The beauty of languages
Birthdays are often marked by many diverse modes of celebration, but the upcoming 90th birthday of Estonia is to be marked by a somewhat unique type of commemoration…a beauty contest to decide the ‘prettiest’ language.
Apparently, the Estonian Education Minister Tonis Lukas wishes to engage the assistance of his counterparts worldwide to persuade school pupils to send in recordings of sentences of up to seven words for the contest.
The idea for this contest came to Mr Lukas, as at some unspecified time in the past, there was allegedly a similar contest resulting in Estonia securing second place behind Italy as the prettiest language. The idea of the contest this time round is to assess how Estonian (a member of the Finno-Ugric group of languages) sounds to other nations some time on…and presumably, to secure first place this time!
The propagation of the Estonian is something of a National imperative; more so than in many other countries, owing to Estonia’s chequered history. During the Middle Ages Estonia was a vassal state of the Teutonic Knights and then had a brief period of autonomy before once again being annexed by The Soviet Union during the Second World War. Estonia only regained full statehood in 1991, but during the past, the Estonian language had always symbolised defiance to its occupying powers.