Tallinn and Tartu met in Tapa to agree on how the Estonian language should be written. By the beginning of the 19th century, two forms of Estonian had evolved: a Tallinn Estonian in the north and a Tartu Estonian in the south. So the Estonian Literary Society in Tartu and the Literature Department of the Folk Education Society of Estonia in Tallinn convened a conference. The first of four conferences that were held from 1908 to 1911 was in Tapa, because it was easily accessible by train from both Tallinn and Tartu. The meeting took place in the Harmonie room of what is today Tapa's music school. What was so different about what Estonians in the north were writing and what their fellow countrymen just 240 km to the south were writing? The spelling of some words was different because the pronunciation of the words was different. For example, the word pea (head) in the south was pää in the north, hea (good) was hää, and seal (there) was sääl. Similarly, õõ at one end of the country was written õe at the other end, õuu was õu, and the -gi ending was written -ki. Also, in both the north and the south the h sound at the beginning of a word, like hõbune (horse) and hoidma (to hold), was clearly written but softly spoken. So the conference participants wanted to decide if the h should be written if it is not pronounced. On 30 May 2008, the 100th anniversary of this conference, Tapa organized another conference on the Estonian language with esteemed representatives from the Mother Tongue Society (Emakeele Selts), the Estonian Language Institute, the Language Inspectorate of the Estonian Ministry of Education (Keeleinspektsioon), the Estonian Ministry of Education and Research, Tartu University's Estonian and General Linguistics Institut, and the Estonian Writers' Union. The theme of the conference was "Language Grows from Me" (Keel kasvab minust enesest). The master of ceremonies was Marika Rajur of the Tapa Literary Club. Before the conference began, a plaque to commemorate the very first conference was unveiled in front of the music school by Kuno Rooba, Tapa's mayor. The plaque reads "The first conference on written Estonian took place in Tapa" (Tapal toimus esimene eesti kirjakeele konverents). Trivia The railway station in Tapa served as the Tallinn railway station in the 2008 Estonian movie Detsembrikuumus (December Heat). The phrase "the burning water of