One has to wonder about an official language policy that calls upon State Broadcasting and other media institutions to "correct" the language of even celebrated poets! As a linguist, Kaplinski identifies a pattern of artificially standardizing the Estonian language, gives several examples, including an odd one oddly spearheaded by the President, and reflects on the source and nature of this trend and its undesirable consequences. With regret for the circumstances, I'm glad someone of Kaplinski's stature and expertise is addressing the issue because I'd felt the impact but I hadn’t understood the why.

On another but related note, I received this morning an invitation and link to the "Talendid Koju" portal. It all looked somewhat interesting and appealing until I read the signature: "Talendid Koju meeskond". Honestly, my heart sank. Here there’s apparently a need for increased knowledge and understanding of contemporary reasons for language reform.

As for the gist of Kaplinski's recent concern, it is perhaps aptly captured in the following quote from his blogspot Ummamuudu:

"The efforts of our linguistic purists are centered on replacing the international words with what they consider Estonian ones, but there is little attention paid to the more latent influences. In fact, Estonian is more and more becoming a variant of the "Standard Average European", a language where an Estonian word is seen more as a correspondence to an English one than belonging to a group of semantically connected Estonian ones. The rigid language policies have become an obstacle to free, spontaneous speech and writing, partly obliterating the individual or local differences of style and obfuscating the language sense of most people. The real spoken language is living its own life, although it is often seen as slang and shunned or even prohibited in official use. The fact that our language teaching and language policies are centered on correctness and purity, not creativity and spontaneity, is, in my opinion, the main reason why many people in Estonia have difficulties in expressing their thoughts.”

Kaplinski knows about Estonia's contemporary problems, and his responses are a sensible counterbalance to the friekish rantings of a few misguided Estonian ultra-liberal nationalistic patriots.

Kaplinski is a respected poet.
The comments in his blogspot, however, give us cause to doubt his sanity.
For some reason, he's shunning the Estonian language; preferring the Võru dialect, or English, French or Russian. His English and French are serviceable, but hardly idiomatic.
Kaplinski has an exaggerated assessment of his abilities and a warped sense of self-importance. He's an educated version of Maxim.

Sel teemal kirjutab kontroversiaalselt aga selgelt EstDocs festivalil publikule hästi meeldinud "Kaplinski Süsteem"i peategelane Eesti luuletaja ja keeleteadlane Jaan Kaplinski. Soovitan lugemiseks "Goodbye my Estonian" (2010) ja "From Multi-Culti to Specious Monoculture in Estonia" (2011) http://jaankaplinski.blogspot....