a parliamentary question about imports
of cured meats
• http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ps6e_toM26I&f
eature=related

31. Obrigado!
Thank you for your attention!
Aitäh!

32. Katrin.Hallik@eki.ee
Katre.Kasemets@eki.ee