North Pole (from põhja, north and naba, belly button)
In Estonian, the North Pole is actually the Belly Button of the North. A very graphic concept. 🙂
(from õde, sister; äi, father-in-law)
The father-in-law of the sister. Estonians do know how to use their vowels.
in visit (from küla, village)
A very interesting concept I learned recently is to visit in Estonian. To say “I’m in a visit” (in a friend’s house, for example), you say “ma olen külas“. That last phrase literally means “I’m in (the) village“. Basically, another person’s place is like going to a village. That makes complete sense to me.
present day, contemporary (from nüüd, now and aeg, time)
My guess is that nüüdis means “in now“, so basically this word would be “the time in now“. Words like this make it easy to learn Estonian.
nightmare (from luu, bone and painama, to haunt)
This is the opposite of unenägu, another interesting word. Some dictionaries translate this word as Incubus or Succubus, both of them, non pleasant mythological characters that would come in one’s sleep. Painama, however, can be translated also as to haunt or to obsess, the basic concept of stalking. Based on this, I’d say that luupainaja could mean “stalker of the bone“, which would perfectly illustrate this concept.
I just hope that doesn’t happen to me tonight.
dream (from une, hypnos- and nägu, face)
This is a very interesting one. According to what I was told, the word une is related to sleep. However, when searching in a few dictionaries, I was surprised to find out that une is also translated as hypnos- or oneiro- for complex words. For example, Hypnos, the greek god of sleep, is translated in a dictionary as unejumal, literally god of the sleep. The word oneiro– is related to Hypnos’ sons or brothers. As a side comment, this made me realize that the word sueño in Spanish is also related to another god, but from Roman mythology: somnus.
Unenägu should mean then “face of the sleep” or ¨face of Hypnos¨.
clear
I hear it all the time in the context of ok or understood.
Roger that.
field
Nothing hidden in this word. However, I noticed today that it’s related to the word väljas (outside), so I decided to find out more declensions of this word and see where that would lead me. This is what I found out. Bear in mind, as I am no linguist or anything close, just curious by nature.
välja is the genitive case, which means “of the field”. This is the Estonian word for out.
väljas is the innesive case, so this would be mean something like “in the place of the field“. This actually means outside or afield.
väljast is the elative case, which is like “out of the field“. This in Estonian actually means “from the outside“. The word outsourcing in Estonian is related to this (väljasttellimine, literally “order from the outside“).
väljal is the adessive case, which would be “on the field“. Just think of a person standing on a field.
väljalt is the ablative case, which is something like “off the field“. Imagine when someone picks a flower off a field.
Although it might not be related, I wonder if väljak (square, the place, not the shape) is related to this too.
My brain is tired now.
of the gray old men (from hall, gray; vana, old; and mees, man)
This word caught my attention while traveling by bus earlier today. It is the name of a small street in Tallinn. Street names are inflected in the genitive or possessive case (mees is the nominative, while mehe is the genitive case for man) The equivalent in English is to say “street of the gray old men“.
As my better half said, just think of Gandalf in Lord of the Rings. Who knows, maybe this is his street.
good bye (from hea, good and aeg, time)
This is one of the expressions that surprised me in Estonian at the beginning. You basically wish someone to have a good time when saying farewell.
The word collector 