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Development and status of the Estonian language
Autor: Jaagup Roomet
Kala on puu juures
  The ancestors of the Estonians arrived at the Baltic Sea 13 000 years ago when the mainland glaciers of the last Ice Age had retreated from the area now designated as Estonia. The first settlers who followed the reindeer herds came here from south, from Central Europe. Although the vocabulary and grammar of the language used by people in those days have changed beyond recognition, the mentality of the tundra hunters of thousands of years ago can be still perceived in modern Estonian.
 
  The majority of European languages belong to the Indo-European language group (e.g. Spanish, Polish, Lithuanian, Norwegian, Albanian, Romany, Greek or Welsh). Of the ancient European languages, once so widespread throughout the continent, Basque in the Pyrenees, the Finno-Ugric languages in the North and Central Europe, and Caucasian languages (e.g. Georgian) in the southeastern corner of Europe have managed to survive.
 
Autor: Jaagup Roomet
Ingel on päikese käes
  The Estonian language belongs to the Finnic branch of Finno-Ugric group of languages. It is not therefore related to the neighbouring Indo-European languages such as Russian, Latvian and Swedish. Finnish, Hungarian and Estonian are the best known of the Finno-Ugric languages; rather less known are the following smaller languages of the same language group: South Estonian, Votic, Livonian, Ingrian, Veps, Karelian, Sami, Erzya, Moksha, Mari, Udmurt and Komi, spoken from Scandinavia to Siberia.
 
  Estonian differs from its closest large related language, Finnish, at least as much as English differs from Frisian. The difference between Estonian and Hungarian is about as significant as between German and Persian.
 
  The relations between languages can often be seen from the similarities in numeric systems.

  Hungarian Finnish Estonian Latvian Russian English
1 egy yksi üks viens odin one
2 kettö kaksi kaks divi dva two
3 három kolme kolm trîs tri three
4 négy neljä neli cetri cetyre four
5 öt viisi viis pieci pjat' five
6 hat kuusi kuus seši šest' six
7 hét seitsemän seitse septini sem' seven
8 nyolc kahdeksan kaheksa astoni vosem' eight
9 kilenc yhdeksän üheksa devini devjat' nine
10 tíz kymmenen kümme desmit desit' ten

 
  Along with Icelandic, Estonian is at present one of the smallest languages in the world that fulfils all the functions necessary for an independent state to ‘perform’ linguistically. Teaching, at both primary school and university level, is in Estonian; it is also the language of modern science (molecular biology, astronomy, computer science, semiotics, etc.). Estonian is used in the army, in the theatre, aviation, journalism — in all walks of life. Estonian is the only official language in Estonia in local government and state institutions.
 
  Estonian is spoken by approximately 1 100 000 people throughout the world. About 950 000 of these live in Estonia, and more than 150 000 scattered over Sweden, Canada, USA, Russia, Australia, Finland, Germany and other countries.
 
  The first attempts to describe the Estonian language scientifically were undertaken in the early 17th century. In 1803, a lectureship of the Estonian language was established at what was then the German-language University of Tartu, founded in 1632. With the spread of the ideas of Enlightenment, the interest of the Baltic German Estophiles in the local language and culture increased. During the 19th century, the first educated Estonians began publishing scholarly research of their mother tongue. The first doctor of the Finno-Ugric languages of Estonian origin was Mihkel Veske who did research into the history of the Estonian language in the 1870s; the Estonian Writers’ Union, established in 1871, undertook the task of standardising the common language.
 
  In 1919, a professorship of the Estonian language was established at the University of Tartu where Estonian became the language of study in the same year. At present, research is done into Estonian language matters at the Institute of the Estonian Language in Tallinn, at the University of Tartu, at the Tallinn Pedagogical University, the Estonian Institute of Humanities, and at various research institutions all over the world.
 
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