keel

‘tongue’ · runosong lemma · Estonian noun

English gloss	tongue
Part of speech	noun
Language	Estonian
Total occurrences	6,149
By corpus	SKVR 0, JR 0, KR 0, ERAB 6,149

The counts in this table cover all attested spellings of this lemma, not only the headword form; all are word occurrences, except the KR figure in the By corpus row, which counts poems and is not part of the total.

Full dictionary entry · Search in the corpus · Geographic distribution

Attested wordforms

keele, keeli, keelta, keel, keelt, keelel, keeled, kiele, keelekene, keelu, keelile, kielta, keelele, keelega, keelte, keelde, keelil, keeles, keelilä, keelest, keeltä, keelo, kieled, kielella, kielte, keelih, keelen, kiilde, keelist, keeleli, keelijada, keelela, keelelä, keelilla, kielekene, keelesida, keelili, kield, keeläi, keeld … and 64 more of 104 attested forms

In Estonian dictionaries

Definitions are shown in Estonian: the source dictionaries are Estonian-language works.

EKSS

keel · 35

1. toitu haarata, segada, maitsta ja neelata aitav ning häälitsemisel osalev liikuv elund suuõõne põhjas, inimesel tähtis ka kõneelundina
2. kuju poolest keelt (1. täh.) meenutav osa millelgi
3. inimese olulisim suhtlemisvahend, mõtete ja tunnete vahendaja
4. sõnadeta väljendus v. informatsioon millegi kaudu (hrl. eelneb vastav sõna genitiivis)

(+3)

EMS

keel

keel, kõne- ja maitsmiselund
nagu muuseas, moepärast
vastutahtsi
midagi väga himustama

(+30)

keel

laeva kiil

Idamurre

keel

keel

Moistatuste

keel

ka: püünis

Sources: EKSS — Eesti keele seletav sõnaraamat, Eesti Keele Instituut (CC BY 4.0) · EMS — Eesti murrete sõnaraamat, Eesti Keele Instituut · Idamurde sõnastik, Eesti Keele Instituut · Mõistatuste murdesõnad

English words in the AI translations

How often the AI analysis used each English word when it translated the uses of this word. Forms of one English word are counted together, and one translation can contain several words, so the shares can add up to more than 100%.

English word	Uses	Share
tongue (tongue's, tongues, tongues')	4,576	78.2%
language (languages, language's)	1,076	18.4%
little	157	2.7%
prohibition (prohibitions, prohibition's)	81	1.4%
string (strings)	40	0.7%
forbid (forbade)	38	0.6%
wedge	20	0.3%
voice	17	0.3%
Uses counted	5,848

Example verses

pealta kiele killingida (AES, MT 3, 11 (37)) read in context
From the tongue's surface, tinkling,
vat siis minu keel saab kergemaks (AES, MT 27, 32/4) read in context
Then my tongue grows lighter,
sis maks laula linnu keeli (AES, MT 40, 12/4 (17)) read in context
Then I’ll sing in birds’ tongues,
keele otsast kippõn kargas (AES, MT 44, 3) read in context
From the tongue's tip, a spark leapt,
keele pääl meil kilbikirja (AES, MT 45, 9/10) read in context
On our tongue, shield-script,
rohi riakis ruotsi kielta (AES, MT 60, 35 (23)) read in context
Herbs scattered in Swedish tongue,
liigu linnu kielekene (AES, MT 60, 37 (27)) read in context
Stir, bird's little tongue,
sõnad kissa kiele pialt (AES, MT 60, 37 (28)) read in context

Companion words

Words that co-occur with this lemma inside the same verse line more often than chance predicts, ranked by log-likelihood (G²) over verse-level co-occurrence in SKVR, KR, JR and ERAB; only pairs seen at least 3 times.

