{"id":1414,"date":"2024-04-03T23:41:17","date_gmt":"2024-04-03T20:41:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/ahrens\/"},"modified":"2024-04-04T00:07:21","modified_gmt":"2024-04-03T21:07:21","slug":"ahrens","status":"publish","type":"page","link":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/a\/ahrens\/","title":{"rendered":"Eduard Ahrens"},"content":{"rendered":"

\n\tWorks <\/a>\"Eduard<\/a><\/span><\/strong><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

Eduard Ahrens (3. IV \/ 22. III 1803 \u2013 19.\/7. II 1863) was a Baltic-German pastor and scholar of the Estonian language. The grammar of Estonian that he compiled, based on Finnish, replaced the earlier orthography, based on German and Latin, and formed the basis of the new orthography still in use today.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tAhrens was born in Tallinn, the son of a surveyor. From 1811 to 1819 he attended the Tallinn Dome School, and from 1819 to 1823 the faculty of theology at the University of Tartu. Initially he worked at Pikavere Manor as a tutor. In 1832-1833 Ahrens visited Germany and briefly France for self-improvement. From 1833 to 1837 he was a tutor at Vana-Vigala Manor. From 1837 until his death he was pastor of Kuusalu. In 1860 he was confirmed as dean of Ida-Harjumaa county. For his work in the fields of Estonian language and folklore Ahrens was elected as a honorary member of the Estonian Learned Society, but because of his disagreement with the president of the Society, F.R. Faehlmann, the title was withdrawn in 1848. From 1842 he was a member of the Ehstl\u00e4ndische Liter\u00e4rische Gesellschaft (a Baltic German scientific body which functioned in Tallinn from 1842 to 1940). He died at Kuusalu and was buried in the cemetery there. In 2017 a monument to Eduard Ahrens was unveiled at Kuusalu. The same year there was a language conference held at Kuusalu dedicated to Ahrens, which is due to be made into an annual event.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the end of the 18th century language scholars began to pay more attention to the evident similarities between the Estonian and Finnish languages. In his grammar book which appeared in 1780, August Wilhelm Hupel wrote that the Estonian language \u201cappears to be a sister of Finnish\u201d, though his own grammar still proceeded from Anton Thor Helle\u2019s German-based orthography. The first to recommend the adoption of the Finnish writing system to Estonian was Adolf Ivar Arvidsson in J.H. Rosenpl\u00e4nter\u2019s journal Beitr\u00e4ge<\/em> in 1822. Later similar ideas were expressed by other scholars of the Estonian language, but it was Eduard Ahrens who was the first to print a systematic grammar, Grammatik der Ehstnischen Sprache Revalschen Dialektes<\/em> (\u2018Grammar of the Tallinn Dialect of Estonian\u2019), which appeared in 1843, and at the beginning of which Ahrens wrote the assertion that \u201cthe Estonian language is the daughter of the Finnish language\u201d, thus taking Finnish as the model for his grammar.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tAt the same time Ahrens was striving for the Estonian literary language to be brought closer to the spoken tongue that the peasantry actually spoke. For this purpose he collected an abundance of samples of the popular language. It should be mentioned that Ahrens\u2019 linguistic activity was not motivated by National Romanticism: the Estonian national movement and secular literature were not in Eduard Ahrens\u2019 sights, nor were the social and economic conditions of the Estonian peasantry. He regarded as the main aim of his linguistic activity to spread God\u2019s word more effectively by way of an improved Estonian liturgical language. Ahrens was sharply critical of F.R. Kreutzwald\u2019s and F.R. Faehlmann\u2019s nationalist strivings, and he also cast doubt on the folkloric authenticity of their works. (Today, folklore studies are on Ahrens\u2019 side on this issue.) Kreutzwald was initially opposed to Ahrens\u2019 new orthography, but he adopted it himself and applied it consistently after 1851, including his epic Kalevipoeg<\/em> (1857-1861), contributing greatly to the spread of the new spellings.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tThe second, expanded edition of Ahrens\u2019 grammar appeared in 1853. It also contained language samples in the new orthography. The old ortography, based on the Forselius \/ Hornung grammar of 1693, did not take account of several phonologically fundamental features of Estonian, such as the difference between short and long vowels. Ahrens\u2019 grammar describes consonant gradation considerably more systematically than previously. The first work to appear in the new orthography was a book by Ahrens\u2019 friend G.H. Sch\u00fcdl\u00f6ffel, pastor of J\u00f5el\u00e4htme, Toomas Westen, Lapo rahva usu \u00e4rataja Norra maal<\/em> (\u2018Toomas Westen, the awakener of faith among the Lapp people of Norway\u2019, 1844). On Kreutzwald\u2019s insistence, C.R. Jakobson also put Ahrens\u2019 orthography to use in his popular books, which favoured the spread of the new writing system in turn. The new orthography finally won the day in the eighteen-seventies, when taken up by the Society of Estonian Men of Letters in its publications, and J.W.\u00a0Jannsen\u2019s newspaper Perno Postimees<\/em>. The old system lingered longer in liturgical literature; the Bible appeared in the new script in 1889.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tAhrens was an authority on linguistic questions for the author of the Finnish Kalevala<\/em> epic, Elias L\u00f6nnrot, who visited Ahrens at Kuusalu as the first stop on his visit to Estonia in 1844. All later Estonian grammars, including\u00a0F.J. Wiedemann\u2019s\u00a0(1875) and K.A. Hermann\u2019s (1884, the first one actually written in Estonian), are based on Ahrens\u2019 work.<\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tS. V. (Translated by C. M.)<\/span><\/em><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

Books in Estonian<\/strong><\/span><\/span>\n<\/p>\n

\n\tUue ajastu misjonilingvist. Eduard Ahrens 200<\/strong>. Koostanud ja toimetanud Kristiina Ross. Tallinn: Eesti Keele Sihtasutus, 2003, 525 lk. [Sisu: Eduard Ahrensi bibliograafia;\u00a0\u2018Johann Hornung, meie eesti kirikukeele looja. R\u00f5hutu au jaluleseadmiseks. Kuusalu pastorilt Eduard Ahrensilt\u2019, t\u00f5lkinud Kristiina Ross; \u2018Eesti keele Tallinna murde grammatika. Esimene osa, Vormi\u00f5petus\u2019, t\u00f5lkinud Kristiina Ross; \u2018Eesti keele Tallinna murde grammatika. Teine osa, Lause\u00f5petus\u2019, t\u00f5lkinud Kristi Mets, Kristiina Rebane ja Mailis Salvet; \u2018Eesti Piibli keelevead. Kokku kogunud ja eestlaste kiriku\u00f5petajatele soovitanud Eduard Ahrens\u2019, t\u00f5lkinud Kristiina Ross.]<\/span><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Works Eduard Ahrens (3. IV \/ 22. III 1803 \u2013 19.\/7. II 1863) was a Baltic-German pastor and scholar of the Estonian language. The grammar of Estonian that he compiled, based on Finnish, replaced the earlier orthography, based on German …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":43,"featured_media":0,"parent":485,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"inline_featured_image":false,"footnotes":""},"class_list":["post-1414","page","type-page","status-publish","hentry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1414","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/43"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1414"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1414\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3673,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1414\/revisions\/3673"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/485"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sisu.ut.ee\/ewod\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1414"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}