Many of the coinages that have been considered (often by Aavik himself) as words concocted ex nihilo could well have been influenced by foreign lexical items, for example words from Russian, German, French, Finnish, English and Swedish. Aavik had a broad classical education and knew Ancient Greek, Latin and French. Consider roim ‘crime’ versus English crime or taunima ‘to condemn, disapprove’ versus Finnish tuomita ‘to condemn, to judge’ (these Aavikisms appear in Aavik’s 1921 dictionary). These words might be better regarded as a peculiar manifestation of morpho-phonemic adaptation of a foreign lexical item. COUNT 4
QSN1 What languages did Aavik know? ANS1 Ancient Greek, Latin and French QSN2 When was Aavik's dictionary published? ANS2 1921 QSN3 What is another term for words created by Aavik? ANS3 Aavikisms QSN4 Instead of being created from nothing Aavik's ex nihilo terms are thought to actually possibly have been influenced by what? ANS4 foreign lexical items