Hasil untuk "Finnic. Baltic-Finnic"

Chingduang Yurayong

The present study examines the diachronic development and renewal of demonstrative systems in the Finnic languages within the Circum-Baltic context. Drawing on usage-based data from existing Finnic corpora, the reconstruction addresses historical changes from Proto-Finnic to modern Finnic, identifying processes of reduction and restructuring, while unveiling also obsoletion of specific demonstrative forms. The analysis reveals that while Finnish and Karelian proper retain relatively archaic tripartite systems, Livonian, North Estonian, Votic, and Veps display substantial renewal, often leading to bipartite or monopartite paradigms. Comparative evidence indicates that contact with Slavic, and to a lesser extent Baltic and Germanic languages, played a key role in shaping these developments. Parallels with Russian compound demonstratives and Old East Slavic forms highlight recurring patterns of areal diffusion and contact-induced change within wider Circum-Baltic language ecology. At a theoretical level, the findings affirm the instability of demonstratives as a grammatical category prone to contact influence. Kokkuvõte. Chingduang Yurayong: Läänemeresoome keelte demonstratiivsüsteemide uuendamine Läänemere keeleliidu kontekstis. Uurimus käsitleb demonstratiivide diakroonilist arengut ja uuendamist läänemeresoome keeltes Läänemere keeleliidu kontekstis. Tuginedes olemasolevate läänemeresoome keelte korpuste kasutuspõhistele andmetele, käsitleb rekonstruktsioon ajaloolisi muutusi alates läänemeresoome algkeelest tänapäeva läänemeresoome keelteni ja toob esile süsteemide lihtsustumise, ümberkorraldumise ja paradigmade uuendamise protsesse, samuti konkreetsete demonstratiivsete vormide kasutusest välja jäämise. Analüüs näitab, et kuigi soome ja karjala keeled on säilitanud suhteliselt arhailised kolmetasandilised süsteemid, on liivi, põhjaeesti, vadja ja vepsa keeles toimunud märkimisväärsed uuendused, mis on viinud kahe- või üheosaliste paradigmadeni. Võrdlevad andmed osutavad nende arengute kujunemisel slaavi ning vähemal määral balti ja germaani keelte mõjule. Paralleelid vene liitdemonstratiivide ja vanaidaslaavi vormidega rõhutavad areaalse leviku ja kontaktmuutuste korduvaid mustreid laiemas Läänemere keeleliidu kontekstis. Teoreetilisel tasandil tõstab uurimus esile demonstratiivide ebastabiilsust grammatilise kategooriana, mis on keelekontaktide mõjudele kalduv.

