The characteristics of the dialect group are mostly shared with the
Northern Finnic languages. • There are remnants of
vowel harmony (
räbälä 'rag' (
genitive case), cf. Standard Estonian
räbala) • There is no
palatalization • Short
plosives are unvoiced unlike in other dialects of Estonian (
mägi, cf.
Finnish mäki) • Recent
quantitative changes in consonant gradation are absent (
silm :
silmad , cf. Standard Estonian : , 'eye' : 'eyes') • The
negative verb inflects for
person and
number:
en,
et,
ei,
emma,
etta,
evad. Cf. Standard Estonian 'ei' for all persons sg/pl, versus
Finnish en,
et,
ei,
emme,
ette,
eivät. • The
plural is marked with
-i-, in contrast to
-de- being usual in North Estonian dialects:
puhti käsiga, cf. Standard Estonian
puhaste kätega, 'with clean hands' • The
preterite is marked with
-i- as well, in contrast to
-si- being usual in North Estonian. • Unlike all other Estonian dialects, the coastal dialects have an inflected
-nud participle, as in
Finnish: (
juobune piaga, cf. Standard Estonian
joobnud peaga, literally 'with drunk head';
[saab] surne sõnumi, Standard Estonian
[saab] surnu sõnumi '[gets] the dead man's message'). According to some authors, the "Finnish-like" features of the coastal Estonian dialects are
archaisms (
conservative traits), rather than Finnish or Ingrian influence. The northeastern coastal dialect of Estonian is nowadays alternatively split into two dialects, the coastal dialect and the
Alutaguse dialect, the former being more closely related to southern Finnish dialects (the sound
õ is absent like in Finnish), the
Ingrian (Izhorian) and
Votic languages, whereas the latter has also been influenced by the central dialect of the Northern Estonian group. ==Notes, citations and references==