Estonian/Everything and Nothing

In this lesson we'll go over some important determiners in Estonian.

What are Determiners?

Determiners are a class of words that span over several types of words, such as pronouns and adjectives, which are used to specify nouns. These primarily act like adjectives in general, and include words like my, this, every, no, each, as well as question determiners that can be used to begin interrogative sentences and specify nouns in declarative sentences, such as what, which and who.

Common determiners in Estonian

Estonian	English	Corresponding Question	Question in English	Declension?
iga	each/every	~ mitmes?	which one? (ordinal num.)	iga - iga - iga(t)
mõni	some	missugune?	which one? (ordinal num.)	mõni - mõne - mõnda
paar	a couple (of)	mitu?	how many? (cardinal num.)	paar - paari - .paari
see	this	missugune?	which one? (adjective)	see - selle - seda
selline	like this	missugune?	what kind? (adjective) like what?	selline - sellise - sellist
kumb	which	missugune?	which one?	kumb - kumma - .kumba
mingi mingisugune	some, some kind of (mingi can refer to both nouns or adjectives)	missugune?	which one? what kind?	mingi - mingi - mingi(t) mingisugune - mingisuguse - mingisugust

• milline - informal short form of missugune

Non-Determiner Vocabulary

The following words are included in this lesson, but are not Determiners because they are standalone words. However, some may be composed of determiners.

Estonian	English
midagi miski	something (nothing)
keegi	someone
mitte	not
mitte midagi eimiski	nothing
mitte keegi eikeegi	nobody
(mitte) kumbki	neither (subject)
(mitte) kumbagi	neither (object)

• kõik - kõige - .kõike - all, everything, everyone
• inimene - inimese - inimest - person, human
• elu - elu - elu - life
• kiri - kirja - .kirja - letter

Verbs (shorthand)

• nägema - näe - ei näe - to see

Enumeration of nouns

Nominative Nouns preceded by an ordinal determiner (1st, 2nd, 3rd, first, last, every etc.) are written in the Nominative. The determiner (e.g. number) will decline along with the noun in all other cases.

The Accusative case (III) marks the partitive in Estonian, and the partitive is used when talking about several (plural) of something (preceded by a cardinal determiner). In this case, the Nominative becomes the Accusative, but all other cases remain the same:

• paar + kass = kolm .kassi (kass becomes Accusative)
• paari + kassi = kolme kassi
• .paari + .kassi = .kolme .kassi

Phrases

Iga inimene teab midagi Translation Every person knows something Siin on paar õuna Translation Here are a couple of apples Mõni kass oskab seda Translation Some cats know how to do this Selline on elu Translation That's life That's what life is like Mitte keegi ei tea seda Translation Nobody knows this Ma ei taha kumbagi Translation I don't want either one Ma kuulen mõnda inimest Translation I hear some people Kumba sa tahad? Translation Which one do you want? Kas see peab selline olema? Translation Does it have to be like that? Ma ei näe kumbagi kirja Translation I see neither letter Kõik on siin Translation Everything is here Everyone is here