keelkeeles

Keelkeeles is a term used in Estonian linguistics to refer to the language in which a text or piece of data is expressed. It is formed from the noun keel (language) and the inflected form that conveys location inside a language, and it serves as a label for the language content of a work or dataset. In practice, the phrase is most often encountered in scholarly contexts, metadata, or cross‑lingual discussions, where researchers want to indicate the language of expression without naming a specific language.

In everyday Estonian, speakers normally specify language by combining a language name with the word keeles, for example Eesti keeles or inglise keeles. Keelkeeles, by contrast, is a more specialized or generalized label that can be used when the exact language is either abstracted for analysis or intentionally left unspecified in a comparative discussion. Because it is less common in ordinary prose, keelkeeles appears mainly in glossaries, linguistic notes, or theoretical writings rather than in ordinary text.

The concept relates to related ideas such as language labeling, language metadata, and cross‑lingual analysis. It highlights how researchers distinguish the medium of expression from the content itself. While useful in academic contexts, keelkeeles is not a everyday replacement for naming the specific language being discussed.