Developments of Estonian Literary Language in the 18th Century

The research project "Developments of Estonian Literary Language in the 18th Century" focuses on the formation of Estonian literary language, with special attention to the language of the Moravian Church, and the development of Estonian poetic and administrative language. The project analyzes language use in the 18th century, examines the language of old Bible translations, and creates a database of Moravian Church texts. The research employs both quantitative stylometric analysis and traditional text comparison methods. The project addresses the broader issue of Estonians' weakening connections with their history and cultural heritage. As the texts from the second half of the 18th century have not been thoroughly linguistically studied, it remains unclear which processes led to the national awakening, how significant was the role of Baltic German literati and Moravian missionaries, and how the language of that period relates to the literary language standards established by the New Testament and the 1739 Bible translation.