selg

‘back’ · runosong lemma · Estonian noun

English gloss	back
Part of speech	noun
Language	Estonian
Total occurrences	8,129
By corpus	SKVR 0, JR 0, KR 0, ERAB 8,122

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

selga, seljas, selja, selgas, sälgä, selgä, sälga, seljad, seljast, säläh, sällän, sälä, selg, sellas, seljan, sellan, säläst, selgaje, seljassagi, seljasta, sellad, säljan, selläs, seljassa, seljä, seljal, seljaga, selgil, selgi, seljale, sälja, selgajeni, säljas, seljalt, seljani, selläd, seljala, seljäd, selgada, selgist … and 49 more of 89 attested forms

In Estonian dictionaries

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

EKSS

selg · selja 23

1. inimese keha tagaosa õlgadest tuharateni
2. loomadel keha ülaosa (hrl. turjast sabajuureni)
3. kuju, asendi v. ülesande poolest selga (1. täh.) meenutav osa esemel, kehaosal v. loodusobjektil
4. ühesugune laiuv vee- v. maismaa-ala

(+1)

Idamurre

selg

selg

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

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
back (back's, backs)	7,986	94.7%
stripe	129	1.5%
notch	45	0.5%
clear	34	0.4%
mark	34	0.4%
splinter	16	0.2%
too	14	0.2%
Uses counted	8,433

Example verses

mart tab särki selga suada (AES, MT 3, 6 (15)) read in context
Mart wants a shirt on his back to get,
suud tema annab selga püörab (AES, MT 3, 21) read in context
He gives his word, then turns his back,
küitu kündis selga nõkkus (AES, MT 4, 2) read in context
The harrow plowed, back bent,
jalad selgaje seotud (AES, MT 5, 4) read in context
Legs tied to the back,
selga võtan seenapalgid (AES, MT 25, 13/6) read in context
Shouldered mushroom logs,
mööda selga pikuti (AES, MT 36, 3/5) read in context
Lengthwise down my back.
kua sälgä kotitükü (AES, MT 40, 10/1 (15)) read in context
Like the back of a home piece,
kiä jõud iks sängü säläh kanda (AES, MT 40, 23 (29)) read in context
Who could carry the bed's foot,

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
siidisärk	3,998	396
särk	2,706	442
panema	2,421	819
kuub	2,276	421
surmasärk	1,515	133
sadul	1,470	235
siig	1,170	151
pöörama	1,028	189

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
Venna sõjalugu	202
Sõjalaul	140
Öösel üksi	137
Kalajõgi	106
Oleks see mees minu!	97
Kiigele ehtimine	79
Oleks	71
Mõistatus	67

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	335
Haljala	214
Kuusalu	171
Kolga-Jaani	161
Tõstamaa	151
Paistu	137
Viljandi	126
Ambla	125
Karksi	122
Tarvastu	107

Attestation over time

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

Decade	Poems
1820–1829	3
1840–1849	5
1850–1859	5
1860–1869	50
1870–1879	421
1880–1889	1,286
1890–1899	1,499
1900–1909	381
1910–1919	423
1920–1929	499
1930–1939	573
1940–1949	40

Collectors

The collectors who most often recorded poems attesting this lemma.

Collector	Poems
Karl Voldemar Rosenstrauch	157
Mihkel (Tori) Ostrov	130
Karl Viljak	128
Gustav Vilberg (Vilbaste)	93
koguja teadmata	88

Poems attesting this lemma (60 / 5,547)

ERAB: AES, MT 3, 6 (15), AES, MT 3, 21, AES, MT 4, 2, AES, MT 5, 4, AES, MT 25, 13/6, AES, MT 36, 3/5, AES, MT 40, 10/1 (15), AES, MT 40, 23 (29), AES, MT 40, 28 (38), AES, MT 40, 30 (41), AES, MT 43, 51, AES, MT 44, 2, AES, MT 44, 2/3, AES, MT 62, 11 (2), AES, MT 62, 19/20, AES, MT 84, 1/2, AES, MT 86, AES, MT 88, 38, AES, MT 102, 8, AES, MT 102, 24, (3), AES, MT 102, 30 (5), AES, MT 117, 55/6 (8), AES, MT 117, 56/7 (9), AES, MT 117, 58/9 (13), AES, MT 117, 64/5 (25), AES, MT 141, 18, AES, MT 141, 25/6, AES, MT 145, 1/12, AES, MT 163, 13/15 (7), AES, MT 174, 37/8, AES, MT 205, 9/10, AES MT 208, 24/7, AES, MT 230, 1/2, AES, MT 257, 8/10, AES, MT 261, 33/4, AES, MT 262, 5, ARS 1, 388/91 (2), ARS 1, 411/3 (4), ARS 1, 421/4 (2), ARS 1, 483/7 (3), ARS 1, 501/5 (11), ARS 1, 543/4 (1), ARS 1, 552/3 (3), ARS 1, 651/2 (1), ARS 1, 807 (1), ARS 1, 851/7 (1), ARS 2, 7/11 (2), ARS 2, 81/8 (13), ARS 2, 267 (34), ARS 2, 286 (54), ARS 2, 327 (94), ARS 2, 349 (116), ARS 2, 699/704 (1), E A 5/6 (6), E A 8/9 (12), E A 19/20 (2), E A 32/3 (52), E A 34 (54), E A 49/50 (90), E A 50/1 (93)

Related lemmas

Finnish cognate: selkä

← seisoa selkä →

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.