isiklikud

Isiklikud is an Estonian plural adjective meaning “personal” or “private.” It describes nouns that relate to a person or private life and can appear in phrases such as isiklikud asjad (personal belongings) or isiklikud küsimused (personal questions). In everyday language, isiklikud is used to indicate intimacy, privacy, or individual relevance.

In Estonian, adjectives agree with the nouns they modify in number and case, and the plural nominative form of isiklik is isiklikud. The singular form is isiklik, as in isiklik asi (a personal item). The root is isiklik-, which is built from the stem isik (person) with the suffix -lik, a common productive pattern for forming adjectives meaning relating to or belonging to something.

Usage notes and related terminology: for the more formal notion of “personal data,” Estonian typically uses the compound isikuandmed, which is treated as a single noun in data-protection and legal contexts. In everyday speech, people may still encounter isiklikud as part of phrases describing private matters, such as isiklikud dokumendid (personal documents) or isiklikud suhted (private relationships), but such uses are less common in formal documents. The distinction between isiklikud and the specialized term isikuandmed helps clarify whether the reference is to private attributes in general or to data about a person protected by privacy law.