Blogathon, Day 16: First Etymological Dictionary Of Estonian Published

This day is a big day for Estonian linguistics. The first major etymological dictionary of Estonian language was published today. According to the news, the history of Estonian words includes 6 643 word entries. It took nine years to make the dictionary. Big, big hand for the job well done! 

Etymology is definitely my favorite among linguistics. It combines so many aspects of human life. History of words tells us history of ourselves. A tiny little word can have an amazingly interesting story to tell. 

Some parts of linguistics can be pretty hard to explain for a man on the street. But ta-dah: start to talk about etymology of a word and you immediately get interested looks and people want to find out more. Etymology is hard core linguistics in a public-friendly form. 

Let's take an example. 

The Finnish word for tulip is tulppaani. It has come to Finnish language from Swedish tulpan. Swedish has got its word from Dutch tulpaan. 

The Dutchmen started to grow tulips in the 17th century. Because of their powerful flower business the Dutch word found its way to many European languages. In written Finnish language tulppaani has been used for the first time in 1773. 

Aren't these kind of pieces of information just awesome! (I found the info about tulppaani in The Etymological Dictionary of Contemporary Finnish by professor Kaisa Häkkinen). 

I had a great morning visiting the Tallinn TV Tower. I'll tell more about it later. The tulips were blooming in front of the tower entrance and they were begging me to take pictures of them. Spring has reached its most beautiful point here in Estonia. 

Blogathon, Day 9: Expatriate And Social Media - What's Practical For You?

Sometime around year 1910 my great-grandmother moved from Finland to Canada. My mother has told me that my great-granny was supposed to travel there on Titanic but she didn't get tickets. Lucky her, lucky me. 

By the Great Lakes she met another Finn and got married. Unfortunately they soon got to hear that her father-in-law was sick and the young couple needed to hurry back home to Northern Europe. Too late. My great-great-grandfather had already died. No way the message of his death could have reached them early enough.

1995 I moved to Norway. I wrote a lots of letters. Yes, those things you send in an envelope with a stamp on. I called my parents via land line approximately once in two weeks. I asked my parents to mail me newspapers so I would know better what's happening in my home country. My dear friend sent me c-cassettes so I could listen to some Finnish music. 

2012 I have internet and cell phones. I use Facebook, Twitter and e-mail. I blog. I Skype. I don't write much letters. I haven't used a land line phone for ages, not even in California. I listen to music via Rdio. My little son is pretty knowledgeable with an iPad. 

Being an expatriate sure has changed within a century. Sometimes I feel I don't live abroad at all. Estonia is next to Finland (well, there's the Gulf of Finland between), the language is pretty similar and most important of all - I have all the imaginable technical bells and whistles to stay in touch with my dear ones both in Finland and in other countries. 

For me as an expatriate the best combination seems to be to use Facebook and my blogs. In addition to the one you are reading right now, I have another blog where I try to keep my family members and friends updated what's happening in my expatriate life. But there's nothing very personal there, just some general observations. 

Facebook gets me a bit closer to my family and friends. Really private stuff I'll save for skyping and e-mails. 

Twitter I use as a more professional tool. None of my family members use it and only a couple of good friends tweet. I also have Google+ and Pinterest accounts but I don't use them at all. So none of these wouldn't work for staying in touch with the closest ones. 

It would be interesting to hear what kind of tools of social media are important for other expatriates. How many of you still write letters? I wish many!