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Ethnologue: Languages of the World
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Ethnologue > Web version > Country index > Europe > Estonia

Languages of Estonia

Republic of Estonia, Eesti Vabariik. 1,341,664. National or official language: Estonian. Literacy rate: 99%. Immigrant languages: Armenian (840), Baltic Romani (460), Belarusan (8,840), Chuvash (560), Eastern Yiddish (570), Erzya (500), Finnish (4,930), Latvian (1,390), Lithuanian (1,610), North Azerbaijani (870), Polish (600), Russian (407,000), Rusyn (5,200), Standard German (1,250), Tatar (2,250), Ukrainian (12,300). Information mainly from Comrie 1987. Deaf population: 1,600 (1998). The number of individual languages listed for Estonia is 2. Of those, both are living languages.
Estonian

[est] 953,000 in Estonia (1989 census). Population total all countries: 1,048,660. Ethnic population: 963,281 (1989 census). Also in Australia, Canada, Finland, Latvia, Russian Federation (Europe), Sweden, United Kingdom, United States. Alternate names: Eesti, Viro.  Dialects: Tallinn (Reval), Tartu (Dorpat), Mulgi, Vôru (Werro), Seto (Setu). Dialects are grouped into three: Northeastern Coastal Estonian (between Tallinn and Narva), North Estonian (island, western, central, and eastern dialects), and South Estonian (Mulgi, Tartu, Vôru). Vôru, Setu (a subdialect of Vôru), and Island are clearly distinct from standard Estonian. All the other dialects are assimilated into standard Estonian. North and South Estonian may be separate languages.  Classification: Uralic, Finnic 
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Estonian Sign Language

[eso] 4,500 users out of 1,600 deaf and 20,000 hearing impaired. 2,000 persons need regular help from interpreters (1998 U. Sutrop). Widespread, mostly in Tallinn and Pärnu. Alternate names: Viipekeel.  Dialects: Some local dialects. The dialect in Pärnu is the most archaic. Apparent influences from Finnish and Russian Sign Languages.  Classification: Deaf sign language 
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