Niklas Metsäranta

This article discusses the etymology of four Mari words: Proto-Mari *čükte- ‘light, set fire to’, *poδəla- ‘spoon, slurp’, *pükte- ‘brood (eggs)’, and *püəž- ‘sweat’. After examining the words structurally, an argument is put forth that the words represent historical derivatives. This analysis is the key to unlocking their phonological development, which then allows us to find suitable cognates elsewhere in Uralic. It is concluded that Proto-Mari *čükte- ‘light, set fire to’ has a cognate in Saami, e.g. SaaN cahkat ‘smolder’, while *poδəla- ‘spoon, slurp’ belongs to the well-established cognate set Proto-Uralic *pala- ‘eat up’. Proto-Mari *pükte- ‘brood (eggs)’ is proposed as a cognate of Saami *pive̮ - ‘stay warm, withstand cold’. It is tentatively suggested in the article that *püəž- ‘sweat’ belongs etymologically together with Proto-Mari *pükte- ‘brood’ and Proto-Saami *pive̮ - ‘stay warm, withstand cold’. Whether these represent a separate Proto-Uralic etymon *pejwə- ‘stay warm’ or whether they belong together with PU *päjwä ‘sun, heat, warm(th)’ is also explored. These findings, despite some of the uncertainties involved in their specific interpretation, highlight the importance of taking historical derivation into account in etymology. Kokkuvõte. Niklas Metsäranta: Ajalooline sõnatuletus: mari etümoloogiaid. Artiklis käsitletakse nelja mari sõna etümoloogiat: algmari *čükte- ‘süütama’, *poδəla- ‘lusikaga sööma, lürpima’, *pükte- ‘hauduma (mune)’ ja *püəž- ‘higi’. Nende sõnade struktuuri uurimus näitab, et nad esindavad ajaloolisi tuletisi. Struktuuriline analüüs on võti ka nende fonoloogilise arengu seletamiseks, mis seejärel võimaldab leida sobivaid vasteid mujalt uurali keeltest. Leitakse, et algmari sõnal *čükte- ‘süütama’ on vaste saami keeltes, näiteks põhjasaami cahkat ‘küdema’, ja sõna *poδəla- ‘lusikaga sööma, lürpima’ kuulub kokku sugulaskeelte sõnadega, mis peegeldavad uurali algkeele *pala- ‘sööma, ahmima’. Algmari *pükte- ‘hauduma (mune)’ vasteks pakutakse artiklis saami sõna *pive̮ - ‘soojust hoidma, külma taluma’. Artiklis tehakse esialgne ettepanek, et mari *püəž- ‘higi’ on etümoloogiliselt seotud algmari sõnadega *pükte- ‘hauduma (mune)’ ja algsaami *pive̮ - ‘soojust hoidma, külma taluma’. Samuti kaalutakse, kas need sõnad esindavad eraldiolevat uraali algkeele sõna *pejwə- ‘soojust hoidma’ või kas kõik kolm kuuluvad kokku uraali algkeele *päjwä ‘päike, kuumus, soe, soojus’ sõnaga. Artikli tulemused, vaatamata mõningale ebakindlusele nende täpse tõlgenduse osas, rõhutavad sõnatuletuse ajalooga arvestamise tähtsust etümoloogias.

Triin van Doorslaer, Janela Tähepõld-Tammert

Tõlkimisel on palju definitsioone, kuid kõige muu hulgas on tõlkimine ka keerukas kognitiivne tegevus, mis hõlmab mitmesuguseid teadmisi ja oskusi, aga sõltub suuresti ka tõlkija töökogemusest ning tema individuaalsetest kognitiivsetest võimetest. Alates 1960. aastate lõpust on koostatud erinevaid uurimusi, mis keskenduvad tõlkeprotsessi erinevatele etappidele, tõlkeüksustele ja segmenteerimismustritele, probleemilahendamisele, otsustusprotsessidele jne. Siinses artiklis käsitletakse tõlkimist kognitiivse tegevusena ning vaadeldakse, millised kognitiivsed probleemid tekivad algajatel ja kogenud tõlkijatel tõlkeprotsessi käigus ning kuidas erineva kogemusega tõlkijad neid lahendavad. Uurimistöös viidi läbi tõlkekatse valjustimõtlemise protokollide abil, lisaks vastasid katses osalejad küsimustikule. *** Cognitive problems in the translation process of novice and experienced translators Translating is a complex cognitive activity that requires diverse knowledge and skills. Depending on this knowledge and skills as well as on the work experience of the translator and on the cognitive abilities of a particular person, the translation process may lead to many problems, which are solved using different strategies. The aim of this article was to find out which cognitive problems arise in the translation process of novices and experienced translators and how they solve these problems. Empirical data was collected by think-aloud protocols. The sample was six people, including three novices (translation students) and three experienced translators (professional experience of at least 10 years). Participants were asked to think aloud while translating a short automotive marketing text (317 words) and record their thoughts with voice recording technology. The participants also filled in a questionnaire. The think-aloud protocols were analyzed with qualitative content analysis. The coding scheme was created using Angelone’s (2010) problem-solving bundle comprising of problem recognition, solution proposal and solution evaluation, and the selected problem indicators proposed by Krings (1986). The results of the study showed that both novice and experienced had problems with vocabulary. All of them also encountered uncertainty; however, the novices experienced it more frequently. All participants had problems while translating and there was no difference between the novice and experienced translators. However, the results of the study showed that the novices had more problems in the revision stage than the experienced translators. All translators used information retrieval and reference materials to solve the problems. Differences occurred in the reference materials used, namely the novices used machine translation while experienced translators did not. Also, experienced translators used specialty dictionaries and bilingual corpora and suggested asking a colleague or a client to solve the problem, while the novices did not.

