"His name is Link. He's from Estonia and I think he's jive."

[logicrevolution]

In a mall in my hometown, there's a large wall of chalkboards in the food court that serves to isolate graffiti to a harmless, erasable area. I was there last week getting something to eat when I saw a blond man (a suspicious sight in southern New Mexico) walk up to the board, write the words "kappi ära", smile, and walk away. My first thought was

Comments

[kali_kali]

Asked my Estonian friend, and he says it's a sentence fragment, but could be something to the extent of "don't into the closet".

[xandiwillflailx]

so some sort of pro-coming out message? :-P

[kali_kali]

Could be. Though looking up "kappi" in a Finnish-English dictionary, "kappi" means "companion", while "kapp" means "cupboard/closet" in Estonian (and the "i" presumably would modify it).

[progenies]

Hm. If kappi ära is "don't into the closet" then what I can figure out is that kapp is the closet, and would need the illative case to show movement towards it, but the Estonian illative case is -sse. I can't seem to find a case in Estonian that is just -i. Secondly, 'ära' sounds alot like the Finnish 'älä', meaning 'don't', but I think that Estonian has the same rules of vowel harmony, so 'ära' seems not to really fit....

But I know nothing about Estonian, really.

Paging hkitsune...

[alcarilinque]

Estonian indeed does not have vowel harmony, at least in the standard dialects, and you're right about älä, as ära means 'don't'. On the other hand, in this case it could also be a postposition. Kappi could be genitive of 'kapp', and ära 'away': "Out of the closet!" sound decent? ;)

I'll ask a friend.