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Wiktionary:About Estonian

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The aim of this page is to explain the norms used in Estonian language entries. It is intended to complement, not supersede, WT:CFI and WT:ELE.

Taxonomy

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Estonian belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family. It is predominantly an agglutinative language, although the inflectional morphology is a bit more fusional.

Pronunciation

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The template {{et-IPA}} automatically creates IPA pronunciations. Rhymes (and the amount of syllables) and hyphenation should also be added to entries.

Compounds and affixes

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The format for compound words and affixes conforms to WT:ETY.

Suffixes

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To get suffixed words in the appropriate categories, such as [[Category:Estonian terms suffixed with -lane]] editors can use the template {{suffix|et}}. For example, on mesilane:

===Etymology===
{{suffix|et|mesi|lane}}

mesi +‎ -lane

Prefixes

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To get suffixed words in the appropriate categories, such as [[Category:Estonian terms prefixed with eba-]] editors can use the template {{prefix|et}}. For example, on ebaaus:

===Etymology===
{{prefix|et|eba|aus}}

eba- +‎ aus

Compounds

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To get compound words into [[Category:Estonian compound terms]] editors can use the template {{compound|et}}. For example, on ajalugu:

===Etymology===
{{compound|et|aeg|lugu|t1=time|t2=story}}

aeg (time) +‎ lugu (story)

Inflection

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Inflection goes under the inflection headings ====Conjugation==== and ====Declension====, NOT under ====Inflection====. Inflection templates are available for Estonian words. Nominals, which include nouns, adjectives, numerals and pronouns, are declined. Verbs are conjugated. Use the inflection templates found under: Appendix:Estonian conjugation and Appendix:Estonian nominal inflection. For example:

====Conjugation====
{{et-conj-elama|maga}}

If no inflection template is available, or if you're not sure how to use it, you can leave a request for someone else to add the template later, like this:

====Conjugation====
{{rfinfl|et}}

Part-of-speech

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The part-of-speech section goes under a part-of-speech heading, such as ===Verb===. For words that can be declined, you can use {{et-noun}} and {{et-adj}}. Both of these templates take two parameters, which specify the genitive and partitive singular forms. If you don't know those forms, you can leave them out and it will show a message so that someone else who knows can add it later. For example, on õpik:

===Noun===
{{et-noun|õpiku|õpikut}}

For adjectives, the template {{et-adj}} automatically generates the comparative and superlative forms, but the parameter c= can be used to add an alternative comparative form and s=, an alternative superlative. For vana this can be done like this:

===Adjective===
{{et-adj|vana|vana|c=vanem|s=vanim}}

For other kinds of declinable words, such as pronouns, numerals and determiners, there is another template {{et-nom}} which takes the same two parameters as {{et-noun}}, but also one before it to specify the part of speech. This can be used for sina like this:

===Pronoun===
{{et-nom|pronoun|sinu|sind}}

For verbs, you can use {{et-verb}}. It has one parameter, which specifies the da-infinitive. If you don't know this, you can leave it out and it will show a message so that someone else who knows can add it later. For example, for tulema:

===Verb===
{{et-verb|tulla}}

Default lemma

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Since Estonian words can have a lot of possible inflections, they are organised under lemmas, or headwords. Estonian words are inflected as either nominals or verbs, and the lemmas for each are:

  • For nominals, or declinable words, the lemma is the nominative singular. These include nouns, adjectives, determiners, pronouns, and numerals.
  • For verbs, or conjugable words, the lemma is ma-infinitive.

In all cases, entries for non-lemma forms should use the appropriate form-of template to link to the lemma. For example, on suuta:

==Estonian==

===Noun===
{{head|et|noun form}}

# {{noun form of|et|suu||abe|s}}

===Verb===
{{head|et|verb form}}

# {{et-verb form of|t=da|suutma}}

Letters

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Estonian uses these letters: