ESTONIAN
Estonian is the national, standard language that nearly all citizens speak. It is a Finnic language of the Uralic family. Estonian and Finnish are considerably mutually intelligible, but Finnish borrows many Swedish words, and Estonian has many loanwords from Germanic languages, as well as some from Russian, Latin, Greek, Latvian, and Lithuanian.
The two main dialectal groups are regionally based. The northern dialects are mainly associated with the capital city of Tallinn, and the southern dialects are associated with Tartu. Some dialects are so distinct that some even consider them a separate language, like the Võro dialect of the southern region. Standard Estonian, however, is based off the northern dialects.
The two main dialectal groups are regionally based. The northern dialects are mainly associated with the capital city of Tallinn, and the southern dialects are associated with Tartu. Some dialects are so distinct that some even consider them a separate language, like the Võro dialect of the southern region. Standard Estonian, however, is based off the northern dialects.
The Estonian writing system uses mostly Latin script for its alphabet, along with the letters ä, ö, ü and õ, and the later additions š and ž. The letters c, q, w, x and y are only found in personal names, place names, and foreign words. The letters f, z, š and ž appear only in words of foreign origin. There are nine vowels in Estonian with three phonemic lengths. Vowels and consonants can be short (written with one letter), long (two letters) or extra long (three letters).
Estonian also contains 14 different case endings, as opposed to English, which has two.
RUSSIAN
Russian is the language of wider communication in Estonia. Because of the country's Soviet history, almost 90 percent of Estonians speak Russian, but only 31 percent of all citizens use it as their first language. It tends to be the de facto national working language, as many people learn it and speak it for business-related reasons. In fact, 47 percent of Estonian residents believe that Russian should be taught to children as their second foreign language for work, but not all of these people think that the language is useful at a personal level (Eurobarometer, 2016, p. 34). The area with the most Russian speakers is the northeast region, where Estonian speakers are the minority in six towns.
ENGLISH
Of all of Estonia's population, English is spoken by about half of its residents. However, only .1 percent of these English speakers speak it as their first language; the rest learn it as a foreign language in an educational setting. It is commonly used as a lingua franca between native Russian and native Estonian speakers.
OTHERS
Some languages in Estonia with growing amounts of users are Estonian sign language, Romani, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Finnish, Latvian, and Lithuanian. However, census records from 2010 show that there are 109 mother tongues spoken in Estonia.
Some languages in Estonia with growing amounts of users are Estonian sign language, Romani, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Finnish, Latvian, and Lithuanian. However, census records from 2010 show that there are 109 mother tongues spoken in Estonia.