text:
Talk:Estonian language

Mutually intelligible?
The text claims that northern dialects of Estonian are mutually intelligible with Finnish. This is not true unless there is previous knowledge of the other language as many words are quite different. The different way of spelling also creates lots of difficulties especially if the speaker of the other language is speaking too fast. Then the final "bomb": _Southern_ dialects of Estonian are more easily to be understood by Finnish people as they have more of the same kind of "vowel harmony" and spelling as Finnish. There are also some common words between Finnish language and Southern Estonian dialects. These holds despite the geographical facts.

 * The Estonian dialect that is closest to Finnish is the littoral dialect of North East Estonia, featuring several common traits with Finnish among them even vowel harmony (by the way, its absence or presence does not affect intelligibility). But that dialect is more or less extinct.

 * I think that there is a high degree mutual intelligibility between Finnish and Estonian in evereday speech, since the basic vocabulary mostly coincides and grammars are close as well. The main difficulty is that Estonian words are "worn" shorter, so that Estonian speech is too fast to the Finnish ear. Andres 13:33, 30 Nov 2003 (UTC)

 * It is extremely popular myth among Estonians that Southern Estonian is closer to Finnish. The reason is indeed probably related to vowel harmony and that some rare Finnish words like lämmin (warm) have well-known cognates in South Estonian dialects. In reality, opposite is true: Northern Estonian is much closer to Finnish than Southern dialects. Some examples: Estonian linnud, Finnish linnut (birds) is tsirgukõsõq in Võro (Estonian and Finnish do not have even leading 'ts' sound or trailing 'q' sounds and plural is absolutely different !!!) Estonian ei ole, Finnish ei ole (it is not), Võro-Seto olõ-õi or olõ-õs: (Estonian and Finnish do not have ever the negation that way) etc. Warbola 05:27, 3 April 2007 (UTC)

 * linnud in Võro is tsirguq -- tsirgukõsõq is diminutive form.

While Estonian and Finnish are quite similar, it is really because of Finnish tv (which was viewable and extensivly watched during the soviet time in the northern Estonia), why northern estonians can understand and to some extent speak finnish. Someone outside of the finnish tv coverage can understand finnish much worse, and it is not to be attributed to other dialects, as these are really dying in common usage.
 * No, Finnish TV is not to "blame" for this. Estonian and Finnish are grammatically similar due to shared heritage; this similarity continues because the differences are not yet too great.  However, Estonian has accepted a lot more Germanic word roots than Finnish, and this has decreased the mutual intelligibility over the centuries.
 * As for the "Northern Estonians" reference -- well, in *modern* times, due to tourism and high density of business relations, many people living in Northern Estonia regularly deal with Finnish-speaking people, contributing to their skill in speaking and understanding Finnish. While historically, northern dialects *used* to be somewhat closer, this modern trend is an entirely new mechanism not building on the old one.  After all, the "standard Estonian" all over Estonia is what used to be "northern dialect". Digwuren 18:29, 2 June 2007 (UTC)

Accusative?
I've changed the part about "no accusative". Just as in Finnish, Estonian has an accusative that looks exactly the same as the genitive. This is a coincidence. Originally, the accusative ending was -m, but this was mutated to -n or lost for Estonian and Finnish. For example, Finnish "Syön kalam" -> "Syön kalan" (I eat the fish), and "Syö kalam!" -> "Syö kala!" (Eat the fish!) --Vuo 12:37, 8 Feb 2005 (UTC)

 * Well, I'll have to disagree with this. If it looks exactly like the Genitive, it *is* the genitive.  Or perhaps the genitive is the accusative.  Either way, they're the same case.
 * No. There is no conflict with e.g. English third-person verb inflection -(e)s and the English plural -(e)s, not to mention the genitive clitic -'s, even if these are pronounced identically. Similarly, the Balto-Finnic accusative -n is not a genitive -n, even if their pronunciations coincide. The name of a case should be determined based on its grammatical role, not its form. Cf. accusative Pesen isän (I wash the father) vs. genitive Pesen isän auton (I was the father's car). --Vuo 15:15, 12 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * Again, I can't agree. Few people would claim that English had a dative case seperate from the accusative (or an accusative outside the pronominal system, for that matter), despite it being clear that you are referring to a dative object (eg. I gave him it).  The (English) examples you gave were examples across different grammatical categories.  While the genitive is indeed identical to the nominative plural (except orthographically), it is a seperate case since its singular form is different from the nominative singular.  Equally, I will say that Finnish has an accusative case, from what little I know of it, since it behaves differently from the genitive in the plural form (and has a pronominal accusative).  However, Estonian does not.   As such, I believe you can say that Estonian has no accusative case.

BovineBeast 15:51, 15 Mar 2005 (UTC)

 * The same debate between the "by form" and "by function" has been in the Finnish linguistical community for some time. Duck typing or no? --Vuo 22:20, 5 May 2005 (UTC)

 * In Estonian, accusative forms coincides with genitive in singular and with nominative in plural. I think this proves that there is an acuusative in Estonian. However, in school grammar there is no such case. Andres 07:14, 4 September 2005 (UTC)

 * Hasn't the field of balto-finnic linguistics decided that there is an accusative, anyway? I mean yeah, there's a split between whether partitive is used, and whether accusative is used, but there is some sort of accusative case in the end.  What it is morphologically shouldn't really matter if the case exists.  Perhaps I would say Estonian (like Finnish) has no accusative case that does not match the form of other cases, but there's certainly an accusative role in the language.  Deciding whether or not a language has a case or not is not purely a task of isolating some sort of morphological element.  English marks case syntactically, but would you say it suddenly has no accusative since it matches the nominative in singular and plural?  Nope.  Just look at recent literature on the Finnish and/or Estonian accusative.  Might change your mind. --Alcarilinque 15:49, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Actually, I very definitely would say that English has no accusative case, except where pronouns are involved. Doesn't have a nominative case either, of course.  It just has a possessive case (which turns out to be a clitic anyway), and a case for everything else.  Of course, if in fact the Accusative does indeed match the nominative plural and the genitive singular, then I'd say it does have a seperate existance.  BovineBeast 09:52, 15 January 2006 (UTC)
 * English also assigns case syntactically. While there is no morphologically accusative case for English nouns, there is still a syntactic Accusative.  On the other hand, Estonian and Finnish DO have abstract accusative cases.  Debating that it has no accusative as a result of the morphemes are similar or not is a waste of time, because there is still the idea of abstract case.  On the other hand, accusative singular, in balto-finnic languages has historically been morphologically separate from genitive singular.   --Alcarilinque 14:49, 28 February 2006 (UTC)
 * For a language to be able to express a detail that, in another language, is expressed via a specialized case is not the same thing as the first language "having" that case. For example, one doesn't say that English has syntactic "partitive, illative, inessive, elative, allative, adessive, ablative, translative, terminative, essive, abessive, and comitative" cases just because it does have ways to communicate the same specifics that Estonian expresses through the application of each of those cases. Largoplazo (talk) 16:14, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * The Estonian accusative isn't the same as the genitive, though. Look at the inflection of . The accusative is the same as the nominative, but it's clearly different from the genitive in the plural. Therefore they are not the same. For, the accusative is not only different from the genitive in the plural, but it's also different from the accusative in the singular. Thus, it's a separate case. However, even if accusative and genitive cases actually were identical, why would you call it the genitive rather than the accusative? And how is the situation any different from Finnish or Proto-Finnic? Rua (mew) 16:20, 10 October 2017 (UTC)
 * "However, even if accusative and genitive cases actually were identical, why would you call it the genitive rather than the accusative?" For the same reason I don't say that English nouns have accusative, dative, and genitive cases that happen to be the same as the nominative—regardless of the fact that Old English nouns had them as distinct cases, and the fact that German, a sister language of English, still has them today. One says that English has nominative (or subject) and possessive noun forms, and that's it. Largoplazo (talk) 16:37, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

An editor has recently been removing the accusative from the article, claiming it doesn't exist. To me, it obviously does exist, it just undergoes syncretism. Do you have any linguistic sources on the topic that might clarify this? Rua (mew) 15:10, 10 October 2017 (UTC)

I would like to explain why this discussion is pointless and why your opinion is irrelevant. Let's have a look at the Handbook of the Estonian Language. As you can see, the handbook lists all 14 cases that exist in Estonian language and accusative is not one of them.

The Handbook of the Estonian Language (Estonian: Eesti keele käsiraamat) is published by the Institute of the Estonian Language (Estonian: Eesti Keele Instituut), who is the sole language regulator of the Estonian language. Yes, your worst nightmare just became true - Estonian is a regulated language, so any opinions of some wannabe linguist (who doesn't even speak the language) are indeed irrelevant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:7D0:87EB:D180:8173:EEAA:3872:D597 (talk) 22:35, 30 October 2021 (UTC)

Lyrics
It would be nice if someone could offer an English translation of the song lyrics depicted.

Vocabulary
Is it certain that the word "poiss" is related to "boy"? From my guess, it would even more likely be related to Finnish "poika" (borrowed into Swedish as "pojke", actually, Swedish words borrowed from Finnish are much rarer than the other way around.)

