Names
Sõnajala (Sõnajalg)
Fern (lit. word-leg or ‑foot). Oddly, Estonian does not differentiate foot from leg (both jalg) or hand from arm (both käsi). Then again, English seems unable to distinguish the stomach (part of the digestive tube) from the abdomen. Hungarian – Estonian’s, er, German cousin – however, tends to scind kéz, hand, from kar, arm, but, like a well brought up language, keeps its legs together: láb = leg and foot. If it really wants to be nice, it says lábfej, literally the ‘head of the leg’, for foot. It seems that Bulgarian and Polish have similar situations for leg, so it may not be an FU thing. And, as the very old (sorry) joke goes: “Doctor, Doctor, my feet smell and my nose is running. Am I upside down?”
Soo (Soo)
Swamp, march, bog. Two streets called Soo: 1) the old one, in Nõmme, now known as Alliksoo; and 2) the current one, in Kalamaja, named for its proximity to Kalamäe Soo (see Erika), and formerly occupying parts of both Uus-Kalamaja and Tööstuse, hence its colorful past ranging from Koppelscher Weg or Коппельская дорога and Ziegelskoppelscher Weg (1774, see Kopli), Sumpfstraße (1877) and Болотная (Bolotnaya, 1907), both ‘marsh’, then Große Fischermay-Straße (see Kalamaja) and finally Nikonovi J. (1951-1991) during the Soviet occupation. The fact that Soo ‘starts’ in Kalamaja probably caused Kivi’s notion that Kalamäe Soo was located there too, see Angerja.
Soodi (Soot)
Oxbow lake, body of stagnant water, arm of a river separated from the main channel, old, dried-up river bed. Named for the former rivers that were part of what used to be the Mustjõe delta emptying into Kopli laht (bay). For “used to be”, see Liiva and Paljassaare. Word probably derived from Soo. Soot:soodi is also the nautical term for the strange-sounding Eng. for ‘rope’, i.e. sheet, or line used to control the sail. Originally from Old Eng. sceatline where the first part comes from sceata, the lower part of the sail, and clearly derived from Old Eng. sciete, scete, etc., length of cloth, giving us also bed-‘sheet’, and the second part gradually fading from use and memory. See Köismäe.
