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56-677: The Civic Club building, now the New York Estonian House ( Estonian : New Yorgi Eesti Maja ), is a four-story Beaux-Arts building located at 243 East 34th Street between Second and Third Avenues in the Murray Hill neighborhood of Manhattan in New York City . The house was originally built for the Civic Club in 1898–1899, having been designed by Brooklyn architect Thomas A. Gray. The Civic Club

112-697: A $ 100,000 restoration in 1992. Known as the Estonian House ( Eesti Maja ), the building houses a number of Estonian organizations such as the New York Estonian School ( New Yorgi Eesti Kool ), choruses for men and women and a folk dancing group. Vaba Eesti Sõna , the largest Estonian-language newspaper in the United States, is also published at the New York Estonian House. The Estonian House has become

168-455: A broad classical education and knew Ancient Greek , Latin and French . Consider roim 'crime' versus English crime or taunima 'to condemn, disapprove' versus Finnish tuomita 'to condemn, to judge' (these Aavikisms appear in Aavik's 1921 dictionary). These words might be better regarded as a peculiar manifestation of morpho-phonemic adaptation of a foreign lexical item. Article 1 of

224-595: A patriotic and Christian courtly entertainment. The Livonian Chronicle of Henry utilizes two major points of justification for the conquest of Livonia: that it was the Land of the Virgin Mary, which began after Bishop Meinhard , the first Bishop who attempted to spread Christianity to Livonia, established a Cult of Mary convent in Livonia. Following this, Albert of Riga also helped perpetuate this association by naming

280-598: A patriotic work by the 12th-century Danish historian Saxo Grammaticus – and few mentions in the Primary Chronicle compiled in Kievan Rus' , the Chronicle of Henry is the oldest known written document about the history of Estonia and Latvia. Papal calls for renewed holy war at the end of the twelfth century inspired not only the disastrous Fourth Crusade that sacked Constantinople in 1204, but also

336-620: A series of simultaneous " Northern Crusades " that are less fully covered in English-language popular history, but which were more successful in the long run. Before the crusades, the region of medieval Livonia was a mixed outpost, a mostly "pagan" society where merchants from the Hanseatic League encountered merchants of Novgorod , and where Teutonic, Scandinavian, and Slavic trade, culture, and cults all mingled. The specific ethnic groups that intermingled and traded with

392-542: A thoroughly German and Catholic education and as a youth was attached to the household of the Prince-Bishop Albert of Buxhoeveden , later known as Albert of Riga, who was ordained a priest in 1208 and who founded a parish and lived out his life in peace. Henry most likely wrote the Chronicle of Livonia in dedication to Albert of Buxhoeveden, who died in 1229, likely around the same time that this chronicle

448-737: Is a bilingual German-Estonian translation of the Lutheran catechism by S.   Wanradt and J.   Koell dating to 1535, during the Protestant Reformation period. An Estonian grammar book to be used by priests was printed in German in 1637. The New Testament was translated into the variety of South Estonian called Võro in 1686 (northern Estonian, 1715). The two languages were united based on Northern Estonian by Anton thor Helle . Writings in Estonian became more significant in

504-485: Is available through Columbia University Press. The author of the chronicle is Henry of Latvia ( Henricus de Lettis ). Henry was a Catholic priest who witnessed most of the events described in the chronicle. He was born between 1180 and 1188, most likely in Germany. He bears a German forename and consistently refers to Germans in the first person plural although it is also possible that he came from Livonia. Henry also had

560-734: Is based on central dialects, it has no vowel harmony either. In the standard language, the front vowels occur exclusively on the first or stressed syllable, although vowel harmony is still apparent in older texts. Typologically, Estonian represents a transitional form from an agglutinating language to a fusional language . The canonical word order is SVO (subject–verb–object), although often debated among linguists. In Estonian, nouns and pronouns do not have grammatical gender , but nouns and adjectives decline in fourteen cases: nominative , genitive , partitive , illative , inessive , elative , allative , adessive , ablative , translative , terminative , essive , abessive , and comitative , with

616-457: Is extensive, and this has made its inflectional morphology markedly more fusional , especially with respect to noun and adjective inflection. The transitional form from an agglutinating to a fusional language is a common feature of Estonian typologically over the course of history with the development of a rich morphological system. Word order is considerably more flexible than in English, but

