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Estonian is typically subclassified as a Southern Finnic language, and it is the second-most-spoken language among all the Finnic languages. Alongside Finnish, Hungarian , and Maltese , Estonian is one of the four official languages of the European Union that are not Indo-European languages .
- 1.2 million (2022)
Apr 25, 2024 · Estonian belongs to the Baltic-Finnic branch of the Finno-Ugric languages, and it is most closely related to Finnish, Votic, Livonian, Ingrian, Karelian, and Veps. In structure the language is best known for its unusual contrast of three degrees of consonant and vowel length— e.g., koli ‘junk’ (with short o ), kooli ‘of school’ (with ...
- The Editors of Encyclopaedia Britannica
Mar 31, 2020 · Finland and Estonia are situated a mere 80 km apart from each other across the Gulf of Finland. The languages of these two countries, Finnish and Estonian, were the same language (Late Proto Finnic) around 2000 years ago, but have grown apart since then.
As an ethnic group, Estonians are not Balts; the Estonian language is closely related to the Finnish language, rather the Baltic languages, and Estonians are a Finnic people. The northern part of Estonia was part of medieval Denmark during the 13th–14th centuries, being sold to the Teutonic Order after St. George's Night Uprising in 1346.
Jun 29, 2020 · Estonian is a Finno-Ugric language, very distantly related to Hungarian, and less distantly to the Sami or Lappish languages of northern Scandinavia. More specifically, Estonian is a Balto-Finnic language, very closely related to Finnish.
The Finnic or Baltic Finnic languages constitute a branch of the Uralic language family spoken around the Baltic Sea by the Baltic Finnic peoples. There are around 7 million speakers, who live mainly in Finland and Estonia. Traditionally, eight Finnic languages have been recognized.
The Finnic division of Finno-Ugric languages is composed of five groups. The Baltic-Finnic group consists of Finnish, Estonian, Karelian (including Olonets), Ludic, Veps, Ingrian, Livonian, and Votic. The Permic group consists of Komi (Zyryan), Permyak, and Udmurt (Votyak).