 * "Poiss" is of Finno-Ugric origin. Swedish "pojke" and Norwegian "poik" are loans from a Finno-Ugric language (Most likely Finnish). Strombones (talk) 16:11, 21 December 2015 (UTC)

There has actually been a hypothesis that *poi has been borrowed from the Finno-Ugric to the Germanic languages. Also, I think the word 'koer' is of Finno-Ugric origin (Koer from cur. Etymology: Middle English, short for curdogge

 * Saagpakk, which I have found to be a fairly reliable source of word origins in Estonian, lists neither as a loan - though Saagpakk has quite a few definite loans unmarked as well. I *think* koer is from the old german term for dog, Köter .. which is again from the Latin, canis .. though I am not sure about that. Would be an interesting thing to find out if someone has access to more reliable information sources on etymology would be handy here. As for poika, I recall having learnt it is from Swedish when learning Finnish in Helsinki. I've always seen the Estonian poeg as the equivalent to that though ChiLlBeserker 21:21, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

 * I looked up English "Cur", since I couldn't find any info about "Köter". American Heritage gives "Middle English curre, perhaps of Scandinavian origin", http://www.etymonline.com gives "cur - c.1225, curre, earlier kurdogge, probably from O.N. kurra or M.L.G. korren both echoic, both meaning "to growl." ", possibly related to an IE root ger@-, meaning to cry hoarsely, related to the word for "crane". [It is also possible that the word derives from the Latin verbs "queri," meaning "to complain," or "quaerere," meaning "to ask."]

Cognates of koer exist in Uralic and Samojedic languages, it may derive from Indo-Iranic *hora meaning 'a bull' and have originally meant 'male'. Koer from Middle English cur is definitely not right.

'Koer' is not a Lower German loan. Koer, cur, canis etc have all been hypothesized to originate from *kuan in some very ancient global proto-language. *Poyi is probably finno-ugric or uralic, also definitely not Lower German. I suggest to consult Collinder's dictionary and maybe also some Campbell's works.
 * IF Estonian and Finnish got Poika from Germanic Languages, it would be from Swedish I think - though it could easily be the other way around IMHO. IIRC, Swedish has loaned "Ei" from Finno-Ugric languages in the function of "Doesn't", so loaning that way around definitely is possible in principle, also if less common. ChiLlBeserker 11:31, 26 August 2005 (UTC)

 * Both "Svenska Akademins Ordbok" http://g3.spraakdata.gu.se/saob/ and "Svensk etymologisk ordbok" http://runeberg.org/svetym claims that "pojke" is originally from Finnish, and probably one of the most common finnish words that has been borrowed. AFAIK, it is not used in the other Scandinavian Languages, unless to convey a Swedish touch. Deutsches Wörterbuch http://www.dwb.uni-trier.de/ doesn't give an etymology for Köter. "Ej" is, although very similar in appearance to "Ei", likely not borrowed, the word is related to Eng "ever" and Ger "Ewig", while Finnish "Ei" is a conjugation of the negative verb in 3rd person singular. Finnish borrowings to Swedish are far less common than the other way around, I don't think Swedes began using the word Sauna before the English, for instance, there probably are less than 50-100 relatively common Finnish borrowings in Swedish, while there are several hundreds or thousands direct or indirect borrowings from Swedish in Finnish.

 * Also, there is a word in Scanian, "påg" (rough translation "lad"), which appears to be unrelated, it is related to Swedish "påk"(stick, cudgel) and to English "poke".

 * We shouldn't add etymologies going back to hypothetized proto-languages since the hypothesis is widely disputed.

diphthongs
Are the Estonian "diphthongs" segmental, as they are in the Germanic languages, or are they vowel clusters, as in Japanese? kwami 15:52, 2005 August 11 (UTC)
 * Baltic-Finnic languages distinguish these two possibilities. What is called a "diphthong" in a BF language is by definition monosyllabic. (Vowel clusters are also found, and they are analyzed into syllables. For example, consonant gradation is a prolific source for these.) Estonian also contrasts long and short initial vowels in the dipthongs, but this is not written down. For reference, Estonian has ai, ei, oi, ui, õi, öi, üi, ae, ie, oe, õe, äe, öe, ao, eo, io, õo, äo, ea, oa, õa, öa, au, eu, iu, ou, õu, äu. (In contrast, Finnish speakers would find it odd that oi ~ oe are contrasted, as this is dialectal variation or vowel clustering in Finnish. For example, in Finnish koen vs. koin ("I experience", present vs. past), where the former is a vowel cluster ko-en, while the latter is usually analyzed as a diphthong koin.) Votic  has more diphthongs (28), but distinguishes only two phonemic lengths. --Vuo 13:22, 12 August 2005 (UTC)

 * Thanks! Do all these diphthongs occur long and short? (Just a two-way contrast, right?) kwami 19:22, 2005 August 12 (UTC)

 * As far as I can tell from Mati Hint: Häälikutest sõnadeni, it's a distinction of a short vs. a half-long initial vowel. (Over-long followed by a short vowel would be a vowel cluster.) I'm not sure if all diphthongs appear with both forms, and in any case, it is more allophony than phonemic length. Nevertheless, native speakers are able to recognize the difference, as the same vowels would be phonemically distinct as pure vowels. Interestingly, Hint lists only 19 different dipthongs: ai, oi, ui, õi, ei, äi, öi, (üi), au, ou, õu, eu, iu, äu, ae, oe, õe, äe, ea; 'üi' is the same as 'üü', 'ea' cluster-like but found as 'ää' in some dialects. The additional ones are: ie, öe, ao, eo, io, õo, äo, oa, õa, öa. Hint describes these as more vowel clusters than dipthongs, and öe as a dialectal pronounciation of õe. These do, indeed, violate vowel harmony or other phonotactical difficulties, which is not recognized by modern Estonian, but was by its proto-form; OTOH, 'äu' does too, but it doesn't matter (e.g. kräunub). --Vuo 22:06, 14 August 2005 (UTC)

Length levels
Ladefoged in SOWL describes Estonian as only having two phonemic lengths for vowels or consonants, with the third length being predictable, though he gives Mixe as an example of a 3-way lexical/phonemic distinction. The refs he mentions are:

kwami 23:40, 2005 August 22 (UTC)
 * Lehiste, Ilse. 1966. Consonant Quantity and Phonological Units in Estonian. Indiana University, Bloominton.
 * Lehist, Ilse. 1970. Suprasegmentals. MIT Press, Cambridge, Mass.
 * The killer is that there are minimal pairs, even if it is suprasegmental. It is not an effect of stress, either; the stress is on the first syllable in native words; rather, it may modify the placement of the secondary stress, not vice versa. (A tonal pattern (which is suprasegmental) is observed with the third length level, but this is a secondary cue. For the opposite, consider "standard" English tense-lax distinction, where the length is a secondary cue, and thus English-speakers pronounce kilo as *<keeloh> with incorrect length rather than *<killa> with different vowel quality.) Similarly, you could say that "Swedish does not distinguish vowel length at all". But, Swedish vowel length suprasegmental: a short vowel is always followed by a geminate, and a long vowel by a simple consonant. A view like this about Estonian would be too narrow and ignore the obviously minimal pairs or how the third length level has a grammatical function. In Estonian, deletion of the morphemes which cause an allophonic variation of vowel length makes the variation phonemic. For example, /kooli/ "of the school", /koo:li/ from */koolit/ "of the schools". See, for example, here: --Vuo 21:39, 25 August 2005 (UTC)

Nostratic hypothesis
Isn't nostratic pretty much just as hypothetical as all the rest of the ideas? Sure, I realize Uralic is much more established, and am no nostraticist, but it seems funny to me that something like this is marked. Isn't a large chunk of historical linguistics (when you get back far enough) hypothetical, anyway?

--Alcarilinque 15:38, 2 October 2005 (UTC)
 * Uh, no, not really. The IE family has been derived with the comparative method, and is largely based on regular sound shifts, which could't have occurred due to chance. The Nostratic wordlists have usually been derived either through mass lexical comparision of modern languages, which is highly criticized by linguists, or through comparisions of already hypothetized proto-languages, which, even when following the comparative method rigorously adds another level of incertainty, often, the sound shifts involved are also highly irregular, compared to generally accepted proto-languages, such as Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Afro-Asiatic... 85.226.122.222 17:49, 19 November 2005 (UTC)
 * You are making a big mistake of confusion.
 * Nostratic is not a product of mass lexical comparison. It has been brought to you by the good old comparative method. It may be wrong (you are of course right about the extra level of uncertainty), but it's still science.
 * Please give me an example of such an irregular sound shift.
 * You are right that the existence of Proto-Afro-Asiatic is generally accepted, but no particular reconstruction of it is generally accepted; all of them have methodological weaknesses (lack of data on Cushitic and Omotic languages, too much reliance on the well-studied Semitic languages… one of the two newest ones [1995] is even visibly influenced by the way Arabic dictionaries are organized!), for example.
 * David Marjanović | david.marjanovic_at_gmx.at | ignore my IP address, it's dynamic! —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 131.130.1.135 (talk) 14:35, 30 December 2006 (UTC).
 * I have gotten myself a login, now. Alright, it seems that most versions of Nostratic indeed are based on the comparative method. However, I'm still not sure about including it, since it's still considered rather controversial. 惑乱 分からん 00:30, 23 January 2007 (UTC)
 * I have deleted Nostratic from this article - the Nostratic hypothesis is valid science of course, but there's no justification for inlcuding such a marginal theory in this article. This article is about Estonian, and as such it's not the place for discussing non-mainstream theories on remote linguistic prehistory. In fact, I'm not sure if the whole table of words and their origins really serves a purpose in this article. --AAikio 10:10, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

 * I don't think the article actually discusses the Nostratic theory, but I think it should be mentioned. More information is better than less. Of course there could be a separate article about historical lexicology of Estonian language or something like that. -- 195.80.96.210 11:05, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

The Nostratic theory is no more relevant to Estonian than to the hundreds of other articles about all the individual languages in Indo-European, Uralic and other families. Although an interesting theory, I don't think it has yet achieved that amount of solidity-plus-relevance. If you want to know about theories of the distant relationships that might have eventually led to Estonian (or Catalan, or Marathi), you read about Uralic and Indo-European and you reach the Nostratic theory from there. And rew D alby 11:25, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

