The so-called Old Orthography (the 18th and
first half of the 19th century) used the division of syllables
into open and closed ones: a short stressed vowel in an open
syllable was rendered by a single vowel character followed by
a double consonant; the long stressed vowel in an open syllable
was rendered by a single vowel character followed by a single
consonant at the onset of the second syllable; in closed syllables
the long vowel was rendered by double characters.
This principle was, however, inapplicable in long syllables with
a diphthong as the syllable nucleus (koera). As consonant
clusters on the border of the 1st and 2nd syllables closed the
1st syllable, the principle did not work in that case either.
Modern Estonian orthography is not based on the analysis of words
into short, long, and overlong vowels and consonants, and long
or overlong "complex sounds". Instead, the syllables
of modern Estonian orthography are constructed by 1) opposing
short and long syllables: Ma-li / Maa-li, Mai-li,
mar-li, mal-li, or ka-re / kaa-re,
Kai-re, par-re, etc, and 2) expanding these minimal
syllables (`)V1V1, (`)V1V2, and V(`)R by using similar patterns;
that is, these minimal long syllables are treated as equals.
