Iris Metsmägi, senior lexicographer at the Institute of the Estonian Language (EKI), compiled an overview for ERR's Novaator of the etymology of the most common Estonian words associated with Christmas.

Click on the boxes around various familiar elements of Estonian Christmas in the holiday scene below and learn more about the background of the relevant word.

Of the Christmas vocabulary included in this article, religious terms are among those that date back the furthest in surviving historical written sources from Estonia.

For example, the word püha (holy) appears in the Kullamaa Manuscript and the word ingel (angel) in the Wanradt-Koell Catechism, both in the first half of the 16th century, and Georg Müller, the assistant pastor at the Church of the Holy Spirit, mentioned jõulud (Christmas) in his sermons in 1600-1606.

A few decades later, Joachim Rossihnius mentioned advent (Advent) in the Southern Estonian-language Lutheran church handbook published in 1632.

Heinrich Göseken, meanwhile, used the word näärid (New Year) in his 1660 grammar and dictionary.

The most modern Christmas term included in this story is the word for Scandinavian-style mulled wine, glögi, which was loaned via Finnish and didn't officially appear in the Dictionary of Standard Estonian (ÕS) until 1999.

A relic of its time, the word näärivana – the Estonian term for the Soviet-era cultural import Ded Moroz, or Grandfather Frost – first appeared in the 1953 edition of the Concise Dictionary of Standard Estonian (VÕS), although the root term näärid itself comes from Middle Low German.

Compound words including verivorst (blood sausage), päkapikk (elf), jõuluvana (Santa Claus) and aisakell (sleigh bell) were added to the dictionary during the interwar period from 1920-1939, along with the words mandariin (tangerine) and glasuur (frosting or icing).

For the most part, Estonian Christmas vocabulary is of Germanic origin. For example, the words ingel (angel), kringel (kringle), kõrvits (pumpkin), kink (gift) advent (Advent), näärid (New Year), vorst (sausage) and piparkook (gingerbread) all come from Middle Low German.

Also borrowed from German are words like šokolaad (chocolate), kompvek (candy) and glasuur (frosting, icing).

Uralic roots, meanwhile, have given us the words kuusk (spruce tree) and veri (blood), and from the more recent, Balto-Finnic roots, we have vana (old), hapu (sour) and ais (shaft, as in on a sleigh).

The word jõulud (Christmas) itself is borrowed from Old Scandinavian, and related to the modern Swedish, Norwegian and Danish jul.

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