The language shift of South Estonian speakers during the Soviet period
Triin Todesk (University of Tartu)
22.04.2024, 14:15–15:45
Ludwigstraße 31, room 327
This will be the introduction of a case study, an article to appear in 2024 based on an online survey about the language shift of Võro and Seto speakers and their attitudes towards Võro/Seto. In our survey, we concentrated on the mechanisms of intergenerational language transmission, i.e., whom have the different generations acquired their Võro/Seto proficiency from and how many have passed the language on to their children; how much has the language use of parents affected whether and how much a person speaks Võro/Seto with their children, etc. The results of the survey reveal that a steady language shift from Võro/Seto to Estonian has been in progress since the 1960ies. Võro and Seto were moved to the background as granny-languages that had no consistent use, resulting in the language being acquired only partially and not sufficiently to be later transmitted to the speaker’s own children.
This talk is part of Triin Todesk's lecture series Regional varieties in Estonia at LMU.