Russian fears threaten to derail South Estonian language bid
Legislative changes on the Riigikogu's agenda next week could grant South Estonian regional language status, but fears persist it would leave a similar opening for Russian in the northeast.
With support from linguistic experts, Southern Estonians have long maintained that Võro, Seto, Mulgi and Tartu deserve recognition beyond "dialect" status, arguing this would bolster efforts to more widely use and teach their regional languages, writes regional daily Lõuna-Postimees (link in Estonian).
"What would Northern Estonians think if the whole world said Estonian doesn't exist and that what's spoken in Northern Estonia is just a dialect of Finnish?" commented Rainer Kuuba, chief of the Võro Congress Council of Elders.
Current proposed amendments to the Language Act again bypass requests to grant South Estonian legal regional language status amid fears it could set a precedent that could later be invoked for Russian in the majority Russian-speaking northeast.
"None of the options presented, in the government's view, would prevent pressure from Russian to also gain regional language status," said Cultural Affairs Committee deputy chair MP Tõnis Lukas (Isamaa).
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Editor: Aili Vahtla