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672-758: Is pronounced [æ], as in English mat . The vowels Ä, Ö and Ü are clearly separate phonemes and inherent in Estonian, although the letter shapes come from German. The letter õ denotes /ɤ/ , unrounded /o/ , or a close-mid back unrounded vowel . It is almost identical to the Bulgarian ъ /ɤ̞/ and the Vietnamese ơ , and is also used to transcribe the Russian ы . Additionally C , Q , W , X , and Y are used in writing foreign proper names . They do not occur in Estonian words , and are not officially part of

728-492: Is pronounced) and in the use of 'i' and 'j'. Where it is very impractical or impossible to type š and ž , they are replaced by sh and zh in some written texts, although this is considered incorrect. Otherwise, the h in sh represents a voiceless glottal fricative , as in Pasha ( pas-ha ); this also applies to some foreign names. Modern Estonian orthography is based on the "Newer orthography" created by Eduard Ahrens in

784-757: The idamurre or eastern dialect on the northwestern shore of Lake Peipus . One of the pronunciation features of the Saaremaa dialect is the lack of the 'õ' vowel. A five-metre monument erected in 2020, marking the "border" between the vowels 'õ' and 'ö', humorously makes reference to this fact. South Estonian consists of the Tartu, Mulgi, Võro and Seto varieties. These are sometimes considered either variants of South Estonian or separate languages altogether. Also, Seto and Võro distinguish themselves from each other less by language and more by their culture and their respective Christian confession. Estonian employs

840-497: The Livonian Chronicle of Henry contains Estonian place names, words and fragments of sentences. The earliest extant samples of connected (north) Estonian are the so-called Kullamaa prayers dating from 1524 and 1528. In 1525 the first book published in Estonian was printed. The book was a Lutheran manuscript, which never reached the reader and was destroyed immediately after publication. The first extant Estonian book

896-567: The Novgorod First Chronicle . The Livonian Chronicle of Henry has been highlighted for the purpose of understanding the complexities of crusading ideology because it describes the religious motives used to justify the crusade as well as alluding to the potential economic and political benefits that were existent in the Christianization of Livonia by mentioning the fact that there were merchants who were present in

952-655: The Universal Declaration of Human Rights in Estonian and English: Livonian Chronicle of Henry The Livonian Chronicle of Henry ( Latin : Heinrici Cronicon Lyvoniae ) is a Latin narrative of events in Livonia (roughly corresponding to today's Estonia and the northern part of Latvia ) and surrounding areas from 1180 to 1227. It was written c.  1229 by a priest named Henry . Apart from some references in Gesta Danorum –

1008-643: The Baltic Sea and in northwestern Russia. Estonian is typically subclassified as a Southern Finnic language, and it is the second-most-spoken language among all the Finnic languages. Alongside Finnish, Hungarian , and Maltese , Estonian is one of the four official languages of the European Union that are not Indo-European languages . In terms of linguistic morphology , Estonian is a predominantly agglutinative language . The loss of word-final sounds

1064-712: The Germanic languages have very different origins and the vocabulary is considered quite different from that of the Indo-European family, one can identify many similar words in Estonian and English, for example. This is primarily because Estonian has borrowed nearly one-third of its vocabulary from Germanic languages, mainly from Low Saxon ( Middle Low German ) during the period of German rule , and High German (including standard German ). The percentage of Low Saxon and High German loanwords can be estimated at 22–25 percent, with Low Saxon making up about 15 percent. Prior to

1120-581: The Latin script as the basis for its alphabet . The script adds the letters ä , ö , ü , and õ , plus the later additions š and ž . The letters c , q , w , x and y are limited to proper names of foreign origin, and f , z , š , and ž appear in loanwords and foreign names only. Ö and Ü are pronounced similarly to their equivalents in Swedish and German. Unlike in standard German but like Swedish (when followed by 'r') and Finnish, Ä

1176-536: The Proto-Finnic language , elision has occurred; thus, the actual case marker may be absent, but the stem is changed, cf. maja – majja and the Ostrobothnia dialect of Finnish maja – majahan . The verbal system has no distinct future tense (the present tense serves here) and features special forms to express an action performed by an undetermined subject (the "impersonal"). Although Estonian and

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1232-485: The 1870s to the 1890s) tried to use formation ex nihilo ( Urschöpfung ); i.e. they created new words out of nothing. The most well-known reformer of Estonian, Johannes Aavik (1880–1973), used creations ex nihilo (cf. 'free constructions', Tauli 1977), along with other sources of lexical enrichment such as derivations, compositions and loanwords (often from Finnish; cf. Saareste and Raun 1965: 76). In Aavik's dictionary (1921) lists approximately 4000 words. About 40 of

