The Estonian language (eesti keel) is spoken by about 1.1 million people, of which the great majority live in the Republic of Estonia. The Republic of Estonia is a country in Northern Europe, bordering the Baltic Sea to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the north. ... This is a list of bodies that regulate languages. ... ISO 639 is one of several international standards that lists short codes for language names. ... SIL International is a non-profit, faith-based, scientific organization with the main purpose to study, develop and document lesser-known languages for the purpose of expanding linguistic knowledge, promoting world literacy and aiding minority language development. ... As with any complex, emergent concept, language is somewhat resistant to definition. ... The Republic of Estonia is a country in Northern Europe, bordering the Baltic Sea to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the north. ...

Estonian belongs to the Finnic branch of the Finno-Ugric languages. Estonian does not have any language-family relationship to its southern neighbor Latvia, Latvian is a Baltic language related to Lithuanian. Estonian is related to Finnish, spoken on the other side of the Gulf of Finland, and more distantly to Hungarian. One of the distinctive features of Estonian is that it has what is traditionally seen as three degrees of phoneme length: short, long, and "overlong", such that IPA /toto/, /to:to/ and /to::to/ are distinct, as are /toto/, /tot:o/, and /tot::o/. The distinction between long and overlong is, in practice, as much a matter of syllable stress (involving pitch) as duration. Long and overlong vowels are not distinguished in written Estonian; plosives, however, appear in writing with three "degrees": b,d,g; p,t,k and pp;tt;kk (all unvoiced plosives). Finnic (Fennic, sometimes Baltic Finnic) may refer to Finnish-similar languages spoken close to the Gulf of Finland, i. ... Geographical distribution of Finno-Ugric (Finno-Permic in blue, Ugric in green). ... Latvian, also called Lettish, is a language spoken by 1. ... Proto-Indo-European Indo-European studies The Baltic languages are a group of genetically-related languages spoken in the Northern Europe and belonging to the Indo-European language family. ... Lithuanian is the official language of Lithuania, spoken by about 4 million native Lithuanians. ... Finnish is spoken by the majority (92%) in Finland and by ethnic Finns outside Finland. ... The Baltic Sea The Gulf of Finland is an arm of the Baltic Sea that extends between Finland (to the north) and Estonia (to the south) all the way to the city of Saint Petersburg in Russia, where the river Neva drains into it. ... The Hungarian language is a Finno-Ugric language spoken in Hungary and in adjacent areas of Romania, Slovakia, Ukraine, Serbia, Croatia, Austria, Slovenia (all territories lost after World War I). ... This article is about the alphabet officially used in linguistics. ...

Orthography

Like Finnish, Estonian employs the Roman script. The alphabet lacks the letters c, q, w, x, y, ("foreign letters"; except for foreign names and quote words and phrases) but contains the letters š, ž, ä, ö, ü, and õ. The last letter denotes a low, back, unrounded vowel (IPA /ɤ/). (It has a different sound from the same letter in Portuguese. It resembles Vietnamese o-horn.) Due to the history of Finland and its neighbours, and the relatively small number of Finns, the term Finnish can cause confusion: It can indicate nationality of the Finns, usually acquired by birth in Finland It can indicate ethnicity, see Finnic, Ethnic Finn and Sweden-Finns It can also indicate... The Latin alphabet, also called the Roman alphabet, is the most widely used alphabetic writing system in the world. ... This article is about the alphabet officially used in linguistics. ... Portuguese (português) is a Romance language predominantly spoken in Portugal, Brazil, Angola, Mozambique, Cape Verde, and East Timor. ... Vietnamese (tiếng Việt, less commonly tiếng Việt Nam or Việt ngữ), formerly known as Annamite, is the national and official language of Vietnam (Việt Nam). ...

The Estonian orthography is essentially phonemic with each phoneme of the language represented by exactly one grapheme. Exceptions to this derive from historical agreements - for example the initial letter 'h' in words, preservation of the morpheme in declination of the word (writing b, g, d in places where p, k, t is pronounced) and in the use of 'i' and 'j'.

Modern Estonian orthography is based on the Newer Orthography created by Eduard Ahrens in the second half of the 19th century based on Finnish Orthography. The Older Orthography it replaced was created in the 17th century by Bengt Gottfried Forselius and Johann Hornung based on High German orthography. Earlier writing in Estonian had by and large used ad hoc orthography based on Latin and Low German orthography. Some influences of the High German orthography - for example, writing 'W'/'w' instead of 'V'/'v' persisted well into the 1930s. Due to the history of Finland and its neighbours, and the relatively small number of Finns, the term Finnish can cause confusion: It can indicate nationality of the Finns, usually acquired by birth in Finland It can indicate ethnicity, see Finnic, Ethnic Finn and Sweden-Finns It can also indicate... Subdivisions Middle German Upper German High German (in German, Hochdeutsch; please note that Hochdeutsch is also used to refer to todays standard German) is any of several West Germanic languages spoken in Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and Luxembourg (as well as in neighbouring portions of Belgium, France (Alsace), Italy... Latin - Wikipedia /**/ @import /skins/monobook/IE50Fixes. ... Subdivisions East Low German Low Franconian Low Saxon Low German (in Low German, Platt(düütsch) or Nedderdüütsch) is any of a variety of West Germanic languages spoken in northern Germany and the Netherlands. ... Subdivisions Middle German Upper German High German (in German, Hochdeutsch; please note that Hochdeutsch is also used to refer to todays standard German) is any of several West Germanic languages spoken in Germany, Austria, Liechtenstein, Switzerland, and Luxembourg (as well as in neighbouring portions of Belgium, France (Alsace), Italy...