J. Tyrkkö, M. Levin, M. Laitinen

‘Native-like’ use of discourse markers is a good indicator of language proficiency. Analysing four subcorpora of English-language tweets posted by Twitter users from the Nordic countries of Finland, Norway, and Sweden, this study consid-ers the effects of discursive context and L1 influence on the correlation between semantic function and sentence position of the discourse marker actually . The study shows that both predictors appear to have a significant effect. A more formal context predicts more standard punctuation, distribution of the pragmatic functions, and placement of the discourse marker, and L1 influence is reflected in the preferred sentence position, with a substantial and significant difference observed between the Finnic and Germanic L1s. Fur-thermore, the study shows that while the discourse marker actually is significantly more frequent in colloquial Twitter language than in spoken English, the frequency is significantly lower and in line with spoken English in more constrained contexts.

J. Saarikivi

The question as to how the linguistic and archaeological data can be combined together to create a comprehensive account on the prehistory of present ethnicities is a debated issue around the globe. In particular, the identification of the new language groups in the material remnants of a particular area, or discerning in the material culture correlates for the language contact periods reflected in the loan word layers are complex and often probably insolvable questions. Regarding the early history of the Finns and the related people, Valter Lang’s new monograph on the archaeology of Estonia and the “arrivals of the Finnic people” (Läänemeresoome tulemised, 2018) has been considered a paradigm changing work in this respect. In my article I argue that despite undisputed progress in this ouevre, many of the old questions regarding time, place and method are still in place.

Janika Oras, Žanna Pärtlas, M. Sarv et al.

The aim of this paper is to get an overview of the lament metrics in Seto oral song tradition, which belongs to the southern border area of the Finnic song tradition, and the placement and historical development of lament metrics in the framework of the whole Seto oral song tradition. In the paper the metrical structures of two main genres of Seto choral laments – choral bridal laments and death laments – are analysed that share common features with solo laments and are similar to the structures of Seto runosongs. Metrical structures of the laments are detected based on sound recordings, taking into account the linguistic structure of the lines and the varied realization of it in a musical performance rhythm. The analysis showed that laments’ metrics where 5-unit end structures play an important role, differs the most from the main body of runosongs and is structurally more similar to a group of runosongs with refrains and varying line length. Outlining the development patterns of the metrical system of Seto songs, the influences of local unique musical tradition with varied rhythmic structures atypical of the most runosong area, specific functions of ritual song genres, historical changes in language, as well as possible external connections to early eastern and southern song cultures are highlighted.

M. Kuznetsov

The article discusses the use of an analytical verb form of the linneb tehtud type in written Vepsian, that consists the 3 person singular form of the verb linneb ‘will’ and the passive past participle on -tud/-dud (in most cases) and is a calque from a similar Russian construction будет сделан (-a, -o). The relevance of the research is determined by the need to bring the information in the grammatical descriptions of the written Vepsian language in line with the real picture of the functioning of the Vepsian written norm, and to more accurately codify this idiom as written. The material is the texts in different styles originally written in Vepsian (journalistic) or translated into it (legal, artistic). The research confirms the hypothesis of the existence of an analytical verb form in the written Vepsian language that is not taken into account by grammatical descriptions, analyzes the detected examples of its use, and reveals the features of its structure and functioning against the background of closely related Finnic languages (Finnish, Votic, Ingrian). The article also discusses the place of this analytical form of written Vepsian among similar verb forms of Vepsian grammar and substantiates the non-identity of futurum-exactum to passive forms of the future tense ending in -škatas in the Vepsian language. It justifies the need for information about this verb form in future grammatical descriptions of the written Vepsian language.

