Elmar Muuk, who was to become a most ardent
champion of standardised Estonian, was born in Järvamaa
on 26 December 1901. He studied in elementary schools in Paide,
the private Gymnasium of J. Westholm in Tallinn, and at Tartu
University (1920–1926), from which he did not graduate,
though. While still a student of Estonian philology, he became
an assistant to J. V. Veski in editing the Orthological Dictionary
of Estonian.
During 1929–1935 he worked as a linguistic redactor for
the Ministry of Justice and Interior Affairs of the Estonian
Republic. In 1933 his Concise Orthological Diction-ary was published
to enjoy immense popularity. During 1930–1940 he produced
grammar books for each grade of the high school. The year 1939
saw the publication of a 1173-page German-Estonian Dictionary
by E. Muuk and G. Tuksam.
In 1941 Elmar Muuk was arrested and in November (same year) he
died in a prison camp in the Chelyabinsk district.