The Nostratic theory and proposed word roots are discussed in a university course of history of Estonian language. If the editors find that it is too detailed information for an overview article, please start a new article "Historical Lexicology of Estonian language" or "Origin of Estonian Word Roots" (or whatever sounds right) and move the whole table there, but please don't delete this information completely. -- 195.80.96.210 12:40, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

 * I agree with Andrew Dalby here. The Nostratic theory is not in any way relevant to this article, and should remain deleted. Or should we start adding similar sections to all the other articles on "Nostratic" languages as well - starting from, say, English? --AAikio 13:18, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

 * I repeat my proposition: find a new place for that information, don't just delete it. Start a new and more detailed article about the history of Estonian vocabulary and move that section there. -- 88.196.109.244 15:55, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

 * "The Nostratic theory and proposed word roots are discussed in a university course of history of Estonian language." Yes, that seems normal. You would expect a university course on the history of a language to range much wider than any one article in Wikipedia. That's why Wikipedia has links. And rew D alby  16:38, 23 January 2007 (UTC)

Estonian translations
I think all of these examples of the Estonian language isn't very helpful, when it doesn't provide a translation in English. The word examples should include the Estonian meaning, as well as the word and meaning borrowed, I am taking a guess here on some examples to show what I mean : "toll from Low German toll (toll)", "kroonu from Swedish krona (crown, name of currency)" "kunst from Low German kunst (art)", also, it should be noted if the original borrowed word meant something else than it does in current Estonian. 惑乱 分からん 15:04, 29 January 2006 (UTC)

== Reply:

You're very wrong there with your guess about "kroonu"! "Kroonu" is the name estonians use for the (in)famous russian army, meaning both either 19th century army or the Soviet one.

 * How could I know? Anyway, this does only strengthen my conviction that this page needs a lot of rewriting and clarification for the general audience. 惑乱 分からん 13:37, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Nah, you don't *have to*. I just corrected that minor mistake about the meaning of "kroonu". :)

Pronunciation
I have a few questions about Estonian pronunciation that are not cleared up by the article. In word-final positions (or in syllable-final positions before consonants), is a three-way (or two-way?) distinction of stops maintained? I can (sort of) hear the difference between b, d, g; p, t, k; and pp, tt, kk in the middle of words, but I can't tell at all at the end of words (granted, the only samples I have are from Estonian-language pop songs). Specifically, words ending with b, d, g sound like they are pronounced p, t, k. The article says something about b, d, g being written when the pronunciation is p, t, k for historical reasons; would this have something to do with it?

Simply put, would words ending with g, k, and kk but otherwise identical be distinguished in pronunciation?

Also, how are the fricatives written as f š ž z actually pronounced by Estonians? Do different people pronounce them differently? Is there a prescribed pronunciation that would be considered "correct"?

Finally, is ng pronounced as or  in some positions? The pronunciation seems to be different from the case of Finnish, where it's usually a simple (or geminated between vowels).

I'd appreciate if the article cleared up some of these points. --Iceager 06:59, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

 * For the stops in word-end positions, there are different cases according to the different stress positions and different length of the vocal before the stop.

 * If the last syllable bears stress and the vocal before the stop is short, then there is only one way the stop can be pronounced. Normally then the stop is written as pp, tt, kk. It reads approximately like the same between vocals (of course, it cannot be geminated in syllable-end positions, it is only about intensity and length). It also holds for ortographically deviant loan words like pop.  In this case, the stop never can be written us b, g, d. The word pub (a loan from English; often pubi is used instead) is pronounced like in English: [paab] in Eestonian orthography.

I don't agree that the pronunciation of the vowel "ä" is unlike German "ä" but like Finnish AND SWEDISH "ä". As far as I'm aware the Swedish "ä" is like German "ä" and Norwegian and Danish "æ", but unlike Finnish "a", which does indeed sound like English "a" in "mat" and presumably also like Estonian "ä".212.238.222.19 (talk) 11:11, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

 * If the last syllable bears stress and   the vocal before the stop is long (including the case of a diphthong) then there are two options: b, d, g or p, t, k (the latter are pronounced approximately as p, t, kk'). The former is less intense than the later. Both of them are voiceless.   In Estonian orthoepy, b, d, g never are voiced, though some people pronounce then voiced in some international loan words as banaan 'banana'. Sometimes b, d, g are pronounced voiced in word end position in some English loans as gag'' [gääg] (the vocal is pronounced long here).

 * If the last syllable bears no stress then there can be b, d, g or p, t, k in the end position. The difference is the same as in the previous case except that p, t, k are less intense.

 * For stressed non-end syllables the orthographical options are b, d, g and p, k, t but the former are pronounced as pp, kk, tt. If two weak stops follow each other as in bd then they are pronounced strongly as pt (this occurs in some loans). bs, ds, gs are pronounced as ps, ts, ks.

 * In unstressed non-end syllables the same holds except that the strong options are pronounced like p, k, t.

 * b', 'd, g are weaker (less intense) and shorter sounds than p, t, k. But in some cases these letters are pronounced like p, t, s (see above).

 * The orthoepically correct pronunciation of f, š is as in English words for, offer, off and approximately like in English words shy, usher, wash. The sound š is a bit different from the English sound, it sounds like the French ch or the German sch''.

 * Often people pronounce f as hv. The sound š sometimes is pronounced like s.

 * In syllable-end positions the three-way distiction is not maintained. It exists only between vocals.

 * The orthoepically correct pronunciation of ž and z are correspondingly like a weak š and a weak s. The weak-strong distinction is analogous to that distinction in stops. Thus correctly these sounds are voiceless. Some people sometimes pronounced them voiceless.

 * Voicing g, b, d, z and ž depends not only from the idiolect but also from the style. The same holds for the incorrect pronunciation of f and š. The latter marks low style (rural accent), whereas the former marks being over-refined or is used for indicating orthography.

 * ng is almost always pronounced as . Before voiceless consonants as in gangster [kankster] it is pronounced . In some idiolects or maybe in some styles it is (orthoepically incorrectly) pronounced as   (. In Estonian normally it is impossible to pronounce [ŋ] without a following [k] or [g].

 * I wrote this from my first language user knowledge. Im am no linguistics expert, so I might have overlooked some details. Therefore I am not inserting this into the article now. But I think that what I wrote is basically correct. If you have more questions you are welcome to put them on my user talk page here or on my user talk page on the Estonian wiki (as I spend most of my time there). Andres 12:15, 7 March 2006 (UTC)

 * Foreign sounds š ž are often completely ignored and pronounced as 's'. For most people Pane garaaži uks kinni ja söö šokolaadi is pronounced just like it was written Pane karaasi uks kinni ja söö sokolaadi. Warbola 18:26, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

I don't agree that the pronunciation of the vowel "ä" is unlike German "ä" but like Finnish AND SWEDISH "ä". As far as I'm aware the Swedish "ä" is like German "ä" and Norwegian and Danish "æ", but unlike Finnish "a", which does indeed sound like English "a" in "mat" and presumably also like Estonian "ä".212.238.222.19 (talk) 11:13, 19 September 2010 (UTC)

Hungarian
I removed the reference to Hungarian in the opening paragraph. Hungarian and Estonian are related very distantly, about as distantly as English to Greek, and claiming their relation in the begnning could be misleading. Rain74 17:50, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

'Overlong'
why is the term 'overlong' used here in the article? The direct translation of 'ülipikk' is 'ultralong'.--Constanz - Talk 08:39, 8 September 2006 (UTC)
 * Which means exactly the same. (ultra (lat.) = over) -- megA (talk) 15:47, 23 November 2007 (UTC)

Estonian language course
Hi, I just remembered that I created an Estonian language course just after high school a month or so after I got back from Estonia. I knew that I wouldn't be able to find many places to use the language for the next few years (and still haven't) and so I wrote it out with as much as I could remember and got some Estonian people I knew to check it. The page vanished but I found it later on waybackmachine.org and just put it up here: http://docs.google.com/View?docid=dc93rc8z_31hkcngq

I made the page but the page doesn't exist anymore, nor is my name on the page so maybe it doesn't count as self-promotion. What should I do with this? Anybody want to make use of it? It has more than the average intro but it's still incomplete. It could also make a good beginning for a Wikibooks text. Any ideas? Mithridates 12:11, 27 December 2006 (UTC)

 * Wikibook would be a good idea --Constanz - Talk 15:03, 29 December 2006 (UTC)

Gradation
Hello,

 * Estonian differs from Finnish, where consonant gradation is a weakening process only (nouns: sg nom - strong grade, sg gen - weak grade; verbs: supine - strong grade, ind pres - weak grade), in also having some noun inflection types with strengthening quantitative consonant gradation.

I think the statement about Finnish gradation is wrong, as there are nouns types with nom. sing. in weak grade and gen. sing. in strong grade(raide => raiteen, tiede => tieteen) as well as verb types with weak grade first infinitive and strong grade otherwise (tavata => minä tapaan, pelätä => minä pelkään).

I don't want to change anything yet, because I feel this observation would render the paragraph unnecessary and I don't want to delete it without feedback.