J. Laakso

The traditional hypothesis of a typological cycle from agglutination via fusion to isolation and back to agglutination, still invoked by many linguists (albeit with caveats and limitations), would imply a natural drift behind typological changes. Accordingly, such typological changes would typically result from internal developments (such as reductive sound changes), while etymological counter-currents (such as segmentable suffixes replacing earlier stem alternations) could rather be due to language contact. On the other hand, the agglutinative type seems to be stable and resistant to typological change especially in Northern Eurasia, and for the change towards a more fusional type, characteristic of some Finnic and Saami languages in the northwestern periphery of Uralic, a contact explanation might seem plausible. However, a closer scrutiny of Estonian, often mentioned as an example of typological change and characteristically impacted by Germanic, shows that in typological change, internal and external motivations intertwine and interact.

Anna Branets, Daria Bahtina

In this study, we investigate the role of exposure to L2 Russian on comprehension of L3 Ukrainian by speakers of L1 Estonian, using the mediating knowledge of L2 Russian. The experiment involved 30 participants and the following materials: a questionnaire, C-test in Russian, word recognition and text comprehension tasks in Ukrainian. We demonstrate that in mediated receptive multilingualism medium to high levels of L2 exposure boost L3 comprehension regardless of measured L2 proficiency. However, exposure enhanced comprehension only on the word level and not on the text level, highlighting the importance of examining comprehension in a differentiated manner. The same restriction holds for targeted L2–L3 instructions, which were administered as a shortcut to increasing metalinguistic awareness between Russian and Ukrainian: these instructions improved L3 word-level but not text-level comprehension. Since in the absence of explicit instruction the role of exposure was more pronounced, we argue that exposure and instructions interact depending on the particular configurations of available resources, as language users attempt to understand another language. We conclude that exposure to medium language is a crucial factor that might significantly boost comprehension in the target language through increased metalinguistic awareness, either more directly or by creating opportunities for incidental learning. *** Artiklis analüüsime, kuidas eesti emakeele (L1) kõnelejad mõistavad ukraina keelt (L3) vene keele oskuse toel (L2) ehk millist rolli mängib kokkupuude vene keelega arusaamisel ukraina keelest. Katses osales 30 inimest ja materjalid koosnesid: küsimustikust, vene keele C-testist ning ukraina keele sõnade äratundmise ja teksti mõistmise ülesannetest. Uuringu tulemused näitasid, et vahendatud retseptiivse mitmekeelsuse kontekstis mõjutab L2-ga kokkupuude L2-st ja L3-st arusaamist kindlal viisil. Kokkupuude vene keelega avaldas positiivset mõju nii vene keele C-testi tulemustele kui ka ukrainakeelsete sõnade äratundmisele. Ukrainakeelsete tekstide mõistmist kokkupuude vene keelega aga märgatavalt ei mõjutanud, mis toob esile, kui oluline on arusaamise hindamine eristaval viisil. Teisalt hõlbustas L3 sõnade äratundmist nii keskmine kui ka kõrgem L2-ga kokkupuute tase, millest järeldub, et isegi vähene kokkupuude suurendab metalingvistilist teadlikkust. Katse sisaldas kahte sellisest hüpoteesist lähtuvat lisatingimust, mille põhjal formaalsed juhised võimaldavad teist, konkreetsemat õppimisallikat: mõned osalejad said eelnevalt formaalseid juhiseid ukraina keelest ja teised mitte. Need selged juhised aitasid kahtlemata kaasa L3-st arusaamisele ning nende puudumisel oli L2-ga kokkupuute roll veelgi märgatavam. Võib järeldada, et kui keelekasutaja üritab teisest keelest aru saada, siis eelmainitud tegurid, nii otsesemad kui ka kaudsemad, toimivad üksteisest sõltuvalt ja muutuvad vähem või rohkem märgatavaks olenevalt saadaval olevate ressursside konkreetsetest asetustest.

