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==Description== | ==Description== | ||
Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken natively by about 1.1 million people; 922,000 people in Estonia and 160,000 outside Estonia. | |||
'''Estonian''' belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family. It is one of the four official languages of European Union that is not of an Indo-European origin. Despite some overlaps in the vocabulary due to borrowings, in terms of its origin, Estonian and Finnish are not related to their nearest geographical neighbors, Swedish, Latvian, and Russian (which are all Indo-European languages), however they are related to the nearby minority Karelian and Livonian languages. <ref>Wikipedia contributors, "Estonian language," in ''Wikipedia: the Free Encyclopedia'', https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonian_language, accessed 15 March 2021.</ref> | |||
* the Estonian language has borrowed nearly one third of its vocabulary from Germanic languages. | |||
* South Estonian languages are spoken by 100,000 people and include the dialects of Võro and Seto. | |||
* Russian is by far the most spoken minority language in the country. Russian is spoken as a secondary language by forty- to seventy-year-old ethnic Estonians. Russian was the unofficial language of the Estonian SSR from 1944 to 1991 and taught as a compulsory second language during the Soviet era. | |||
* From the 13th to the 20th century, there were Swedish-speaking communities in Estonia, particularly in the coastal areas and on the islands. | |||
Although the Estonian and Germanic languages are of very different origins, one can identify many similar words in Estonian and German, for example. This is primarily because the Estonian language has borrowed nearly one third of its vocabulary from Germanic languages, mainly from Low Saxon (Middle Low German) during the period of German rule, and High German (including Standard German). The percentage of Low Saxon and High German loanwords can be estimated at 22–25 percent, with Low Saxon making up about 15 percent. Swedish and Russian are the other two important sources of borrowings.[3] | |||
The official language, Estonian, belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic languages. Estonian is closely related to Finnish, spoken in Finland, across the other side of the Gulf of Finland, and is one of the few Languages of Europe that is not of an Indo-European origin. Despite some overlaps in the vocabulary due to borrowings, in terms of its origin, Estonian and Finnish are not related to their nearest geographical neighbours, Swedish, Latvian, and Russian, which are all Indo-European languages. | The official language, Estonian, belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic languages. Estonian is closely related to Finnish, spoken in Finland, across the other side of the Gulf of Finland, and is one of the few Languages of Europe that is not of an Indo-European origin. Despite some overlaps in the vocabulary due to borrowings, in terms of its origin, Estonian and Finnish are not related to their nearest geographical neighbours, Swedish, Latvian, and Russian, which are all Indo-European languages. | ||