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.

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.

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 them live in Estonia, and more than 150 000 are 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

Standard Estonian has been mostly formed from the dialects of North Estonian. Besides North Estonian another tribal language spoken in prehistoric Estonia was Southern Estonian - the ancestral language for the other main dialect group of Estonian. The differences between those proto-languages are reflected in both the phonetics and grammar of Estonian dialects.

The history of the Estonian literary language

The first continuous Estonian texts date from the 16th century. The first book containing a text in Estonian was published in 1525, but has not survived. Eleven fragmentary pages were found which originate from the Lutheran catechism published in 1535, written by the German pastor Simon Wanradt and translated by the Estonian cleric Johan Koell. The 17th century already saw the publication of several Estonian language handbooks (in German and Latin), together with German-Estonian dictionaries. The first of the kind appeared in 1637. The author was once again a German pastor - Heinrich Stahl.

Until the mid-18th century, two language versions competed to achieve the status of standard Estonian: the Northern (Tallinn) and the Southern (Tartu) languages. The New Testament was published in the Tartu dialect of South Estonian in 1686. In 1739, the first complete Estonian-language Bible was published. Since this task was completed in the Northern language, this version of Estonian gained a dominant position. Another reason for the decline of the South Estonian language was the burning down of Tartu, the centre of Southern Estonia, and the deportation of people to Russia, in 1708, during the course of the Northern War waged between the Russians and Swedes. By the end of the 19th century, the South Estonian language as a literary language had practically become extinct. The final decade of the 20th century is seeing a revival of the South Estonian literary language, this time based on the Võro dialect.

Until the end of the 17th century, the written Estonian language was greatly influenced by German. German loans were often used unaltered in vocabulary, structure and phraseology, mainly in religious texts written by German clergymen in an Estonian that was very different to what was actually spoken. The spelling was inconsistent and included elements of Latin, Low German and High German spelling. During the Counter-Reformation in the early 17th century, Polish-based spelling was also used in South Estonia.

Johan Hornung and Bengt Gottfried Forselius were mainly responsible for making a start at reforming the Estonian literary language in the late 17th century. Some German constructions were abandoned, and a strict spelling system was adopted which still relied on German orthography.

A new wave of reforms occurred during the first half of the 19th century, in an attempt to popularise the Estonian literary language. In 1818, Otto Wilhelm Masing introduced a separate grapheme 'õ' to denote an intermediate vowel phoneme between 'ö' and 'o'. In mid-century, Eduard Ahrens worked out a new Finnish-style orthography that became widespread during the final decades of the century, and is still used today.

Several registers can be distinguished in Common Estonian that is, unlike some major European languages, close to the standard language. In addition to regional vernaculars resulting from dialectal background, the spoken language depends mostly on the education and social status of the speaker. The number and distribution of Estonian sociolects is nevertheless much more modest than in major European languages. The nationwide consolidation and quick social changes have minimised the social stratification of the language. The most popular types of sociolects are actually slangs used by particular age or professional groups, such as schoolchildren, musicians or scholars. Specific language contacts are an important source of the sociolinguistic differentiation.

The Sign Language

An interesting sub-language of Estonian is Estonian Sign Language. This is used by about 2000 deaf people for whom it is the first language, or the primary means of communication.

Estonian Sign Language (ESL) differs from other sign languages primarily in signs, as opposed to the grammatical structure (e.g. the sign for 'pain' in American and Estonian sign language). However, many signs in various sign languages also resemble to each other due to their iconicity. This kind of similarity (about 40 per cent of all signs) makes the message to a large extent understandable to deaf people of different nationalities and facilitates the communication between them.

At the same time, ESL (as many other sign languages) is heavily influenced by the local spoken language. For instance, some signs are expressed by images formed with fingers, which represent the equivalent to the first letter of the Estonian word (e.g. the sign for restoran 'restaurant'), or a method used in oral articulation instruction (e.g. the sign for mahl 'juice' - refers to the strong current of air that is aspirated during the pronunciation of Estonian 'h').

Alphabet

The Estonian literary language has used the Latin alphabet and its variants throughout its history. The Estonian alphabet consists of 32 letters: A, B, C, D, E. F. G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, Š. Z, Ž, T, U, V, W, Õ, Ä, Ö, Ü, X, Y.

Source of information:

Sutrop, U. Estonian language.