Word	Association (G²)	Co-occurrences
kõnelema	1,684	287
meel	1,577	355
kiis	1,077	110
kerge	936	132
pea	880	303
mõistma	840	198
lind	801	221
pealt	793	194

Song types

Song types of the poems attesting this lemma, as catalogued per poem in the source corpora (ERAB type names are in Estonian, SKVR names in Finnish; JR and KR poems carry no song-type record).

Song type	Poems
Laulu võim	186
Lauliku sõim	179
Suude sulg	139
Halb laulik	138
Kust laulud saadud	109
Kust laulud	87
Küla ütel	87
Laula, kuni elad!	76

Collection places

Where the poems attesting this lemma were collected; each count is the number of attesting poems recorded at that place.

Place	Poems
Setumaa	253
Karksi	130
Haljala	121
Kuusalu	109
Helme	109
Paistu	107
Halliste	102
Kolga-Jaani	87
Tarvastu	80
Viljandi	71

Attestation over time

Poems attesting this lemma by decade of collection or publication; undated poems are not shown.

Decade	Poems
1800–1809	1
1820–1829	4
1840–1849	1
1850–1859	2
1860–1869	38
1870–1879	279
1880–1889	751
1890–1899	892
1900–1909	236
1910–1919	223
1920–1929	301
1930–1939	395
1940–1949	35

Collectors

The collectors who most often recorded poems attesting this lemma.

Collector	Poems
Karl Voldemar Rosenstrauch	83
Mihkel (Tori) Ostrov	77
Karl Viljak	75
Joosep Hurt	56
Oskar Philipp Kallas	53

Poems attesting this lemma (60 / 3,361)

ERAB: AES, MT 3, 11 (37), AES, MT 27, 32/4, AES, MT 40, 12/4 (17), AES, MT 44, 3, AES, MT 45, 9/10, AES, MT 60, 35 (23), AES, MT 60, 37 (27), AES, MT 60, 37 (28), AES, MT 76, 33/4 (5), AES, MT 141, 15, AES, MT 141, 28/30, AES, MT 145, 1/12, AES, MT 163, 13/15 (7), AES, MT 174, 37/8, AES, MT 197, 28, AES MT 208, 21/3, ARS 1, 627/8 (2), ARS 1, 639 (4), ARS 1, 651/2 (1), ARS 1, 666/8 (1), ARS 1, 851/7 (1), ARS 1, 868 (7), ARS 2, 13/27 (1), ARS 2, 36 (4), ARS 2, 74/6 (11), E A 4 (3), E A 7 (9), E A 25 (7), E A 34/5 (55, 56), E A 35 (57), E A 56/7 (100), E A 64/5 (118), E A 94, E A 124 (5), E A 130/3 (5), E A 145/6 (15), E A 166/9 (8), E A 213/4 (10), E A 214/5 (12), E A 264/7 (26), E A 296 (8), E A 298/300 (12), E A 308/14 (2), E A 327 (12), E A 348/50 (9), E A 437/9 (3), E A 550 (9), E A 558 (20), E A 676/7 (10), E A 690 (10), E A 704 (23), E A 705/6 (1), E A 706, E A 766 (8), E A 796 (6), E A 832/5 (10), E A 907 (8), E A 1003/4 (4), EKLA, f. 199, m. 5: 1, l. 135, EKLA, f. 199, m. 5: 1, l. 136

Related lemmas

Finnish cognate: kieli

← kaunis keittää →

About this profile

The counts and examples on this page come from the lemmatized text of four Finnic runosong corpora: SKVR, JR, KR and ERAB. The table of English words comes from an AI analysis of the corpus; song types, collection places, collectors and dates follow each poem's own catalogue record.

The table of English words is counted from the translations kept in the AI analysis files, which hold only the most frequent translations of each word or spelling, so rare translations can be missing. Words that carry only grammar (such as the, to or didn’t) are left out, and so are English words used fewer than 5 times or in less than 0.1% of the uses counted. The analysis files can group two closely related words, which then show the same table.

Verses are found by the spellings listed above, so an occasional verse may show a different word spelled the same way.