1288-553: The 18th and 19th centuries based on the dialects of northern Estonia. During the Medieval and Early Modern periods, Estonian accepted many loanwords from Germanic languages , mainly from Middle Low German (Middle Saxon) and, after the 16th-century Protestant Reformation , from the Standard German language. Estonia's oldest written records of the Finnic languages date from the 13th century. The "Originates Livoniae" in

1344-926: The 1930s. There are 9 vowels and 36 diphthongs , 28 of which are native to Estonian. All nine vowels can appear as the first component of a diphthong, but only /ɑ e i o u/ occur as the second component. A vowel characteristic of Estonian is the unrounded back vowel /ɤ/, which may be close-mid back , close back , or close-mid central . Word-initial b, d, g occur only in loanwords and some old loanwords are spelled with p, t, k instead of etymological b, d, g : pank 'bank'. Word-medially and word-finally, b, d, g represent short plosives /p, t, k/ (may be pronounced as partially voiced consonants), p, t, k represent half-long plosives /pː, tː, kː/, and pp, tt, kk represent overlong plosives /pːː, tːː, kːː/; for example: kabi /kɑpi/ 'hoof' — kapi /kɑpːi/ 'wardrobe [ gen sg ] — kappi /kɑpːːi/ 'wardrobe [ ptv sg ]'. Before and after b, p, d, t, g, k, s, h, f, š, z, ž ,

1400-524: The 19th century during the Estophile Enlightenment Period (1750–1840). The birth of native Estonian literature was during the period 1810–1820, when the patriotic and philosophical poems by Kristjan Jaak Peterson were published. Peterson, who was the first student to acknowledge his Estonian origin at the then German-language University of Dorpat , is commonly regarded as a herald of Estonian national literature and considered

1456-490: The 200 words created by Johannes Aavik allegedly ex nihilo are in common use today. Examples are * ese 'object', * kolp 'skull', * liibuma 'to cling', * naasma 'to return, come back', * nõme 'stupid, dull'. Many of the coinages that have been considered (often by Aavik himself) as words concocted ex nihilo could well have been influenced by foreign lexical items; for example, words from Russian , German , French , Finnish , English and Swedish . Aavik had

1512-405: The Christianization of Livonia. This concerned the people of Livonia, who then plotted to kill Theoderich, which proved unsuccessful but increased German mistrust after Theodoric the plot's discovery. When Pope Innocent III gave absolution of sin to those who went to aid in the Christianization of Livonia, Henry makes the association between the lands of Livonia and Jerusalem by stating, "In enjoining

1568-589: The Episcopal Cathedral in Livonia as the church of the Virgin Mary in the early 1200s. The second main justification was that Livonia was comparable to Jerusalem. Pope Innocent III granted the absolution of sins for those making a pilgrimage to Livonia after tensions arose between the German Christians and the pagans. Bishop Meinhard had attempted to convert the pagans without success and also appointed Theoderich von Treyden to help with

1624-603: The Estophile educated class admired the ancient culture of the Estonians and their era of freedom before the conquests by Danes and Germans in the 13th century. When the Republic of Estonia was established in 1918, Estonian became the official language of the newly independent country. Immediately after World War II , in 1945, over 97% of the then population of Estonia self-identified as native ethnic Estonians and spoke

1680-463: The Livonian pilgrimage for the plenary remission of sins, made it equal with that to Jerusalem" (Brundage, CHL , 36). Honorius III and Gregory IX continued to promote Livonia as comparable to Jerusalem by enforcing privileges (including the protection of property) to Livonian crusaders. Other reasons include justification on the basis of the defense of Christianity, the conversion of pagans, and

1736-700: The Saxons, Danes, Swedes, Wends , merchants from Lübeck , Novgorod and Pskov here were the Estonians , Karelians , Curonians , Latgalians , Semigallians (sometimes known as the Letts ), Livonians and the Lithuanians . The Western merchants would trade silver, textiles, and other luxury goods for furs, beeswax, honey, leather, dried fish, and amber. Livonia had been an especially promising location in terms of resources, and Arnold of Lübeck , in his Chronicle of

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1792-574: The Slavs wrote that the land was "abundant in many riches" and was "fertile in fields, plentiful in pastures, irrigated by rivers", and "also sufficiently rich in fish and forested with trees". Eventually, the Scandinavian rulers and German military knightly orders led by German prince-bishops conquered and resettled the Baltic region, drawing it into Western orbit. The Livonian Chronicle of Henry

