Half a century of Johannes Voldemar Veski days

On June 27, 1968, the Mother Tongue Society held an event dedicated to the memory of Johannes Voldemar Veski.. This developed into an annual language conference – the tradition of Veski Day. On June 27, 2017, the 50th annual Veski Day was held. The first twenty Veski Days have been summarized by Valve-Liivi Kingisepp (1989), and this article gives an overview primarily of the following 30 years. Veski Day has become one of the most important forums for Estonian linguists. The total number of participants exceeds 3000, remaining fairly stable year-to-year with a trend of moderate growth. A total of 232 presentations have been given, typically 4-6 per conference.
The most popular topics at the conferences have been the structure and development of modern Estonian, language planning and terminology issues. While the earliest conferences focused more on topics related to Veski’s work, the history of old written Estonian, dialects, and kindred languages, later years have seen an increased emphasis on topics related to language policy, the Estonian language development plan, language contacts and computational linguistics.
On J.V.Veski Day, stipendia have been given from the remembrance fund in his name founded by Asta Veski, and the annual Mother Tongue Society yearbook and other important publications financed by the Mother Tongue Society have been presented.