A rainbow rose into the sky – South Estonian linguistic enclaves in focus again

The book Dialect Texts of South Estonian Linguistic Enclaves is the ninth and final volume of the Estonian Dialects academic text series. It is an important source of language varieties spoken in the Leivu and Lutsi linguistic islands in Latvia and in the Kraasna linguistic island in Pskov Oblast, Russia. These three are historically varieties of South Estonian which have been substantially influenced by neighboring languages, so the speakers of the modern South Estonian varieties do not fully understand the spoken language of the linguistic enclaves. Nowadays, the most visible of these three is Lutsi, because there are scientists who are especially interested in this particular region, language, and history. Currently, the language varieties of the language enclaves cannot be heard live. The review draws some sociolinguistic parallels between the other South Estonian varieties spoken in foreign countries, points out some of the most interesting cases of use of the names, highlights some linguistic features, and fixes some errors which have occurred during the translation process.