Grammar

Typologically, Estonian represents a transitional form from an agglutinating language to an inflected language. Over the course of Estonian history, German has exercised a strong influence on Estonian, both in vocabulary and syntax. An agglutinative language is a language in which the words are formed by joining morphemes together. ... This article is about inflection in linguistics. ... German (called Deutsch in German; in German the term germanisch is equivalent to English Germanic), is a member of the western group of Germanic languages and is one of the worlds major languages. ...

In Estonian nouns and pronouns do not have grammatical gender, but nouns and adjectives decline in fourteen cases: nominative, genitive, partitive, illative, inessive, elative, allative, adessive, ablative, translative, terminative, essive, abessive, and comitative, with the case and number of the adjective(s) always agreeing with that of the noun (except in the terminative, essive, abessive and comitative, where there is agreement only for the number, the adjective being in the genitive form). Thus the illative for "a yellow house" (kollane maja) — "into a yellow house" is (kollasesse majja). In linguistics, grammatical genders, also called noun classes, are classes of nouns reflected in the behavior of associated words; every noun must belong to one of the classes and there should be very few which belong to several classes at once. ... The nominative case is a grammatical case for a noun. ... The genitive case is a grammatical case that indicates a relationship, primarily one of possession, between the noun in the genitive case and another noun. ... The basic meaning of the Partitive case is partialness, without result or without specifying identity. In the Finnish language, its used to express unknown identities and irresultative actions. ... Illative is, in the Finnish language, Estonian language and the Hungarian language, the third of the locative cases with the basic meaning of into (the inside of). An example from Hungarian would be a házba (into the house). ... Inessive case is a locative grammatical case. ... Elative is a locative case with the basic meaning out of. In Finnish elative is typically formed by adding sta/stä, in Estonian - st to the genitive stem. ... In the Finnish language, the Allative case is the fifth of the locative cases, with the basic meaning of onto. Its ending is -lle, for example pöytä (table) and pöydälle (onto the top of the table). ... In the Finnish language, Estonian language and Hungarian language the adessive case is the fourth of the locative cases with the basic meaning of on. For example, Estonian laud (table) and laual (on the table). ... In linguistics, the ablative case is a noun case found in several languages, including Latin, Sanskrit and in the Finno_Ugric languages. ... This declension (case) indicates a change in state of a noun, with the general sense of becoming X or change to X. In the Finnish language, this is the counterpart of the Essive case, with the basic meaning of a change of state. ... In morphology, the terminative case is a case that indicates to what point; where something ends. ... The essive or similaris case carries the meaning of a temporary state of being, often equivalent to the English as a. ... In linguistics, the Abessive case is a noun case expressing the lack and absence of something. ... The Comitative case is used where English would use in company with or together with. It, and many other cases, are found in the Finnish language, the Hungarian language, and the Estonian language. ...

The direct object of the verb appears either in the accusative (for total objects) or in the partitive (for partial objects). The case accusative looks exactly like the genitive. Genitive vs. partitive case opposition of object used with transitive verbs creates a telic-atelic contrast, just as in Finnish. This is a rough equivalent of the perfect vs. imperfect aspect opposition. The accusative case of a noun is, generally, the case used to mark the direct object of a verb. ... In linguistics, the object of a transitive verb is one of its core arguments, which generally represents the target of the verbs action. ... In linguistics, grammatical aspect is a property of a verb that defines the nature of temporal flow (or lack thereof) in the described event or state. ...

The verbal system lacks a distinctive future tense (the present tense serves here) and features special forms to express an action performed by an undetermined subject (the "impersonal"). The subject of a verb is the argument which generally refers to the origin of the action or the undergoer of the state shown by the verb. ...

Language example

NURMEKUNNA HÜMN

Karjatades kundikarju,

Süies musti hooramarju,

Leidsin eilse Nurmekunna ma.

Veel ei olnud otsas mõdu,

Veel ei olnud sündind sõdu,

Lembitut, kes liitis Maavalla.

Hingel hakkab veidi valus.

Kuskil laanes, kuskil talus,

Kostab vaikselt vilepilli hääl.

Kuskil nurmel lõhnab mesi.

Tuul toob kokku inimesi,

Hõbedased sõled rinna pääl.

Kostab, justkui löödaks lokku –

Juuaks karudega kokku.

Nurmel mängib vaikselt vilepill.

Karukujud hõbemärgis,

Tuleb tüdruk valges särgis.

Juustesse on põimit rukkilill.

Aga ükskord joodi mõdu,

Mäletati muistseid sõdu,

Lembitut, kes liitis Maavalla.

Hiiekünkal kasvas tamme.

Kuulsin tuleviku samme –

Leidsin homse Nurmekunna ma.

Kõik, mis on ilus, on eilsesse läev.

Jällegi eilseks saab tänane päev.

Kõik, mis siin selles ilus on jääv,

Tagasi homsest toob tänane päev.

Lyrics by Tõnu Trubetsky

See also

• Estonian tongue-twisters

List of tongue-twisters in English Rhymes and poems Sarah, Sarah, sits in her Chevrolet. ...

External links

Estonian language edition of Wikipedia

• An Estonian-English dictionary (Institute of the Estonian Language) (http://www.eki.ee/cgi-bin/inglise.cgi?if=en)
• An English-Estonian dictionary (Institute of Baltic Studies) (http://www.ibs.ee/dict/)
• Estonica.org article about the Estonian language (http://www.estonica.org/eng/lugu.html?menyy_id=61&kateg=38&alam=44)
• Another Estonian - English Dictionary (http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org/definition/Estonian-english/): from Webster's Online Dictionary (http://www.websters-online-dictionary.org) - the Rosetta Edition.