1848-410: The alphabet. Including all the foreign letters, the alphabet consists of the following 32 letters: Although the Estonian orthography is generally guided by phonemic principles, with each grapheme corresponding to one phoneme , there are some historical and morphological deviations from this: for example preservation of the morpheme in declension of the word (writing b, g, d in places where p, k, t

1904-496: The basic order is subject–verb–object . The speakers of the two major historical languages spoken in Estonia, North and South Estonian , are thought by some linguists to have arrived in Estonia in at least two different migration waves over two millennia ago, both groups having spoken considerably different vernacular; South Estonian might be a Finnic language rather than a variety of Estonian. Modern standard Estonian evolved in

1960-413: The case and number of the adjective always agreeing with that of the noun (except in the terminative, essive, abessive and comitative, where there is agreement only for the number, the adjective being in the genitive form). Thus the illative for kollane maja ("a yellow house") is kollasesse majja ("into a yellow house"), but the terminative is kollase majani ("as far as a yellow house"). With respect to

2016-594: The claim of being labeled as crusades. This is because these crusades were not directed towards the Holy Land as the others before it, meaning that the religious motives were less clear-cut than those that had Jerusalem set as their final destination because Jerusalem has such a strong historical influence in the Christian faith and Livonia and its surroundings had less obvious significance to Christianity. The Livonian Chronicle of Henry provides eyewitness accounts of

2072-474: The crusading army. This chronicle is also an example of a crusader document that implements opinionated and demeaning rhetoric towards the people they were conquering, especially when describing the nature of the pagans when Bishop Meinhard initially fails to convert them without the use of force by promising to build them forts if they would accept baptism. Many of the pagans accepted this offer but didn't have intentions to change their faith to Christianity. When it

2128-422: The end of the 20th century has brought the proportion of native Estonian-speakers in Estonia now back above 70%. Large parts of the first- and second-generation immigrants in Estonia have now adopted Estonian (over 50% as of the 2022 census). The Estonian dialects are divided into two groups – the northern and southern dialects, historically associated with the cities of Tallinn in the north and Tartu in

2184-551: The events, with an invaluable and deeply human history. It provides insight, not only into military operations in the East during this tumultuous period but also into the conflicted attitudes of an eyewitness; it reveals the complexities of religious motives enmeshed with political aims. The other famous early Livonian text, the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle , has less historical value, as it was essentially intended as

2240-472: The existing positive economic and political potential in Livonia. The chronicles consist of four books. The original manuscript of the chronicle has not been preserved. There are sixteen different copies, dating from 14th to 19th century, the oldest of which is the Codex Zamoscianus , written on parchment and dating from the end of the 13th century. The Codex Zamoscianus is incomplete, as

2296-589: The founder of modern Estonian poetry. His birthday, March 14, is celebrated in Estonia as Mother Tongue Day. A fragment from Peterson's poem "Kuu" expresses the claim reestablishing the birthright of the Estonian language: In English: In the period from 1525 to 1917, 14,503 titles were published in Estonian; by comparison, between 1918 and 1940, 23,868 titles were published. In modern times A. H. Tammsaare , Jaan Kross , and Andrus Kivirähk are Estonia 's best-known and most translated writers. Estonians lead

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2352-456: The language. When Estonia was invaded and reoccupied by the Soviet army in 1944, the status of Estonian effectively changed to one of the two official languages (Russian being the other one). Many immigrants from Russia entered Estonia under Soviet encouragement. In the 1970s, the pressure of bilingualism for Estonians was intensified. Although teaching Estonian to non-Estonians in local schools

2408-750: The main center of Estonian culture on the U.S. Eastern seaboard, especially amongst Estonian-Americans . The building was designated as a landmark by the New York City Landmarks Preservation Commission in 1978 and was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1982. Estonian language Estonian belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family . Other Finnic languages include Finnish and some minority languages spoken around

2464-644: The papacy's most able diplomats, was in Livonia to mediate an internal church dispute between the Livonian Brothers of the Sword , and the territorial claims of the Catholic bishops of Livonia. For many episodes in the early stages of the Christianization of the peoples of the eastern Baltic, the Chronicle of Henry is the major surviving evidence aside from the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle and

