Names
Saaremaa (Saaremaa)
Saaremaa, Estonia’s largest island, emerging from the Baltic Ice Lake about 12,000 years ago, still wet around the edges. Formerly also known as Kure Saar, whence the name of its capital. Whereas Estonian is the only language in the world to have the ‘õ’ sound, a half-closed, non-rounded, central or posterior vowel as I’m sure you’d guessed, Saaremaa is the only part of Estonia which doesn’t. They even have Õ-voiced zoning signs for the mainlandedly confused. For those interested, Wiedemann’s dictionary uses six types of ‘O’: o, ō, ö, ȫ, õ and ȭ, which modern Estonian has narrowed down to o, õ, and ö. Another nicety in which Estonian prides itself is vowel length, claiming seven different durations: undershort, full-short, half-long, underlong, full-long, overlong and extra long, a wider range than you’d find in most gentleman’s outfitters. See Liiva. Part of an Estonian island group, see Vormsi, but not Hiiumaa which didn’t make the list...
Saarepiiga (Saarepiiga)
In common parlance Saaremaa- or island-girl: piga is a dated term for girl, (serving-)maid in Swedish, although this one was probably the Isle Maiden that Kalevipoeg, ever the gentleman, frightened into drowning herself in Canto IV. Their relationship is very far from clear: did he ‘seduce’ her, or was she ashamed for, ahem, coveting his (?) “shining silver spear”? Was she his sister or his aunt? Did he fall asleep too soon and snore? Renamed (1979-1995) as Kangelaste during the Soviet occupation. Part of a magico-mythological group. See Varraku.
