Estonian is an Finno-Ugric language closely related to Finnish spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia. The main difference between Estonian and Finnish is that Finnish has a lot of loan words from Swedish, while Estonian contains many words of German origin, plus some words from Russian, Latin, Greek and English. There is considerable mutual intelligibility between Estonian and Finnish.
The oldest examples of written Estonian are names, words, and phrases found in early 13th century chronicles. The earliest surviving longer text dates from the 16th century. An Estonian textbook first appeared in 1637. Ferdinand Johann Wiedemann published the comprehensive Estonian-German dictionary in 1869, and a grammar describing the Estonian language in 1875.
Information about the Estonian alphabet and pronunciation compiled by Wolfram Siegel, with corrections by Allan Kiisk, and some details from: http://www.eki.ee/knn/ungegn/un7_gdl.htm
Kõik inimesed sünnivad vabadena ja võrdsetena oma väärikuselt ja õigustelt. Neile on antud mõistus ja südametunnistus ja nende suhtumist üksteisesse peab kandma vendluse vaim.
A recording of this text by Ülle Hahndorf
All human beings are born free and equal in dignity and rights. They
are endowed with reason and conscience and should act towards one another
in a spirit of brotherhood.
(Article 1 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights)
Tower of Babel in Estonian | Useful phrases in Estonian | Numbers in Estonian
Information about the Estonian language
http://www.einst.ee/publications/language/language.html
Online Estonian lessons
http://www.speakestonian.co.uk
http://www.oneness.vu.lt/ee
http://www.zpeakit.com/main/mount/estonian
http://www.panglosskool.eu/index.php?id=24
http://wiki.langwiki.info/Estonian
Online Estonian dictionaries
http://www.ibs.ee/dict/
http://www.dictionaric.com/dicoestonien/dicoestonien.php
http://www.english2estonian.com
Estonian Electronic talking dictionaries
http://www.ectaco.com
Eesti Raadio - online Estonian radio
http://www.er.ee
Online Estonian news
http://www.vabaeuroopa.org
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