Estonian to Croatian: oma stays the same while svoj changes with the noun
An unchanged source word can conceal a changing owner
EKI describes pronominal oma as invariant and illustrates its link to the actor’s own belongings or relations. In Võta oma kott, the bag belongs with the person addressed by the command. In Andsin oma vennale nõu, the relationship is to the speaker giving advice. A translator cannot assign ownership solely from the fact that the same Estonian word appears.
Croatian school grammar describes svoj as marking what belongs to the clause’s subject, irrespective of that subject’s grammatical person. The useful similarity is the relationship to the relevant actor; it is not permission to replace every occurrence of oma with an unchanging Croatian dictionary form.
The target ending follows the possessed expression
The Croatian paradigm distinguishes feminine accusative svoju from masculine and neuter forms and gives svojom in the feminine instrumental. These forms concern the expression being modified and its role. A female owner does not automatically require a feminine form of svoj beside a masculine noun.
In an original Estonian account, a woman may collect her own coat and speak to her own sister. The same person can remain the owner or related participant throughout, while the two Croatian noun phrases require different morphology. Keeping one target ending because the owner has not changed would confuse possessor identity with grammatical agreement.
The source pronoun table separately distinguishes minu or mu from minule or mulle and minul or mul. These Estonian personal forms identify different relationships despite their similar stems. An original message can therefore contain both an ownership phrase and a recipient phrase without making the recipient the owner. Preserve each relationship before forming the Croatian phrase.
Another person’s book is not the reader’s own book
The Croatian grammar contrasts Lucija čita svoju knjigu with a sentence using njezinu: the first makes the book Lucija’s, while the other attributes it to another female person. These are attested examples of a meaningful distinction, not merely stylistic alternatives. An Estonian account about reading somebody else’s book must not acquire a target reflexive possessive that changes its owner.
Consider an original Estonian exchange in which one colleague returns a borrowed book and then picks up their own notes. The target must distinguish the book’s external owner from the actor-related notes. The fact that both objects are handled by the same person does not make both theirs. That is where the source distinction has practical consequences for the Croatian wording.
EKI also records adjectival oma with senses involving personal character and familiar people. Such uses need interpretation before being treated as literal property. Describing familiar members of a group does not mean that the speaker owns those people.
For this direction, identify whether oma expresses actor-related possession, a personal association or familiarity. Where possession is intended, keep the owner distinct from the item’s grammatical gender and case. Croatian svoj can preserve the actor relationship while changing form; Estonian’s invariant spelling does not imply that the target should remain morphologically unchanged.
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