Scripts and Politics in Modern Central Europe

Planning and purism: ideological forces in shaping linguistic identity

“…The language issue caused much disagreement among the Esto nian intelligentsia, and led to the development of two main camps for action: the regulators, led by J. V. Veski, who promoted "unhurried evolution" (Raag, 1998: 34) (Veski, 1913: 99 -100, translation from Raag, 1998: 34) Intriguingly, Aavik used a different metaphor, which evokes the revolutionary and industrial leanings of the times: he urged the reader to see language first and foremost as an "implement for human dealings, a tool, a MACHINE, the aim of which is to express thoughts, and also often to achieve aesthetic effects!" (Aavik, 1924: 8, my translation) He claimed that one should look at it as an engineer, "who tries to bend and use phenomena to his/her own advantage" (Aavik, 1924: 8 -9 (Kamusella, 2014;Verschik, 2008: 26 -30). Estonian press until Soviet times (Raag, 1998: 39).…”