Oliver Uwira 15:35, 31 January 2007 (UTC)

 * You're right, that description of Finnish gradation is flat-out wrong,just go ahead and delete it. --AAikio 10:43, 1 February 2007 (UTC)

 * OK, I have just removed it. Oliver Uwira 08:51, 6 February 2007 (UTC)

Estonian genitive
The genitive in Estonian is marked by adding a vowel after the end of the word. For example kass (cat) -> kassi (cat's), linn (city) -> linna (city's). How do Estonians know which vowel to add? How do they know it shouldn't be *kassa or *linni? J I P | Talk 08:19, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

 * By using analogy probably. And one has to know by heart, just like Germans know, which gender a noun has. Constanz - Talk 08:35, 19 February 2007 (UTC)
 * Suur tänu sulle ku vastasid mu arvutukse, or something. J I P  | Talk 09:07, 19 February 2007 (UTC)

 * I disagree. In Estonian, genitive is the root word itself and nominative is just genitive minus trailing wowel. In old grammar, still present in Finnish, linna is the nominative and linnan genitive. For newer loan words where genitive is really derived from nominative, there is almost no variation and genitive always ends with 'i': printer, printeri. Warbola 18:02, 27 March 2007 (UTC)

 * The "how do they know" problem is actually there with plural partitive. (kivi-> kive, linn -> linnu, kass -> kasse, konn -> konni, ... ) People make many mistakes here, but almost never with genitive. —The preceding unsigned comment was added by 193.40.9.3 (talk) 16:21, 10 May 2007 (UTC).
 * Actually there is not problem, there is a simple rule which I can look up if anyone's interested. I remember it vaguely. 195.50.205.141 21:47, 21 July 2007 (UTC)

Dialects
"kirderanniku dialect" and other such expressions seem a bit strange. I'd suggest something like this:

northeastern dialect (kirderannikumurre) eastern dialect (idamurre) etc

Lebatsnok 13:28, 15 May 2007 (UTC)

 * kirderannikumurre = north eastern coast dialect 71.102.74.156 03:53, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

Merging of "Revived language" and "Estonian literature"
I suggest merging of the sections "Revived language" and "Estonian literature" into a single section "History", written anew. Articles about other languages are usually organized in this way. I don't have sufficient knowledge about the subject, so perhaps someone else could do it. Greg-si (talk) 15:31, 4 June 2008 (UTC)

Lines by Kristjan Jaak Peterson
I think that those lines written by Kristjan Jaak Peterson should also be mentioned in estonian. Someone should fit them into the article.

 * Kas siis selle maa keel
 * laulutuules ei või
 * taevani tõustes üles
 * igavikku omale otsida?

Iffcool 19:59, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

There is a typo in the translation of these lines: laulutuules comes from laul + tuul (song + wind) not tuli (fire), therefore 2nd line should be ...In the wind of incantation...

84.50.193.245 (talk) 06:42, 30 June 2009 (UTC)

Edit warring
User:Peter_Isotalo has chosen to remove the following text from the article that seems unreasonable, so I'll bring it to the talk page to find out what would be other opinions on the question.--Termer (talk) 22:43, 23 October 2008 (UTC)

 * Statements about the uniqueness of certain sounds is usually not a good idea and not terribly informative to readers. Truly rare sounds like the labiodental flap or the voiceless palatal-velar fricative can be worth mentioning in the lead, but these are usually limited to a handful of closely related languages or even just a single one. I know of at least four European languages and several East Asian languages that have an, most of which are unrelated, and that doesn't strike me as particularly rare.
 * Peter Isotalo 08:07, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

The claim about the uniqueness of the sound doesn't mean that everything about the fact has to be removed from the article. Even though I'm not an expert, the letter õ seems unique in the latin alphabet. Either the sound itself is unique in any way would be a subject of comparative phonetics between similar sounds in other languages and the claim would need a source, that's for sure. but the bottom line of this, there is no reason to remove all related facts from the article. What needs to be done, the claim of uniqueness would need a citation tag at first. If not replied within a reasonable time frame and a source is not provided, the claim about the uniqueness would need to be removed, not the whole text that characterizes the language. The fact that you personally know so and so many languages that has similar vowel would be relevant if appropriate sources would be provided, saying that the the is present in other languages. Since you haven't provided any sources, the current text can be considered as valid as your opinion. I'd suggest rolling back your removal and tagging the claim appropriately first. And in case you'd like to address the question by yourself, please edit the article according to the sources you have in your hands by providing intext citations according to WP:RS, not according to your opinions, meaning WP:OR. Thanks! --Termer (talk) 18:27, 24 October 2008 (UTC)

 * I don't see why unreferenced claims should be allowed to stay in articles if there are good reasons to doubt their veracity. Close-mid back unrounded vowel has plenty of info and is linked to several phonology articles that explain the usage of the sound in quite a lot of other languages. It's not just my personal knowledge. The letter "õ" is already mentioned under "Writing system" along with an explanation of the vowel it stands for. That means that except for the dubious claim of uniqueness no information has been removed from the article.
 * Peter Isotalo 07:56, 25 October 2008 (UTC)

according to Close-mid back unrounded vowel it's represented in 9 languages in the world. One out of 9 among hundreds makes it pretty special case as far as I can tell that characterizes the language. So still nothing has justified the removal of the fact. In case you think the claim "uniqueness" is a problem, that's another story that still doesn't justify the removal of the fact.--Termer (talk) 17:29, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

 * Well, the problem is that we're not actually talking about a pure fact statement, but an opinion. And problem remains that there isn't any evidence of exactly how rare that vowel is. Either way, I think there should be very good reasons for mentioning a very specific aspect of a language in the lead. Especially when one has already been mentioned. A lead is supposed to summarize an article, not list oddities.
 * Peter Isotalo 19:16, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

 * The existence of the rare vowel and the only form of the letter "õ" in use in the Latin alphabet is an opinion?--Termer (talk) 19:49, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

 * An article "Development of language-specific phoneme representations in the infant brain" by M Cheour, R Ceponiene, A Lehtokoski, A Luuk, J Allik, K Alho, R Naatanen, published in the scientific journal "Nature Neuroscience" in 1998 (page 351), states "õ" is unique to Estonian. Martintg (talk) 20:44, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

 * Are we talking about the letter or the sound? They are quite separate entities and should not be confused. Regardless whether the former or the latter, I'd like to stress that it's not particularly interesting to stress oddities of a language in a summary, since that usually leads to an undue focus on curiosities rather than general description. Native speakers like nothing better than presenting their own language as uniquely special, but it seldom leads to neutral and linguistically relevant presentations.
 * Peter Isotalo 21:40, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

 * so who exactly is the native speaker to get the blame up there cited by Martintg, either M Cheour, R Ceponiene, A Lehtokoski, A Luuk, J Allik, K Alho or R Naatanen?--Termer (talk) 22:05, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

Here is something related Facts and myths about Uralic studies by Tapani Salminen (Helsinki)

--Termer (talk) 22:15, 31 October 2008 (UTC)

 * How does a comparison to Russian make Estonian unique among the worlds languages? I also checked the Nature Neuroscience article, and it doesn't say at all what Martin claims. Here's the relevant quote from p. 351:
 * The Estonian and Finnish languages, which are closely related to each other, have very similar vowel structures5. For example, the vowels /e/ and /ö/, which differ only in the second-formant (F2) frequency, exist in both languages. However, only Estonian has the vowel /õ/, which is approximately between /ö/ and /o/.
 * The comparison is only between Finnish and Estonian, and nowhere do the article authors make any specific claims about the uniqueness of the vowel. And this is the full quote used by Termer:
 * The authors leave open the question whether the vowel symbolized by õ is to be regarded as a mid or high vowel: from the systematic point of view, the latter solution seems superior, and to a non-native observer, it seems unnecessary to emphasize the great difference between Estonian õ and Russian y.
 * None of these sources actually comment the frequency of this vowel among languages in general.
 * Peter Isotalo 21:31, 1 November 2008 (UTC)

Well, is it me or is it you who's missing something here? My first sentence in this discussion was The claim about the uniqueness of the sound doesn't mean that everything about the fact has to be removed from the article. And once its clear by now that the subject gets as much attention by different sources I need to repeat myself again ''the claim would need a source, that's for sure. but the bottom line of this, there is no reason to remove all related facts from the article''.--Termer (talk) 22:38, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

PS. Not to mention that comparing Estonian õ and Russian y doesn't make any sense, so who knows what exactly this Tapani Salminen was talking about. As far as I can tell the õ Close-mid back unrounded vowel marked with the IPA symbol is pronounced close to [o] in English home and Russian y is straight forward U in the Latin alphabet.--Termer (talk) 23:05, 5 December 2008 (UTC)

PPS. restored the fact under Estonian_language.--Termer (talk) 20:21, 6 December 2008 (UTC)

"Spoken in" in infobox.
I removed Finland, Sweden, Russia, Latvia, Ukraine, USA, Candada, UK, Ireland, Germany, Costa Rica and Australia from "spoken in" in the infobox. They were all reverted, with the exception of Costa Rica, because, allegedly, it is "usual to include many countries". They had originally been added by user "Sixest" on 31 December 2008, without citations or edit summary.

I think wikipedia should include factual and cited information. It is unfortunately true that the articles of many languages have a long list of countries in which the language is allegedly spoken. I find this very unhelpful. The infobox should state where there is a permanent community of speakers of the language. If any country that has immigrant speakers of the language are included, the list would just grow and grow, and the infobox would not, in fact, be informative.