2520-581: The return of apostates to Christianity. Many have questioned to what extent the Christianization of Livonia was in fact about commercial and political gains. Henry mentions in his chronicle that there was a notable number of German merchants in the crusading army, but does not describe their stake in the crusade. Conversely, in the Livonian Rhymed Chronicle , the writer states that these merchants would, "Sell [their wares] to greater advantage there than elsewhere". Politically, because Livonia

2576-492: The second half of the 19th   century based on Finnish orthography. The "Older orthography" it replaced was created in the 17th   century by Bengt Gottfried Forselius and Johann Hornung based on standard German orthography. Earlier writing in Estonian had, by and large, used an ad hoc orthography based on Latin and Middle Low German orthography. Some influences of the standard German orthography – for example, writing 'W'/'w' instead of 'V'/'v' – persisted well into

2632-419: The sounds [p], [t], [k] are written as p, t, k , with some exceptions due to morphology or etymology. Representation of palatalised consonants is inconsistent, and they are not always indicated. ŋ is an allophone of /n/ before /k/. While peripheral Estonian dialects are characterized by various degrees of vowel harmony , central dialects have almost completely lost the feature. Since the standard language

2688-405: The south, in addition to a distinct kirderanniku dialect, Northeastern coastal Estonian . The northern group consists of the keskmurre or central dialect that is also the basis for the standard language, the läänemurre or western dialect, roughly corresponding to Lääne County and Pärnu County , the saarte murre (islands' dialect) of Saaremaa , Hiiumaa , Muhu and Kihnu , and

2744-611: The text of the Chronicle ends in the 23rd chapter. The Codex Zamoscianus is presently kept in the Polish National Library in Warsaw . English online material on the chronicle is rather scarce, though there are some excerpts [1] . The Latin copy in the Polish National Library is available online. A modern translation of the chronicle was published in 1961 (2nd ed. 2004) by James A Brundage and

2800-514: The wave of new loanwords from English in the 20th and 21st centuries, historically, Swedish and Russian were also sources of borrowings but to a much lesser extent. In borrowings, often 'b' and 'p' are interchangeable, for example 'baggage' becomes 'pagas', 'lob' (to throw) becomes 'loopima'. The initial letter 's' before another consonant is often dropped, for example 'skool' becomes 'kool', 'stool' becomes 'tool'. Estonian language planners such as Ado Grenzstein (a journalist active in Estonia from

2856-464: The world in book ownership, owning on average 218 books per house, and 35% of Estonians owning 350 books or more (as of 2018). Writings in Estonian became significant only in the 19th century with the spread of the ideas of the Age of Enlightenment , during the Estophile Enlightenment Period (1750–1840). Although Baltic Germans at large regarded the future of Estonians as being a fusion with themselves,

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2912-525: Was formally compulsory, in practice, the teaching and learning of Estonian by Russian-speakers was often considered unnecessary by the Soviet authorities. In 1991, with the restoration of Estonia's independence , Estonian went back to being the only official language in Estonia. Since 2004, when Estonia joined the European Union, Estonian is also one of the (now 24) official languages of the EU . The return of former Soviet immigrants to their countries of origin at

2968-479: Was founded by the local social reformer F. Norton Goddard (1861–1905) to reduce poverty and fight against gambling in the neighborhood. After Goddard's death in 1905 the club ceased to exist, but the building remained in the Goddard family until 1946, when Frederick Norton's widow sold it for $ 25,000 to The New York Estonian Educational Society, Inc., which is still the owner of the house today. The building underwent

3024-528: Was so rich in natural resources and was such an important trading hub for so many nations and people, gaining political control over this land would bring political advancement to Germany over the other nations that were vying for the resources that existed in Livonia during this time. The modern English translator of the Livonian Chronicle of Henry , James A. Brundage, also argues that the German popes, kings, bishops, and dukes would have been aware of

3080-426: Was written during the first generation of conversion in Livonia when Albert of Buxhoeveden (later, Bishop of Riga) had authority over the land. The Teutonic Order continued to implement Christianity across Livonia after the Livonian Brothers of the Sword , the crusading army established by Albert of Riga, was absorbed by them in 1237. This crusade and other Baltic crusades have been debated on their legitimacy to

3136-492: Was written. It is unknown whether or not the author contributed any additional written work before or after writing this chronicle. Henry's Chronicle is written from the clerical point of view, that the history of the Church was the essential history of Livonia. The Chronicle may have originated as a report to the papal legate William of Modena , to whom he was assigned as an interpreter in 1225 through 1227. The legate, one of

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