kust

Kust is a term with different meanings in several languages. In Dutch and Afrikaans, kust is the noun for the coast or shoreline—the area where land meets the sea. It is used in a range of geographic and everyday contexts, for example referring to the coast itself, coastal regions, or features and services associated with it, such as kustlijn (coastline) or kustwacht (coast guard). The concept of the coast is a dynamic interface shaped by wave action, tides, sediment transport, and erosion, and it is a focus of coastal management, ecology, and climate adaptation work.

In Estonian, kust is a question word meaning “from where.” It is used to form inquiries about origin, as in phrases like “Kust sa pärit oled?” meaning “Where are you from?” This usage is unrelated to the coastal sense of kust in Dutch and Afrikaans but shows how similar-sounding terms can have different functions across languages.

Across its uses, kust reflects shared Germanic linguistic heritage, with coastal terms appearing in several related languages, while the Estonian usage represents a distinct grammatical role as a question word. In practical terms, the Dutch/Afrikaans sense of kust as coast is the most common reference in geographic and cultural contexts, whereas in Estonian it primarily appears in everyday questions about origin.