I suggest the solution that is now in place on Russian language, and which I have now tried here. If other countries have a permanent Estonian-speaking community, this should be cited.--Barend (talk) 17:26, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

 * Makes sense! 'Spoken in' should include only places where the language has an official status. Otherwise for example I've heard people speaking Estonian in Copenhagen Central Station and at the Don Mueang International Airport in Bangkok etc., it doesn't mean it should be therefor part of 'Spoken in' section of this infobox.--Termer (talk) 18:39, 12 April 2009 (UTC)

IPA link
Currently the IPA in the header links to Finnish phonology. This is temporary; eventually we should have an IPA key that covers both Finnish and Estonian, rather than covering Finnish only and leaving Estonian personal and place names for the generic IPA key. If this is problematic, please comment at Template_talk:Usage_of_IPA_templates. kwami (talk) 20:30, 9 June 2009 (UTC)

Estonian_language
What's going on in this section? Seems as if there was some markup which went wrong somehow. -- Deville (Talk) 18:00, 20 July 2009 (UTC)

Phonotactics
Where's the information on Estonian phonotactics? We're missing an entire part of the phonology of Estonian haha 128.192.98.201 (talk) 16:39, 20 August 2010 (UTC)

"segmental diphthongs"?
What does "segmental diphthongs" mean? That these are allowed vowel sequences which are not actually diphthongs, or that they're single segments, which is the definition of a diphthong? — kwami (talk) 20:11, 29 September 2010 (UTC)

 * Old comment, but Estonian phonetic diphthongs are not typically considered to be single segments. The concept "diphthong" here simply means that they occupy a single syllable. Stockhausenfan (talk) 13:13, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

ɤ
I removed the statement, that the estonian õ is similar to "the Kazakh ұ, the Turkish ı and the Russian ы". The estonian õ is a close-mid back unrounded vowel /ɤ/, which is most close to the Vietnamese ơ (which is practically the same sound) and the bulgarian ъ - a mid back unrounded vowel /ɤ̞/, which is just a bit more open. The Kazakh ұ is a near-close near-back vowel /ʊ/ is both more close and more fronted, the Turkish ı is a close back unrounded vowel /ɯ/, which is even more close; the russian ы is a close central unrounded vowel /ɨ/. It's neither back, nor close-mid or mid, so there isn't even the smallest similarity to the estonian õ. Kreuzkümmel (talk) 23:44, 7 February 2011 (UTC)

Phonology
1. It would be nice to have all 'grades' of all phonemes in IPA and supplied with sound files. Now you need to go for a site like Forvo to get the idea that e.g. a long & overlong 'a' or 't' is really 1,5* & 2* as long as a short one, but an overlong 'l' or 'n' sounds rather like a sequence of two l's or n's. The descriptions used now are too vague to be interpreted in only one way. Also, it isn't absolutely clear now that the long grade shares its orthographic representation (where it does) with the overlong rather than the short grade.

2. The gradation section is a mess--it should be either moved to the grammar section (and perhaps the historical phonetic changes section, too) or at least brought into factual and terminological conformity with the rest of the article (e.g. use 'short, long, overlong' instead of 'weak, short long' for stops, decide if 's' has two or three grades in pronunciation). 46.186.37.98 (talk) 02:04, 11 July 2011 (UTC)

IPA for Tallinn
What is the correct IPA for the Estonian pronunciation of Tallinn? --Espoo (talk) 20:32, 25 November 2011 (UTC)

Concerns about blatant advertising
Is anyone still watching this page and editing it? It appears that the external links section has grown into a list of pay-for summer courses, etc., all using Wikipedia for advertising (which would probably enhance their credibility as a reputable service provider). There is no mention of credentials for any of the courses and Wikipedia is not an advertising space. I'll await a response before I remove all links to non-free language learning materials. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:18, 9 January 2014 (UTC)
 * I've cleaned up the External links. Are there problems elsewhere in the article? --Ronz (talk) 16:55, 17 July 2014 (UTC)
 * Greatly appreciated, Ronz. I soon became entrenched in recent Eastern European events related articles and couldn't remember which article I'd noted the spam in. Thanks for picking up on and cleaning it up! --Iryna Harpy (talk) 23:22, 18 July 2014 (UTC)

Denoting the suprasegmental/third length in IPA
I'm wonder how the "overlong" syllables should be indicated in IPA. If the syllable contains a long vowel or consonant, it's easy enough, because you can put an overlong mark after that. But this doesn't work as easily for diphthongs like või, let alone for words that have a short vowel plus a cluster like jalg. Which sound is the actual longer one that would receive the length mark in IPA? My understanding is that it's the syllable as a whole that lengthens, not so much the individual phonemes. But there is no way to indicate syllable-wide lengthening in IPA that I know of. CodeCat (talk) 02:38, 23 February 2015 (UTC)

Pointless photograph
The one photograph of modern printed Estonian - the road sign - doesn't include even one of the typically Estonian letters, especially õ, and largely consists of borrowings from other languages ('meteoriidikraater'). What's the point of a photograph that doesn't tell us anything about what makes Estonian so different, even from Finnish? Perhaps someone can provide something more useful. I'm not in Estonia (and don't have a camera anyway), but I've just googled 'Road signs in Tallinn' on Wikicommons and it provides several better examples, including a sign to the Õismäe district of Tallinn - you don't get much more Estonian-looking than that!92.111.250.34 (talk) 16:29, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * Or look at the category Signs in Estonia, commons:Category:Signs_in_Estonia. Help yourself! —Largo Plazo (talk) 16:41, 22 April 2015 (UTC)
 * ✅ Removed as redundant and misleading per WP:PERTINENCE. --Iryna Harpy (talk) 01:19, 25 April 2015 (UTC)

"official languages of the EU"
"Along with Finnish, Hungarian, and Maltese, Estonian is one of the four official languages of European Union that is not of an Indo-European origin." This reads as if the EU has 4 official languages. It should read "Estonian is one of the four official languages of European Union that are not of an Indo-European origin."--2607:FEA8:FF01:4A86:5D14:7304:D92C:B7CB (talk) 22:31, 25 January 2022 (UTC)

Allegedly Estonian is easier to learn than Finnish and Hungarian languages
Compared to other Finno-Ugric languages, such as Hungarian and Finnish, it is somewhat easier for a foreigner to learn Estonian. In the case of Hungarian, it takes 5.4 years for a native English speaker to achieve full fluency, in the case of Finnish it takes 5.3 years, and in the case of Estonian it takes 4.7 years. Also, learning Estonian is easier for a native English speaker than learning an Indo-European language such as Albanian or Icelandic. There is a video about it on Youtube, author: WatchData, 10 April 2021, Comparison: Hardest Languages to Learn, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfRQe3P5Vvg — Preceding unsigned comment added by 88.82.32.199 (talk) 12:33, 13 April 2024 (UTC)

Reason for deleting intermediate subgroups
Because this led to an edit war on the page about the Finnish language, I thought that I'd leave my justification on the talk page for removing the intermediate subgroups between Uralic and Finnic.

WP:TRUTH means that it doesn't matter whether subgroups like Finno-Ugric actually exist; it must be verifiable that there is a scholarly consensus that they exist.

It's possible to cherry-pick sources that say that these subgroups exist, particularly older sources, but equally there are other sources that deny the existence of any intermediate subgroups between Uralic and Finnic. So what is needed is an expert overview of the different proposals that explains the scholarly consensus.

The book "The Oxford Guide to the Uralic Languages" qualifies as such a reference, and here is what it has to say:

"It is generally accepted that the Uralic language family comprises [Saamic, Finnic, Mordvin, Mari, Permic, Samoyed] and the Ugric group, which is sometimes also derived from an intermediate proto-language. However, there is no consensus on further groupings or subdivisions within Uralic." (emphasis mine) Stockhausenfan (talk) 13:06, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

 * Agreed. Similar handbook Uralic languages (2023) published by Routledge also adopts the same approach to subdivisions of Uralic. Jähmefyysikko (talk) 14:16, 12 July 2024 (UTC)

title: Talk:Estonian language


text:
Harajuku Station

Harajuku Station (原宿駅) is a railway station in Shibuya, Tokyo, Japan, operated by East Japan Railway Company (JR East). The station takes its name from the area on its eastern side, Harajuku.

Lines
This station is served by the circular Yamanote Line. It is also adjacent to Meiji-Jingumae Station on the Tokyo Metro Chiyoda and Fukutoshin Lines, and is marked as an interchange on most route maps, although there is no physical connection between the two stations.

Station layout

The station consists of a two side platforms serving two tracks. The station was initially an island platform with an additional temporary platform for the Shinjuku direction during major events only. The temporary platform was made permanent during the 2020 renovations, and the two platforms now serve different directions.

The main entrance is at the southern end of the station. A smaller entrance leading to the centre of the platform is convenient for Takeshita Street, a famous area in Harajuku.

To the north of the station there is a separate platform serving a loop on the east side of the freight line for use by the Imperial train. The platform has not been used since 2001, in part because the opening of the Shonan-Shinjuku Line has made it more difficult to schedule special charters on the Yamanote Line corridor (the most recent use of the official Imperial train, in 2008, was to and from Ueno Station). The points, signals and rails incidental to the platform are in disrepair, making it impossible to use the platform without some refurbishment.

History
The station opened on 30 October 1906.

Platform edge doors were installed on the platforms in November 2014, and brought into operation from December.

Station numbering was introduced in 2016 with Harajuku being assigned station number JY19.

2020 renovations
In June 2016, JR East announced plans to rebuild the station ahead of the 2020 Olympics in order to alleviate overcrowding. A new station building was to be built by JR East at the station's Meiji-Jingu entrance. A temporary platform used during busy periods will become the permanent platform for trains heading north through the station. The new station building and platform opened on 21 March 2020, in time for the Tokyo Olympics and Paralympics. JR East decided in November 2019 to demolish the old station building at the Takeshita entrance on safety grounds after the Paralympics, and replace it with a safer structure constructed in a similar style.

Passenger statistics
In fiscal 2013, the station was used by an average of 70,866 passengers daily (boarding passengers only), making it the sixtieth-busiest station operated by JR East. The daily average passenger figures (boarding passengers only) in previous years are as shown below.

Surrounding area

 * Meiji Shrine
 * Yoyogi Park
 * Takeshita Street

license: Creative Commons - Attribution Share-Alike - https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/

title: Harajuku Station


text:
User talk:Belladonna

Hello, welcome to Wikipedia. Here are some useful links in case you haven't already found them;

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If you have any questions, see the help pages, add a question to the village pump or ask me on my talk page. I hope you enjoy editing here and being a Wikipedian!

