Hello!

My name is Lyudmila and I am a BA student working on my research at the Narva College of Tartu University. The research concerns proverbs connected with various traits of human character in different cultures.

I would really appreciate if you could take your time filling out the questionnaire http://www.eformular.com/gavrjuha/questionnaire.html .

Thank you very much for your participation!

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I fear that the litany of text at the bottom indicates a mass posting. If this be false, I would like to know where you hail from, since Tartu and Narva are not, for a superabundance of better but slightly racist words, European or familiar names.

I just did the questionnaire. Kind of fun.

Curu--I believe Lyudmila is in Estonia.

I had the same thought Curuinor. it's definitely a cut-and-paste. but she may have done that to save time.

I googled "tarta university" and early hits made me think Finland but a little more digging proved it to be in Estonia.

Cur, despite his annoying signature , is right. Looks like a mass posting, and indeed, the Estonian language is not Indo-European. FWIW

Western European, then.

I do fear that no replies are forthcoming from the original poster.

I do fear that no replies are forthcoming from the original poster. That frequently happens: a newcomer will ask a question or make a comment, then never post again...which, frankly, is why I don't always respond right away. I never know if they come back and just read, or if they ever even see any replies.

The person posting is a Russian speaker doing research at a University on the western border of Estonia and Russia. During soviet times, Narva became a city occupied mostly by Russian residents. Most Russians who moved to Estonia because of military postings or because of the better living conditions in Estonia never learned the Estonian language, even after living there for 20-30 years, so ther person posting is probably not Estonian nor an Estonian speaker.
The post looks like a genuine request for information to me.
Tartu is the leading university in Estonia and is in central Estonia. It seems it probably has a branch in Narva now as well.
(I am fluent in Estonian, which is my mother-tongue although I was born and educated in the USA. I know no Russian, which is an Indo-European language. Estonian and Finnish are in the same language group, the Finno-Ugric languages) which is totally unrelated to any other language groups, as far as I know. (Basque is similar in this regard.)

kadri

Estonian and Finnish are in the same language group, the Finno-Ugric languages) which is totally unrelated to any other language groups, as far as I know.

Finnish and Estonian (the Finnic branch) are related to Hungarian (the Ugric branch). They, and Sami (sometimes called Lappish), make up the bulk of Finno-Ugric. This Wikipedia article (accessed 08/13/07, 13:20 PDT) is a good overview. There's a good map there showing the distreibution of the languages.