WHO IS THAT MYSTERIOUS WE IN RUSSIAN AND ESTONIAN? (ON THE METAPHORICAL USE OF 1st PERSON PLURAL FORMS)

Abstract

The article is devoted to the metaphorical use of 1person plural forms in Russian and Estonian. Personal pronouns is one of the first topics that is introduced to the learner of any language. In Russian and Estonian the systems of personal pronouns are quite similar. The essence of the 1person plural is primarily defined as follows: ‘a speaker refers to himself or herself and somebody else’. That somebody else can be one person, many people, or even people in general. It can sometimes be very difficult to decide to whom we refers. The metaphorical use of 1 person plural forms is not identical in Russian and Estonian. Some metaphorical uses are regular in Russian but are not common in Estonian; it depends on the cultural and linguistic traditions of the language in question. In the paper will be analysed some cases of metaphorical use, such as 'royal we', 'authorial we', plural of modesty, 'doctoral we', ‘sartorial we’, 'mother’s we' etc. It is noticeable that these metaphorical uses can cause some difficulties in learning the language and also in the translation process. It can be claimed that in Russian and with some limitations also in Estonian the 1 person plural can “replace” all the other pronouns and verb forms. It is important to keep in mind these differences between languages when teaching or translating.