Tip: you can sign your name with ~

snoyes 22:55, 29 Nov 2003 (UTC)

Unreferenced BLPs
Hello Belladonna! Thank you for your contributions. I am a bot alerting you that 2 of the articles that you created  are tagged as Unreferenced Biographies of Living Persons. The biographies of living persons policy requires that all personal or potentially controversial information be sourced. In addition, to ensure verifiability, all biographies should be based on reliable sources. If you were to bring these articles up to standards, it would greatly help us with the current Category:All_unreferenced_BLPs article backlog. Once the articles are adequately referenced, please remove the unreferencedBLP tag. Here is the list:

Thanks!--DASHBot (talk) 23:43, 17 January 2010 (UTC)
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Articles for deletion nomination of Wendy Swanscombe
I have nominated Wendy Swanscombe, an article that you created, for deletion. I do not think that this article satisfies Wikipedia's criteria for inclusion, and have explained why at Articles for deletion/Wendy Swanscombe. Your opinions on the matter are welcome at that same discussion page; also, you are welcome to edit the article to address these concerns. Thank you for your time.Please contact me if you're unsure why you received this message. Deor (talk) 14:44, 3 June 2010 (UTC)

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Arabella Knight listed at Redirects for discussion
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Nomination of Penny Birch for deletion
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title: User talk:Belladonna


text:
Church of God in Christ, Mennonite

The Church of God in Christ, Mennonite, also called Holdeman Mennonite, is a Christian Church of Anabaptist heritage. Its formation started in 1859 under its first leader, a self-described prophet named John Holdeman (1832-1900), who was a baptized Mennonite. The Church of God in Christ, Mennonite is Conservative Mennonite that has distanced itself from other Conservative Mennonites because of its one true church doctrine. In 2013 the church had 24,400 baptized members.

Origins
The congregations of the Church of God in Christ, Mennonite are descendants of the Anabaptists of the 16th century. Under the influential work of Menno Simons, many of the Anabaptists became known as Mennonites. Holdeman Mennonites recognize the faith of the Waldenses and other nonconformist groups of the Middle Ages as part of their spiritual heritage and see a direct lineage through them to the Early Church. They believe that "Christ established one true, visible Church, and through her He has preserved His faith and doctrine through the ages."

John Holdeman
In the mid-19th century, some American Mennonites believed they saw in their church a spiritual decline and drift away from sound doctrine, and sought to "earnestly contend for the faith which was once delivered unto the saints". Among these was John Holdeman (1832–1900), who was born in Wayne County, Ohio, to Mennonite parents. John's father, Amos Holdeman, was interested in the revivalist movement of John Winebrenner. John Holdeman became both an evangelist and a reformer. Issues he believed needed reform included the baptism of persons not giving sufficient evidence of conversion, less than diligent child training, and laxity of church discipline. Holdeman and other concerned individuals began holding separate meetings in April 1859, resulting in a permanent separation from the Mennonite church and the eventual organization of the Church of God in Christ, Mennonite. Holdeman wrote extensively and traveled widely, and new congregations were formed in the United States and Canada.

The coming of the Mennonites from Russia
The spread of the Church of God in Christ, Mennonite among other Mennonites and among the Amish was minimal until the arrival of Mennonite immigrants from the Russian Empire (present-day Ukraine), so called "Russian" Mennonites who are of Dutch and Prussian heritage and who settled in Canada, mainly Manitoba and in the USA, among other places in McPherson County, Kansas, starting in 1874. In 1878, Holdeman baptized 78 members of the McPherson County group. In 1881, he baptized 118 Kleine Gemeinde Mennonites in Manitoba who had migrated from southern Russia (now Ukraine) to North America some years before. With this group came Peter Toews, who led many Mennonite immigrants from Russia then living in Canada and Kansas into the Holdeman church.

Theology
Holdeman's teachings on salvation and the Bible probably reflect more evangelical Protestant and Pietist influence. The church began during a time of widespread revival and spiritual awakening. They hold the Arminian position and therefore believe that a person can lose his or her salvation if they stop following Jesus. Leaving or excommunication from the Holdeman Mennonite church is usually considered as following a loss of salvation. They do believe there are Christians saved outside of the Holdeman Mennonite church, but they also believe that the Church of God in Christ, Mennonite is the true visible church. Baptism, by pouring, is the method by which born-again believers are admitted into this visible church.

Soteriologically, the new birth is considered the "cornerstone" of the doctrine of salvation. It is described as true repentance from sin and acceptance of the atoning work of Christ by faith, resulting in the redemption from sin and being spiritually born again. Those so affected will find their heart filled by God with peace, have assurance of salvation, and grace. This new birth results in one's conversion from a sinful life unto a life that "brings forth the fruit of the Holy Spirit."

In Christology, the Holdeman Church denies that Jesus was made from the flesh or seed of Mary, trying to be closer to the teachings of Menno Simons and Melchior Hoffman than other modern Anabaptists. Eschatologically, they hold to an historic Anabaptist amillennial view of Christ's kingdom and reign, teaching that the present dispensation is the only time in which salvation is offered.

The church and the world are viewed as distinctly separate institutions and thus Christians are not to be conformed to the world (Romans 12:1-2). To maintain nonconformity to the world, Christians must not be "compromised by worldly dress, amusements, or other worldly attractions." Worldly entertainment provided by such things as motion pictures, musical instruments, radio, television, and the improper use of the internet are to be avoided. Modesty in apparel is particularly stressed. Jewelry, "costly or fashionable attire", and bodily ornamentation detract from Christian simplicity. Their beliefs also include an unwritten dress code. This dress code is most noticeable with the women, who wear mid-length dresses and head coverings.

Marriage is seen as divinely instituted between one man and one woman for life, for the propagation, purity, and happiness of the human race. It is only permitted between church members. Divorce and remarriage are not recognized, as among other plain Anabaptist churches.

Practice
The church holds to a strong Mennonite culture, and obligates its members to lead a life according to Mennonite principles. The members should pattern their lives after their beliefs in integrity in personal and business dealings, non-involvement in government, loving their neighbors, keeping the avoidance of sin with love, inviting the sinner to repent, and emphasis on voluntary service. Non-resistance is standard practice, whether peacemaking among individuals, regarding lawsuits, or concerning warfare among nations. Holdeman Mennonites do not vote, serve in the military, or in law enforcement professions. They consider themselves to be citizens of a heavenly kingdom, not an earthly one.

Courtship
The Church of God in Christ Mennonite, via General Conference decision, has forbidden its members from pursuing "carnal courtship", a term that encompasses any form of dating or courtship. Instead of allowing young people to choose a partner and engage in dating rituals, every congregation has a formal youth group, which organizes group functions such as bible studies, singing evenings, or volleyball games at which young people get to know each other. If a man wants to get married, he must get approval from a church minister who "carries the proposal" for him. In this tradition, the minister pays a visit to the young lady to whom the young man wants to propose. She can then accept or reject this proposal. In the event that she says yes, the marriage engagement will be announced in church the following Sunday morning after the worship service. Weddings are simple religious services followed by a reception for guests.

Membership
As with other Anabaptist churches, membership is through young child and adult believer’s baptism, by pouring water on the believer's head. Communion is only for members and held with bread and unfermented grape juice rather than wine. Excommunication from the Holdeman Mennonite church is the only accepted way to leave it. There are cases of membership annulment but they are rare. The Holdeman Mennonites practice shunning or avoidance toward former members by not eating at the same table with them, shaking hands with them, or having any business partnerships with them.

Worship and service
Congregations meet weekly on Sunday mornings for Sunday school and worship. Each congregation has its own schedule for other types of meetings, such as communion, teaching, fellowship, Bible study, and singing. Foot washing is practiced by ministers washing the men's feet, and the wives of ministers and/or deacons washing the women's feet. The kiss of peace is also practiced.

Worship takes place in modest buildings that may contain air condition, carpet, and padded pews, but without any musical instruments. Singing is a cappella and in four-part harmony. Preaching tends to be topical, rather than exegetical. Most congregations also hold summer vacation Bible school classes during the summer school holidays. These are open to any children, member or non-member in their communities.

Clothing and appearance
Simplicity and modesty in clothing, personal possessions, and homes is held as an ideal. Plain dress is mandatory, which for women means a mid-length dress always with sleeves, and a head covering. The headcovering for daily use is black and sits on the back of the head. A second black headscarf is required to be over the head when attending church. Men do not wear a necktie in formal dress and otherwise their appearance resembles the look of a typical American businessman or other conservative Mennonites, in that they are dressed in a modest way that does not reveal much skin.

The men, "by order of creation" wear a beard out of "respect for God’s order". Believing a devotional head covering is Scripturally commanded (1 Corinthians 11:1-16) as "an outward sign of submission to God’s order," the women wear a devotional head covering "for prayer and as a sign of submission."

Technology
Modern technologies like automobiles, telephone, and other modern conveniences are allowed. Television, radio, movies, musical instruments, and "the improper use of the internet" is not allowed. The Church of God in Christ Mennonite encourages members to install special software, purported to be a pornography filter, developed by the technology committee on any internet connected devices. This software blocks access to social media as well as many websites that church leadership finds objectionable. It can, if wanted, be setup so that if the app is disabled, a notification will be sent to a third party stating that the application is not active.

Ministers and church organization
Ministers are chosen from within the own ranks and formal training is not required. There are only two positions of office in the church and only men are eligible. Ministers and deacons from each congregation are chosen by the local membership by first asking a series of questions regarding a need for more staff, whether there is a gift for the position, and whether the members feel that it is the right time to elect a staff member. These questions are by show of hands and only if they all pass with a significant majority does a secret ballot vote take place. The vote is one ballot per member and there is no nomination process. The ballots are counted by the ministers already in office and, if a high enough percentage of the congregation votes for the same individual, he is elected. The percentages needed for a successful election or total number of votes cast for each candidate are not public knowledge. There are no salaried ministers and they seldom use prepared notes, but rather preach extemporaneously.

