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Kauri (Kaur)
Loon. One of the mysteries of modern-day life: I, British-born, never heard any name but ‘loon’, although it seems to be the American name, while Europeans say ‘diver’... Four species breeding in Estonia:
- järvekaur, black-throated diver or arctic loon, Gavia arctica
- jääkaur, great northern diver or common loon, G. immer
- punakurk-kaur, red-throated diver or loon (Eur. or US name), G. stellata
- tundrakaur, white- or yellow-billed diver (bill color debated, more likely yellow here), G. adamsii.
Part of the Lilleküla bird-name group of streets. See also Kiuru.
Compare with Kauri 1
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...
Trepi (Trepp)
Staircase, flight of stairs, doorsteps. Two versions: town-center version once known as Sunte Nyclawes stegel (St Nicolas’s steps), later switching to a name closer to the German heart, Unter den Linden (1890), Russified as Подъ Липовая (Pod Lipovaya, ditto) then back to Kirchenstegel (church steps) and Estonified as Väike-Niine (1913), the Trepi tänav off Harju was destroyed in 1944, and re-built, re-named and re‑opened on 20 August 2007 as Nõelasilm. Probably pure coincidence that the first part of this name relates to the Sunte Nyclawes stegel above.The other version, in Nõmme, renamed in 1940-41 as Astme, another name (aste) for step (or degree, grade, rank, etc.), and essentially a foot- or cycling path, starts with not one but two separate flights of steps, revealing, if nothing else, the dazzling excitement of place-name studies…
Täpiku (Täpik)
Dotted or speckled. But probably short for, in order, väike-täpikpunnpea, the grizzled skipper (as the late [drowned at sea] French sailor Eric Tabarly once wrote: a man overboard should never be on a boat in the first place...), Pyrgus malvae; täpikpõrnikas, the white-spotted rose beetle, a chafer or dung beetle which the French call the drap mortuaire, or winding sheet, Oxythyrea funesta; kase-täpikvaksik, the birch mocha, Cyclophora albipunctata. As to which one… Ooh, look: shiny object! Part of a lepidopteran group. See also Udeselja.
