Estonian corpora

[Brian MacWhinney]

Dear Info-CHILDES,

  We now have three very nice corpora on the acquisition of Estonian.  The corpora from Reili Argu at Tallinn and Maigi Viga at Tartu are both case studies.  Reili's data are fro Hendrik between 1;8 and 2;5.  Maigi's are from Andreas (Antsu) between 1;7 and 3;0.  In addition we have data from Kaja Kohler, now at Potsdam from eight children.  Thanks to Reili, Maigi, and Kaja for these data, which are now the best we have on a Finno-Ugric language.  Thanks also to Marilyn Vihman and Juergen Weissenborn who have advised Maigi and Kaja in this work.  Here is the read-me file from Kaja Kohler:

Kaja Kohler collected these data from eight Estonian-speaking children in Tartu for her dissertation on verb morphology in Estonian children at the University of Potsdam under the supervision of Jürgen Weissenborn. The investigator was born in 1974 in Tartu and studied German language at Tartu and Griefswald from 1992 to 1999, before entering Potsdam in 2000. All eight children in the study are monolingual and are growing up in families with both parents. The material consists of 61 recordings, about 20-40 minutes each, covering an age range of 0;11-2;8 years. The recordings were normally make in the children's homes, and the child was usually talking with his parents and with the investigator. 

And here is the read-me file from Maigi Vija.

This corpus contains 74 files with 30911 child utterances, recorded between ages 1;7 and 3;1.13. Sixty of these files (2;0.1-2;1.12 and 3;0.0-3;1.13) were recorded and transcribed with support from the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig. Andreas (also called Antsu) is a firstborn Estonian-speaking child growing up in Tartu, Estonia. He was born on February 26, 1998. He can be called an early talker. Antsu is a very talkative and active boy. His father was working in construction materials supply and his mother was a student of linguistics. Andreas started to attend nursery school before the period of data collection, at the age of 1;6. The recordings were mainly carried out at home, where the child was playing with his mother and/or father. Meal time and other home activities were included. The recording sessions lasted 45-60 minutes each.

--Brian MacWhinney
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