Markus Juutinen, Jukka Mettovaara

We provide an overview of indefinite pronouns in Saami languages that have been borrowed or calqued from Finnic, Scandinavian or Russian. We define indefinite pronouns in the traditional way, i.e. encompassing all pronouns not belonging to any other pronoun class. The treatment of Saami indefinite pronouns in earlier literature varies, but generally they haven’t received as much attention as other pronouns. From Finnic sources, Saami languages have borrowed e.g. pronouns harva ‘few’, joku ‘some(one)’, kaikki ‘all’, moni ‘many’ and muu ‘other’ as well as pronominal elements ikänänsä ‘-ever’, saati ‘let alone’ and vaikka ‘even (if)’. Loans from Scandinavian include e.g. mange ‘many’, noen ~ någon ‘some’ and same ~ samma ‘same’. Russian loans include pronominal elements ни- ‘not (even)’ хоть ‘even (if)’. Indefinite pronouns in Saami prove to be rather an open class, and elements with similar meanings have been borrowed time after time. The variation is especially abundant in pronouns of indifference and free choice. Most of the pronouns in our data have been noted as loans before, but there are some unnoticed cases. Especially these warrant further study.

I. Mullonen

This article proposes a reconstruction of a number of Vepsian and Ludic Karelian derivatives of lexemes, referring to the dialectal vocabulary of the Russian dialects of Obonezhye region. Having been lost from the aforementioned Finnic languages due to the Russification of the population living along the transit waterways used for the development of Obonezhye region since the time of Veliky Novgorod, they have survived as substratum or borrowed units in geographically adjacent Russian dialects. Vepsian and Karelian language data are traditionally used for the etymological interpretation of the Russian dialect lexicon. The reverse approach, i.e. the involvement of Russian dialects as a resource for Finnic etymological studies has not been widely used. When reconstructing, it is important to consider such parameters as the area of the Russian word, aiming at a well-defined Finnic language etymon; patterns of phonetic substitution and adaptation of specific Finnic sounds and sound combinations into Russian dialects; the existence of a word and its semantics in related languages. Additional opportunities are provided by the use of toponymic data due to the massive character and good preservation of toponyms. The article reconstructs several Vepsian and Ludic derived lexemes which have not been recorded in dictionaries or other sources. Among them, there are lexemes with suffixes - (e)k and - (e)h (* katek ‘thin ice’, * torek ‘noise, crackling, rumbling’, * c apek ‘overgrown undercut’, r д beh ‘damp low place in the forest’), Vepsian verbal name * k u tm <* k ь tkim ‘leash for cattle’ with the - im suffix, Ludic term * h o rp a k ‘stake with branches for drying hay’ with the suffix - a k and Vepsian landscape term * pugend ~ * pugond ‘swift with a narrow bed on the river’, in which the suffix - nd (< - nto ) is embodied. The source of Russian dialectal data is the monumental publication Russian Dialect Etymological Dictionary. Vocabulary of Contact Regions (2019) prepared by S. А. Myznikov. A lot of work was done in it to find Finnic roots for Russian lexemes. The author of the dictionary had natural difficulties in attributing Russian dialect lexemes, for which their Vepsian or Karelian etymon did not survive. The interpretations presented in the article, along the way, clarify, supplement, and sometimes correct the etymology of the  Russian Dialect Etymological Dictionary .

