Anton thor Helle

Anton Thor Helle was a Baltic German Lutheran clergyman, linguist and Bible translator in Estonia.
He led the initiative and served as chief editor of the first complete translation of the Bible into Estonian, translating some parts and collating the whole text.

Name

In contemporary sources his name appears in several forms. The particle thor, derived from Low German, was often treated by Helle and his contemporaries as an integral part of the surname and was frequently capitalized as Thor Helle.

Life

Helle was born in Tallinn, the son of a German merchant. He attended the Tallinn Gymnasium and studied theology at the University of Kiel.
From 1713 he served as pastor of the parish of Jüri, where he founded a sacristan school in 1721.
In 1715 he was elected assessor of the Estonian Consistory; in 1740 he also became pastor of Kose, and in 1742 was made dean of East Harju.

Works

Estonian Bible (1739)

Under Helle's leadership a complete Bible translation in North Estonian was published in 1739.
The New Testament was based on the 1715 North Estonian version and was thoroughly revised in the 1720s, while the Old Testament books were translated from Hebrew as part of the 18th-century project.
The printing was supported by Count Nicolaus Zinzendorf.

''Kurtzgefaszte Anweisung zur Ehstnischen Sprache'' (1732)

Helle began compiling a new prescriptive grammar to support the Bible translation; colleagues also contributed, and the handbook appeared in 1732.
Besides grammar and a dictionary, it contains extensive collections of proverbs and riddles and other cultural material.

Legacy

Helle's 1739 Bible served as a major model for the Estonian literary language and contributed to the dominance of the North Estonian written standard.
A monument commemorating the 250th anniversary of the first Estonian Bible and Helle was unveiled at Jüri on 14 October 1989.