Your time as head of the Language Inspectorate is coming to an end and you don't plan to apply for the position again. How did you come to that decision?

It's actually a fairly logical decision. I've been in this position for more than 30 years — on October 5, it'll be 31 years. I'd like to do something else with my life as well. A little calculation shows that I've spent exactly half my life doing this job. While following some of the recent competitions for leadership positions at other institutions, I've read that it's generally considered normal for someone to stay in a position for maybe seven years, perhaps 10, and then move on to something else. My career as the head of this agency has been unusually long. I don't think there's another agency head in Estonia who's been in office this long, although State Archivist Priit Pirsko is catching up with long strides — I think he's already reached 25 years. I hope he'll catch up with me. That's really the reason: I'd like to do something different. And I still have some time before retirement. We'll see what life brings.

Your 31 years at the Language Board have certainly been dynamic and unique. Looking back, how would you sum up that time, if it's even possible in just a few sentences?

You put it very well — they've been extremely dynamic. Over those 31 years, there hasn't been a single day that was like another and probably not a single workday when I didn't have to learn something new. It's not as if you complete your master's and doctoral degrees and suddenly you're ready to be a senior civil servant. That's when the real learning begins. Even yesterday and today, I've had to learn something new. Circumstances change, legislation changes and new court rulings come out on a wide range of issues, so you have to stay on top of them. It's been an incredibly intensive period of learning — very fascinating, but also mentally and emotionally quite demanding.

What has been the Language Board's main role and mission in Estonian society and what impact has it had and will continue to have in the future?

The primary role is exactly what our statutes say: supervising compliance with the Language Act. The requirements set out in the Language Act are, in essence, the same principles laid out in the preamble to Estonia's Constitution. The preamble states that the purpose of the Estonian state is to ensure the preservation of the nation, the language and the culture through the ages, and safeguarding the Estonian language is what the Language Board is responsible for.

In other words, our task is to ensure that, amid internationalization and globalization, Estonian remains present in every area of life, so that people are able to conduct their affairs in Estonian wherever they are. That isn't always the case. Given the composition of our population and our history, it's a difficult goal to achieve, and it has fallen to the Language Board's officials to enforce these requirements. That has been our core mission.

When I was writing my doctoral dissertation in 2002 and 2003, I also analyzed the implementation of language requirements and considered what the education system might look like 10 years later, in 2012 and 2013. At the time, I argued that if Estonia successfully transitioned to Estonian as the language of instruction — which, even then, was supposed to happen — the Language Board's work in the education system would decrease significantly. I was badly mistaken. The transition to Estonian-language instruction was postponed for years. It began in upper secondary schools only in 2011 and in basic schools only in 2024 when the transition to Estonian-language instruction started on a grade-by-grade basis. My conclusions from 2002 turned out to be completely wrong and in recent years the greatest workload for Language Board officials has come from verifying educators' Estonian-language proficiency and enforcing the language requirements.

What does the Estonian language need to be protected from and how should it be protected?

One cliché that people often repeat — and one that is actually true — is that the Estonian language also needs to be protected from Estonians themselves. In democratic Estonia, the pressure from foreign languages is quite strong and at different times Estonians have tended to favor various foreign languages over their own. Right now, the attraction of English is especially strong. You see it in the business world and also in the way young people communicate with one another.

As a children's author, I spend a great deal of time meeting readers, teachers and librarians and they tell me that Estonian children read a great deal of fiction exclusively in English. On the one hand, being able to read in English carries a certain prestige. On the other hand, reading also develops language skills. If we don't develop our command of our native language through reading, it gradually begins to deteriorate. Young Estonians' ability to express themselves becomes weaker and weaker.

I've said on several occasions that, of course, we need to pay close attention to the transition to Estonian-language instruction in schools that are making the change. But when it comes to preserving the Estonian nation, language and culture, the most important decisions are made in Estonian-language schools, in Estonian language classes. That is an area that unquestionably deserves much more attention and should feature far more prominently in the public debate than it does today.

How does a foreign-language sign in the urban environment without an Estonian translation threaten the Estonian language?

It doesn't so much threaten the Estonian language as it conflicts with people's language rights. The basic principle is that you have the right to understand what is written on a public sign, regardless of whether you know the foreign language used. We've become accustomed to seeing foreign-language signs — previously in Russian, now mostly in English — and we tend to assume that everyone knows English. But in cities across Europe, and increasingly in Estonia as well, signs in Chinese and Arabic are beginning to appear alongside the more common English-language ones. In those cases, we obviously can't assume that everyone understands them.

Regardless of which foreign language is used, the information on a sign must also be provided in Estonian because the Constitution states that everyone has the right to freely receive information intended for the public. In Estonia, information directed at the public must first and foremost be available in Estonian. A translation may also be included and the Language Act does not restrict which languages that translation may be provided in.

If, at some point, our streets are filled with signs in Chinese, Korean, Japanese and Arabic and we can no longer understand any of them, then things have probably gotten out of hand. At the moment, we deal more often with English than with those other languages, although we have also issued compliance orders to businesses displaying what we would consider more exotic signage — signs that neither you nor I can understand because we don't read those writing systems. That's why those businesses are required to provide the information in Estonian as well.

What if it's art or some other form of creative expression?

That's very difficult to assess. As a consumer walking past a café or restaurant, do I have enough knowledge to judge whether those characters are a work of art or whether they're conveying information? I certainly don't.

Has Estonia's language policy ever been too strict on some issues or too lenient?

In my view, Estonia's language policy has been very balanced and consistent. Perhaps this is a consequence of having spent so many years in the position, but I've seen all the developments in language policy over the years — both the tightening and the easing of requirements. I would say that, in some cases, we could have eased the rules a little less than we did. Overall, though, our language policy has been very balanced.

Despite the composition of our population and the existence of an agency like the Language Board to enforce language requirements, Estonia has not experienced a single interethnic conflict over language proficiency or language requirements since regaining independence — something that has occurred in some of our neighboring countries. We've managed to shape our language policy and implement language requirements in a sensible and balanced way. That's one achievement I can take with me from this institution: we've been able to enforce the language requirements without any major conflicts.

During your time in office, has the Russian-speaking population's attitude toward the Estonian language and learning it changed significantly — for example, become more positive?

It has definitely become more positive. There's much greater awareness of its importance now. Back in the mid-1990s, when I started working here, many people, including teachers at what were then Russian-language schools, were literally astonished by the idea that they were now expected to learn Estonian. For many of them, Russian was the only language in which it was possible to express anything meaningful and many didn't even regard Estonian as a real language.

In reality, attitudes toward Estonian have become much more positive and Estonian-language proficiency among non-Estonians has improved significantly. That said, the long delays in transitioning to Estonian-language instruction have had negative consequences. Although the decision was made in 1993, the first years, and even decades, were marked by repeated postponements of the deadlines. The transition that is now underway — to Estonian-language instruction in upper secondary schools, basic schools and preschools — is somewhat painful. Even today, we see news reports about shortages of assistant teachers.

But we'll get through it and eventually we'll reach a point where a Russian-speaking young person graduating from school has sufficient Estonian-language skills to continue their studies in any field in Estonia and find a job. It won't be like it was years ago when someone could graduate from high school but be unable to work even as a cashier because they didn't know Estonian. Those situations are absurd. The whole purpose of the transition is to ensure that Russian-speaking people have equal opportunities to compete in the labor market and find decent jobs.

What impact will the transition to Estonian-language education have on the Language Board in the coming years? Will the board's role remain as relevant as it has been until now?

It will change somewhat. If we look at the statistics, teachers — people officially employed as teachers — are required to have C1-level Estonian proficiency. Already now, 97 percent formally meet the language requirement. That means the results have been very good. However, among that 97 percent, there are still teachers whose actual language skills in one area or another need improvement. Formally meeting the requirement is an excellent outcome, but in practice we still need to work with those teachers and encourage them to further develop their language skills, whether in writing or speaking.

It's no longer a matter of an inspector showing up and ordering someone to take a language exam — the exams have already been passed. Now it's a question of improving language proficiency. Those kinds of supportive measures in the education system will probably continue. During the upcoming school year, we'll likely need to devote considerable attention to assistant teachers in preschools because there is a shortage of teachers and assistant teachers are required to have B2-level Estonian. We'll need to continue working with them.

So the focus of the Language Board's work will likely shift. But yes, the board will certainly continue to have a role in the education system through around 2029 or 2030. I believe that within four or five years, we'll reach the point where the overwhelming majority of teachers and assistant teachers meet the language requirements and are able to do their jobs confidently in Estonian.

What do you feel will remain unfinished?

That's a difficult question. One area that has been especially important to me is language law and its development. One of the Language Board's responsibilities has been to propose amendments to legislation concerning language and over the past 31 years we've made quite a number of such proposals. Some have become law, while others have not, and those are probably the ones that will remain unfinished for now. But the ideas are there and I believe that the vision I've had for language law will, in one way or another, eventually be realized.

For me — and for many heads of regulatory agencies — legal clarity is essential. That means different laws should speak with one voice and that voice should reflect the principle set out in the preamble to the Constitution: the preservation of the Estonian nation, language and culture through the ages. It shouldn't be the case that one law says Estonian must be used in a particular context while another law ignores that principle. Legislation concerning language, the nation and culture should be consistent and coherent.

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