T. Markey

OIr. cing ‘hero’ and cingid ‘steps (marches)’ are reflected in the aristocratic Gaulish name Cingetorix ‘king of marchers (warriors), heroes’. These Celtic tokens, altogether lacking in Italic, have sometimes been considered reflexes of IE *(s)keng- which appears in Classical Sanskrit as khā̆ñjati ‘limps’ and in Greek as σκάζω ‘limp’. It has also been argued that late prehistoric Germanic borrowed a Celtic *kanxsto- ‘stepper, trotter’ (or the like) which it deployed in equestrian terms; so, for example, Old English hengest, hengst ‘gelding, horse’. The pejorative ‘limping’ sense of IE *(s)keng-, which is still maintained in German hinken, was mistakenly thought to have been ameliorated in Celtic allowing cingid to express ‘to step, proceed go, stride, march’. Here, however, it is shown that, other than in loans from Germanic, Celtic lacked reflexes of IE *(s)keng-. It is then demonstrated that Celtic *keng-, as in OIr. cingid, was derived by dissimilation of IE *g̑hengh- ‘to go, stride, ride’. Finally, it is remarked that Proto-Finnic borrowed Proto-Germanic *skenka- Finnish kenkä / kengä ‘shoe/boot (anything resembling a shoe in function, a heavy boot … for walking or striding in snow)’.

F. Siegl

Although recent cross-linguistic and typological research on partitive cases (Luraghi & Huumo eds. 2014) has started to expand its perspective beyond Europe, partitive and partitive-like cases in the indigenous languages of Central and Eastern Siberia have been largely overlooked. This study discusses the partitive case in Taimyr Dolgan, an indigenous Turkic language of Northern Siberia from a functional-typological, areal and historical perspective, synthesizing existing descriptions (Ubrjatova 1985, Artem'ev 1999) with the author’s field materials and a convenience sample consisting of 48000 words of written Dolgan. Due to the fact that Finnic languages dominate cross-linguistic research on partitive cases, this study concludes with a short comparative analysis of Dolgan — Finnish similarities and dissimilarities.

Nadezhda V. Kabinina, Ekaterina D. Kornienko

The paper focuses on some earlier and new etymologies of the mysterious toponym Urdoma which nowadays refers to a village located on the left bank of the river Vychegda in Lensky district, Arkhangelsk region. Studying historical records and materials related to local history, the authors conclude that this place name was originally attributed to a stream (the right feeder of the Vychegda) nearby the settlement Urdoma and the volost of the same name. The first part of the paper reviews the earlier etymologies of the name and comments on their validity and reliability. The authors reject the hypothesis of Sanskrit ūrdhva (‘high’) as the origin for Urdoma; the interpretation of the place name as Komi-Zyryan ur ‘squirrel’ + Russian doma ‘houses’ is considered a folk etymology; the authors also note the weaknesses of some other hypotheses which trace the origin of the name from Finnic *Urto/maa ‘the woodland for hunting,’ or from Komi *(V)urd/vom ‘obstruct’). Within this hypothesis, the meaning of ‘obstructedness’ conveys the river’s suitability for setting fishing weirs, or the presence of obstructions of natural origin such as deadfall piles, or (considering metonymy) the existence of a fortress near the river in the past. According to the second hypothesis, the hydronym Urdoma relates to the place names which include the term -dom widely spread in historical Meryan lands and on the northern Finnish territories. In that case, considering denotative toponymic meaning of the term -dom, the final component of the toponym Urdoma can be interpreted as ‘mountain; raised riverbank’. The first component of the place name (which possibly has been deformed) can be associated with Sami urd ‘large plateau or highland’.

Iris Metsmägi, V. Oja

Abstract The article gives an overview of Estonian landscape terms meaning ‘field’ in historical dictionaries. The main equivalents for English field in Estonian are põld, nurm and väli. Neither in standard Estonian nor in the dialects, these three words are full synonyms. In the historical dictionaries, the Estonian words occur first in the 17th century as translations of German Acker, Feld and Ackerfeld. Later, for example in the Estonian-German dictionary, published in 1869, their meanings are more precisely defined. The semantic relations of the words in dialect speech and their interpretation in the historical dictionaries will be analysed. The three words are used in all Finnic languages. Comparing the words with dialect and cognate language data, their semantic differences and distribution in dialects will be introduced.