A General Conference made up of ministers, deacons, and other delegates meets every seven years (more often if necessary) for decision-making. An annual meeting is held yearly to provide a formal meeting for all business and corporate activities. The General Conference and Annual meeting is open to any members to attend. Matters at the General Conference are voted on by all members present. At each annual meeting a minister's and deacon's meeting is also held to discuss matters pertaining to spiritual life and practical issues and is sometimes, but not always a closed meeting to lay members.

Education
Formal education beyond eighth or ninth grade is rare outside of California and Quebec (to the tenth grade to comply with compulsory school attendance laws in these cases where religious exemption has not been made) and in the case of job training such as carpentry, nursing, etc. Congregations in Canada teach grades K-9. One thing that causes the Quebec government to give problems to these schools is that they teach Young Earth creationism in their science curriculum, and they use curriculum viewed as Bible-based.

Nearly all congregations have their own private schools. Those that cannot do this because of legal issues, run under a similar system: group homeschooling. 50-70% of their teachers are unmarried women aged eighteen and up. These teachers have some basic formal training in education, and their secondary education varies from completion of a high school curriculum through correspondence to no further education than what they received within their private schools. The main requirement to teach is a solid standing as a member in the Church and a reasonable skill set to be able to handle the grade that they will be teaching. This is determined in consultation with the applicant's minister and local elected school board.

Adherents and congregations
From a small beginning, membership grew to around 750 at the time of Holdeman's death in the year 1900. In 1953 the baptized membership was 5,308, in 41 congregations in Canada and the United States. There were missions in Mexico and New Mexico with three ordained ministers of Spanish language, and also a mission station in Canada among indigenous peoples. The church experienced slow but steady growth until the mid-1970s. During the later 1970s the growth slowed, then continued. Numerous new churches have been started because of the growth as members have sought opportunity in new locations, and churches have been planted in new states and provinces.

In 2009, there were 14,672 members and 138 congregations in the United States. In 2013 the church had 24,400 members, of whom 14,804 lived in the United States and 5,081 in Canada.

Kansas continues to contain the largest population of the denomination, with over 4,000 members. Current membership still greatly reflects the growth of the church through the Swiss-German ancestry of those such as Holdeman, the Kansas-"Russian Mennonite" ancestry, and the Manitoba-"Russian Mennonite" ancestry. Yet, in some regions, like Quebec, New Brunswick, Nova Scotia and Eastern Ontario, there is a high percentage of believers who have recently joined the Church and do not have the same roots as the majority of the Holdemans in North America, who are still ethnic Mennonites.

In addition to the United States and Canada, the Church of God has established congregations and mission work in various countries in Africa, Asia, Central and South America, the Caribbean, and Europe.

2016 Lawsuit and Allegations
In February 2016, a lawsuit was filed against the Mennonite church with the plaintiff alleging that he was sexually assaulted by his father from age 11. The lawsuit alleged that clergy failed to contact authorities as required by mandatory reporter statutes. His lawsuit pointed allegations of sexual abuse by people who attended congregations affiliated with the Church of God In Christ Mennonite, some resulting arrests and convictions. The case was settled out of court, and the terms of the settlement were not published by the parties.

2022 Allegations by Mennonite Abuse Prevention List
On August 2, 2022, a nonprofit called Mennonite Abuse Prevention published a report alleging how sexual abuse allegations are handled in the church. This report alleges, in a series of cases, that there was clergy misconduct including failures to report abuse and cases where victims were discouraged from reporting abuse to police. The allegations claim that, as part of the settlement of the 2016 lawsuit, every congregation explored local mandatory reporting laws and declared that their congregations would now comply. The allegations further claim that, that same year, court records show that ministers at the Gospel Mennonite Church congregation in Almena, Wisconsin were notified that Leslie Toews, a member at the congregation, had sexually abused a 13-year-old girl for about a year, and claim that this abuse was not reported. The allegations claim that the alleged perpetrator arranged to speak with detectives four years later, in 2021. MAP claims that church policy documents shared with them show that church members, including school teachers, are required by law to report directly to authorities, are required to report abuse to clergy, who then investigate and make a judgement call with regard to whether the abuse should be reported to authorities.

The Purge of the 1970s (The New Way)
Economic trends in the 1970s led to an increasing rate of non compliant members, in addition to some members who began to question the doctrine of the "one true church." Church discipline concerns led to a "new way" of dealing with non-conforming members. Church leadership began the process of interviewing every member of every congregation around the conference. This new method was referred to as "paneling", which led to number of members who were disciplined and excommunicated. The practice of excommunicating former members, known as The Avoidance, is still practiced and is an official Conference Decision (policy).

Publications
The Messenger of Truth, which was begun in the early 20th century, is issued bi-weekly from the church headquarters in Moundridge, Kansas, US. Canadian offices are located in Greenland, Manitoba. The church's publishing arm is Gospel Publishers.

Literature

 * John M. Penner: A Concise History of the Church of God, 1967.
 * Cornelius J. Dyck, Dennis D. Martin, et al. (editors): Mennonite Encyclopedia, 1990.
 * P. G. Hiebert: Principles of Faith, 3rd edition 1967.

title: Church of God in Christ, Mennonite


text:
User talk:Kristof vt

Hey there! Welcome to Wikipedia! I hope you like this place--I sure do--and want to stay. If you need help on how to title new articles check out Naming conventions, and for help on formatting the pages visit the manual of style. If you need help look at Help and The FAQ, plus if you can't find your answer there, check The Village pump or The Reference Desk! Happy wiki-ing! Alexandros

Contacting the author of photo possible?
Hi. I would like to contact Michael Joachim Lucke, the author of the images of Moderlieschen / Moderlieschen Eier. It's a bit urgent. Can you help me? Thanks! --> kaeptn.haddock at at gmail.com —Kaeptn*haddock (talk) 08:48, 15 July 2008 (UTC)

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To allow us to track those users who muli-license their contributions, many users copy and paste the " " template into their user page, but there are other options at Template messages/User namespace. The following examples could also copied and pasted into your user page:

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Or if you wanted to place your work into the public domain, you could replace " " with "  ". If you only prefer using the GFDL, I would like to know that too. Please let me know what you think at my talk page. It's important to know either way so no one keeps asking. -- Ram-Man (comment| talk)

Metallurgy
I noticed that you contributed interwikis to several of the steel-related articles. I'd like to call attention to the internationalized Fe-Fe3C phase diagram, in hopes that it will improve articles on steel, cast iron etc. in as many languages as possible. You might consider including it in, for example, the staal article, or just passing the information along. Keep up the good work!--Joel 19:10, 1 September 2005 (UTC)

ArbCom elections are now open!
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title: User talk:Kristof vt


text:
Shinjuku Station

Shinjuku Station (新宿駅) is a major railway station in Tokyo, Japan, that serves as the main connecting hub for rail traffic between central/eastern Tokyo (the special wards) and Western Tokyo on the inter-city rail, commuter rail, and subway lines. The station straddles the boundary between the Shinjuku and Shibuya special wards. In Shinjuku, it is in the Nishi-Shinjuku and Shinjuku districts; in Shibuya, it is in the Yoyogi and Sendagaya districts.

The station was used by an average of 3.59 million people per day in 2018, making it the world's busiest railway station by far (and registered as such with Guinness World Records). The main East Japan Railway Company (JR East) station and the directly adjacent private railways have a total of 35 platforms, an underground arcade, above-ground arcade and numerous hallways with another 17 platforms (53 total) that can be accessed through hallways to 5 directly connected stations without surfacing outside. The entire above/underground complex has well over 200 exits.

History
Shinjuku Station opened in 1885 as a stop on Japan Railway's Akabane-Shinagawa line (now part of the Yamanote Line). Shinjuku was still a quiet community at the time and the station was not heavily trafficked at first. The opening of the Chūō Line (1889), Keiō Line (1915) and Odakyū Line (1923) led to increased traffic through the station.

Japanese government urban planner Kensaburo Kondo designed a major revamp of the station in 1933, which included a large public square on the west side completed in 1941. Kondo's plan also called for extending the Tokyu Toyoko Line to a new underground terminal on the west side of the station and constructing an east–west underground line that would be served by the Seibu Railway and the Tokyo Kosoku Railway (forerunner of Tokyo Metro), while the Keio and Odakyu lines would use above-ground terminals to the west of the JR station. These plans were suspended upon the onset of World War II but influenced the current layout of the station area. Subway service ultimately began in 1959.

The Seibu Shinjuku Line was extended from Takadanobaba Station to Seibu Shinjuku Station in 1952. Seibu Shinjuku was built as a temporary station pending a planned redevelopment of the east side of Shinjuku Station, which was to feature a large station building that would house a new Seibu terminal on its second floor. Seibu abandoned its plan to use the building due to a lack of space for trains longer than six cars; the building is now known as Lumine Est and retains some design features originally intended to accommodate the Seibu terminal (in particular, a very high ceiling on the first floor and a very low ceiling on the second floor). In the late 1980s, Seibu planned to build an underground terminal on the east side of Shinjuku but indefinitely postponed the plan in 1995 due to costs and declining passenger growth.

On 8 August 1967, a freight train carrying jet fuel bound for the U.S. air bases at Tachikawa and Yokota collided with another freight train and caught fire on the Chūō Rapid tracks. The incident stoked ongoing political controversy in Japan regarding the Vietnam War. The station was a major site for student protests in 1968 and 1969, the height of civil unrest in postwar Japan. On 21 October 1968, 290,000 marchers participated in International Anti-War Day, taking over Shinjuku station and forcing trains to stop. In May and June 1969, members of the antiwar group Beheiren carrying guitars and calling themselves "folk guerrillas" led weekly singalongs in the underground plaza outside the west exit of the station, attracting crowds of thousands. Participants described it as a "liberated zone" and a "community of encounter." In July, riot police cleared the plaza with tear gas and changed signs in the station to read "West Exit Concourse" instead of "West Exit Plaza." The incident represented a significant defeat for public activism in Tokyo.