V. Sampaio

Choosing the eddic poem Vafþrúðnismál as a starting point, our aim is to analyze the possible cultural contexts and elements to which the poem may allude to. In order to achieve such a thing, we are going to investigate specifically the mythological motif of the wisdom contest between Óðinn and the giant Vafþrúðnir, pointing to a possible parallel in Finnic mythology, played by Väinämöinen and Joukahainen respectively. We are also going to demonstrate how there is a connection in both cases with magical practices; the galðr in Medieval Scandinavia and the tietäjä institution from Finno-Karelian traditions. Our perspective approaches mythology as a discursive and cultural practice that manifests itself through a symbolic matrix.

Nicole Nau

Axel Holvoet has demonstrated that Latvian has two types of zero-person constructions which formally differ in grammatical number, and that the singular type has a parallel in Finnic, but not in Lithuanian. This paper shows that the meanings covered by the two types are distinct and do not overlap. Using the framework proposed by Gast and van der Auwera for the description of human impersonal pronouns, it is shown that the singular type is characterized by non-veridicality and an internal perspective. As in Finnish, but not Estonian, it is used in conditional sentences with all kinds of verbs. The plural type is used in Latvian as well as in Lithuanian with veridical propositions and an external perspective.

Ilga Jansone

Chingduang Yurayong

Chingduang Yurayongin suomalais-ugrilaisen kielentutkimuksen alaan kuuluva väitöskirja tarkastettiin Helsingin yliopiston humanistisessa tiedekunnanssa lauantaina 14. marraskuuta 2020. Vastaväittäjänä toimi professori Renate Pajusalu Tarton yliopistosta ja kustoksena Riho Grünthal. Chingduang Yurayong: Postposed demonstratives in Finnic and North Russian dialects. Helsinki: Helsingin yliopisto 2020. Väitöskirja on luettavissa osoitteessa http://urn.fi/URN:ISBN:978-951-51-6692-0.

M. Sarv

The article focuses on the relationship of language and metre in case of oral poetry, more exactly, to what extent and through which processes the changes in language have induced the changes in metre in case of Estonian runosong, a branch of common Finnic poetic-musical tradition. The Estonian language has gone through a series of notable phonological changes during approximately last 500 to 700 years that have systematically shortened the word forms; the extent of these changes varies across dialects. At the same time the language of runosongs has partly resisted these changes, and partly adopted; the archaic and new word forms are in concurrent use, and vary geographically. The metre of Estonian runosongs appears to be a transitional form from quantitative runosong metre (Kalevala metre) to the accentual runosong metre (both of them syllabic metres). The current study shows that the transition depends directly on the average syllabic length of the words in runosongs (the longer the words, the more quantitative the metre, and vice versa), which in turn is induced by the shortening of words in dialectal language. The closer look at the points of tensions between the metre and language, i.e. the geographical distribution of the morphological forms that are critical for building the verses in quantitative metre and have been systematically retained in runosongs (but shortened in language) shows that in two metrically innovative areas runosongs have given up preserving the archaic word forms, while in big central area between a linguistically and metrically conservative centre in the North-East of Estonia and two innovation centres in Western and Southeastern Estonia the archaic and newer word forms are used concurrently. The slight difference between the metre of western and southeastern runosongs follows the prosodic patterns of dialectal language. The side topic of the article discusses the questions of the evolution of runosong in the light of newer theories of emergence of Finnic languages (in the first millennium BC) and poetic system of runosongs, but apparently the metrical variation of runosong is entirely explicable by the impact of much later language changes (approximately 500 to 700 years ago) and seems not to be able to answer the questions related to the emergence of the poetic tradition.