There have been plans at various points in history to connect Shinjuku to the Shinkansen network, and the 1973 Shinkansen Basic Plan, still in force, specifies that the station should be the southern terminus of the Jōetsu Shinkansen line to Niigata. While construction of the Ōmiya-Shinjuku link never started and the Jōetsu line presently terminates in Tokyo Station, the right of way, including an area underneath the station, remains reserved.

On 5 May 1995, the Aum Shinrikyo doomsday cult attempted a chemical terrorist attack by setting off a cyanide gas device in a toilet in the underground concourse, barely a month after the gas attack on the Tokyo subway which killed 13, left 6,252 people with non-fatal injuries, severely injured 50 people, and caused 984 cases of temporary vision problems. This time the attack was thwarted by staff who extinguished the burning device.

The station facilities on the Marunouchi Line were inherited by Tokyo Metro after the privatization of the Teito Rapid Transit Authority (TRTA) in 2004.

Station numbering was introduced to the Odakyu terminal in 2014 with Shinjuku being assigned station number OH01.

A major expansion of the JR terminal was completed in April 2016, adding a 32-story office tower, bus terminal, taxi terminal, and numerous shops and restaurants.

Station numbering was introduced to the JR East platforms in 2016 with Shinjuku being assigned station numbers JB10 for the Chūō-Sobu line, JS20 for the Shonan-Shinjuku line, JA11 for the Saikyō line, JC05 for the Chuo line rapid, and JY17 for the Yamanote line. At the same time, JR East assigned the station a 3-letter code to its major transfer stations; Shinjuku was assigned the code "SJK".

In 2020, the east–west free passageway was opened, shortening the time required for pedestrians to pass between the east and west exits by 10 minutes. A major redevelopment of the station and the surrounding area began in July 2021 with the aim of improving pedestrian flow and making it easier and faster to cut through the east and west sides of the station. Construction is expected to continue until 2047.

Keiō Shinjuku Station
When the Keio Line extended to Shinjuku in 1915, its terminal was located several blocks east of the government railway (presently JR) station. The terminal was first named Shinjuku-Oiwake Station (新宿追分駅) and was on the street near the Isetan department store. In 1927, the station was moved from the street to a newly built terminal adjacent to the original station. The station building housed a department store. The station name was changed to Yotsuya-Shinjuku Station (四谷新宿駅) in 1930 and again to Keiō Shinjuku Station (京王新宿駅) in 1937.

The tracks from the terminal were on the Kōshū Kaidō highway, which crosses the Yamanote Line and the Chūō Line in front of the south entrance of Shinjuku Station by a bridge. The Keiō Line had a station for access to Shinjuku Station, named Teishajō-mae Station (停車場前駅) and renamed in 1937 Shōsen Shinjuku Ekimae Station (省線新宿駅前駅).

In July 1945, the terminal of the Keiō Line was relocated to the present location, though on the ground level, on the west side of Shinjuku Station. Keiō Shinjuku Station and Shōsen Shinjuku Ekimae Station were closed. This was because the trains faced difficulty in climbing up the slopes of the bridge over the governmental railway after one of the nearby transformer substations was destroyed by an air raid. The site of Keiō Shinjuku Station near Shinjuku-Sanchōme subway station is now occupied by two buildings owned by Keiō: Keiō Shinjuku Sanchōme Building and Keiō Shinjuku Oiwake Building.

Lines
Shinjuku is served by the following railway systems:
 * Chūō Main Line (Limited Express)
 * Chūō Line (Rapid)
 * Chūō–Sōbu Line
 * Saikyō Line
 * Shōnan–Shinjuku Line
 * Yamanote Line
 * KeioRailway logo.svg Keio Corporation:
 * Keio Line
 * Keio New Line
 * OdakyuGroup logo2.svg Odakyu Electric Railway:
 * Odakyu Odawara Line
 * Odakyu Odawara Line

JR East
The station is centered around facilities servicing the East Japan Railway Company (JR East) lines. These consist of eight ground-level island platforms (16 tracks) on a north–south axis, connected by two overhead and two underground concourses. Most JR services here are urban and suburban mass transit lines, although many limited express services to Kōfu and Matsumoto on the Chūō Main Line and to Nikkō and Kinugawa Onsen via joint operations with the private Tōbu Railway also begin and end at this station, including Narita Express services to and from Narita International Airport. The JR section alone handles an average of 1.5 million passengers a day.

Odakyu
The terminus for the private Odakyu Odawara Line is parallel to the JR platforms on the west side and handles an average of 490,000 passengers daily. This is a major commuter route stretching southwest through the suburbs and out towards the coastal city of Odawara and the mountains of Hakone. The ten platforms are built on two levels beneath the Odakyu department store; three express service tracks (six platforms) on the ground level and two tracks (four platforms) on the level below. Each track has platforms on both sides in order to completely separate boarding and alighting passengers.

Chest-high platform screen doors were added to platforms 4 and 5 in September 2012.

Keio/Toei Subway (Toei Shinjuku Line)
Keio operates two sections of Shinjuku Station, the traditional Keio Line stub terminal and a separate through station connecting the Keio New Line with the Toei Shinjuku Line. In 2019, 788,567 passengers used the Keio complex daily (Keio and Keio New Lines), which makes it among the busiest among the non-JR Group railways of Japan.

Keio Line
The Keio Line concourse is located to the west of the Odakyu line concourse, two floors below ground level under the Keio department store. It consists of three platforms stretching north to south. An additional thin platform between Platforms 2 and 3 is used for alighting only. This suburban commuter line links Shinjuku to the city of Hachiōji to the west. Chest-high platform edge doors were introduced on the Keio Line platforms in March 2014. The doors are different colours for each platform; the doors on Platform 2 are green.

Keio New Line and Toei Shinjuku Line
The shared facilities for the Toei Shinjuku subway line and the Keiō New Line are distinctively called Keiō New Line Shinjuku Station (新線新宿駅) and consist of two platforms stretching east–west five floors beneath the Kōshū Kaidō avenue to the southwest of the JR section. The concourse is managed by Keio Corporation but is in a separate location from the main Keio platforms. Further south (and deeper underground) are the two north-to-south Toei Ōedo subway line platforms.

Toei Subway (Toei Oedo Line)
Toei Ōedo Line's two underground platforms stretch north–south to the south of the Toei Shinjuku Line and Keio New Line facilities. This is on the 7th basement floor of Tokyo prefectural road 414(Yotsuya-Tsunohazu Ave.).

Tokyo Metro
Tokyo Metro's two Marunouchi Line underground platforms stretch east–west to the north of the JR and Odakyu facilities, directly below the Metro Promenade underground mall.

Commercial facilities
Many department stores and shopping malls are built directly into the station. These include
 * Lumine Est – above JR's east exit
 * Odakyu department store – above the Odakyu line concourse (Closed down in October 2022.)
 * Odakyu Mylord – above the southern end of the Odakyu line concourse
 * Lumine 1 shopping mall – above the Keio Line concourse
 * Lumine 2 shopping mall – above JR's south and Lumine exits
 * Keio Department store – above the Keio Line concourse
 * Keio Mall – underground mall to the southwest of the Keio Line concourse
 * Odakyu Ace – underground malls beneath the bus terminal by the west exit.

In addition to the above, the Metro Promenade, which is an underground mall owned by Tokyo Metro, extends eastwards from the station beneath Shinjuku-dori avenue, all the way to the adjacent Shinjuku-sanchōme station with 60 exits along the way. The Metro Promenade in turn connects to Shinjuku Subnade, another underground shopping mall, which leads onto Seibu Railway's Seibu-Shinjuku station.

Shinjuku Station is connected by underground passageways and shopping malls to
 * Nishi-shinjuku Station (Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line)
 * Seibu-Shinjuku Station (Seibu Shinjuku Line)
 * Shinjuku-nishiguchi Station (Toei Ōedo Line)
 * Shinjuku-sanchōme Station (Tokyo Metro Marunouchi Line, Tokyo Metro Fukutoshin Line, and Toei Shinjuku Line)
 * Tochōmae Station (Toei Ōedo Line)

Nearby non-connected stations (within 500 meters of an underground passageway or station) include
 * Shinjuku-gyoemmae Station
 * Yoyogi Station
 * Higashi-shinjuku Station
 * Okubo Station
 * Shin-Okubo Station
 * Minami-Shinjuku Station

Bus terminals
There is a bus terminal at the west exit servicing both local and long-distance buses and a JR Highway Bus terminal at the New South Gates.

On April 4, 2016, the new bus terminal and commercial facilities nearby the south exit, named Busta Shinjuku (Shinjuku Expressway Bus Terminal), opened for service. Considerable numbers of coaches and airport buses depart from this new terminal.

Passenger statistics
The figures below are the official number of passengers entering and exiting (except for JR East) each day released by each train operator. The figure for JR East only includes entering passengers.

Average number of passengers per day by fiscal year for the JR East station (1913–1935)

Average number of passengers per day by fiscal year for the JR East station (1953–2000)

Average number of passengers per day by fiscal year for the JR East station (2001–present)

Cultural references
The station and other parts of the Toei Ōedo Line are referenced in the Digimon Adventure franchise. Contemporary British painter Carl Randall (who spent ten years living in Tokyo as an artist) depicted the station area in his large oil painting 'Shinjuku', exhibited at the National Portrait Gallery in London in 2013.

title: Shinjuku Station