TRANSLATE FROM / TO ESTONIAN

Services of translation from / into Estonian in our translation agency are performed by certified professional translators of Estonian language.

We provide translation from / into Estonian for both enterprises, including state organizations, and for private individuals as well. Our services involve all types of written / oral translation from / into Estonian, including simultaneous interpretation.

SOME FACTS

The Estonian language (eesti keel) is spoken by about 1.1 million people, of which the great majority live in the Republic of Estonia.

Estonian belongs to the Finnic branch of the Finno-Ugric languages. Estonian is not related to its southern neighbor Latvian, which is a Baltic language related to Lithuanian. Estonian is related to Finnish, spoken on the other side of the Gulf of Finland, and more distantly to Hungarian. One of the distinctive features of Estonian is that it has what is traditionally seen as three degrees of phoneme length: short, long, and "overlong", such that IPA /toto/, /to:to/ and /to::to/ are distinct, as are /toto/, /tot:o/, and /tot::o/. The distinction between long and overlong is, in practice, as much a matter of syllable stress (involving pitch) as duration. Long and overlong vowels are not distinguished in written Estonian; plosives, however, appear in writing with three "degrees": b,d,g; p,t,k and pp;tt;kk (all unvoiced plosives).

Vocabulary

Apart from the very clear links to the Finnish language, Estonian retains many Low German loan words that can be identified in English. For example:

Estonian "nurk" (corner) & English "nook", Estonian "koer" (dog) & English "cur", Estonian "tutar" (daughter) & German "Tochter"

Often English "b" is replace with a "p" in Estonian: Estonian "poiss" English "boy", Estonian "pikk" (long) English "big", Estonian "pargipink" English "park bench",

Often an initial "s" is dropped from the Germanic origin: Estonian "tool" (chair) from English "stool", Estonian "kool" from English "school", Estonina "tukk" from German "Stuck"

ESTONIAN: a language of Estonia
SIL code: EST
ISO 639-1: et
ISO 639-2: est

Population 953,032 in Estonia out of 963,281 (93%) ethnic group (1989 census). Population total all countries 1,100,000.

Region Also spoken in Australia, Canada, Finland, Latvia, Russia (Europe), Sweden, United Kingdom, USA.
Alternate names EESTI
Dialects TALLINN (REVAL), TARTU (DORPAT), MULGI, VORU (WERRO), SETO (SETU).

Classification Uralic, Finno-Ugric, Finno-Permic, Finno-Cheremisic, Finno-Mordvinic, Finno-Lappic, Baltic-Finnic.

Comments 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, Voru). Voru, Setu (a subdialect of Voru), and island are clearly distinct from standard Estonian. All the other dialects are assimilated into standard Estonian. Those over 60 and under 20 speak little Russian. It is spoken less in rural areas and in southern areas. 75% to 80% of the population in the northeast are Russian speakers. Those over 60 know some German. Most in the north speak Finnish for common topics. Estonian has remained the language of education, including universities. Some linguistic influences from Russian, German, Swedish, Latvian, Lithuanian, and Finnish. National language. Dictionary. Grammar. SVO; 14 cases: affixes indicate case of noun phrases; verb affixes mark person and number of subject and agreement (obligatory); genitives, adjectives, numberals before noun heads; question word initial; 1 prefix maximum; 5-6 suffixes maximum; word order distinguishes given and new information; active and passive voice; 4 moods in both voices: indicative, imperative, conditional, oblique; 2 infinitives for all verbs; 4 tenses in both voices and all moods: present, past, perfect, pluperfect; 3 degrees of comparison: positive, comparative, superlative; V, CV, CVC, CVCCC, CVV, CVVC, VC, VCCC, VV, VVC, CCV, CCVV, CCVC, CCVCC, CCVVCC, CCVCCC; nontonal; stress on first syllable; possible secondary stress on third syllable. Literacy rate in second language: North Estonian, central dialect. Roman script used. TV. Christian. Bible 1739-1995.

Also spoken in:
Finland Language name ESTONIAN
Population 6,000 in Finland (1993).
Dialects TALLINN (REVAL, NORTHERN ESTONIAN), TARTU (DORPAT, TATU, SOUTHERN ESTONIAN), SETU, MULY (MULGI), VYRUS (VORU).
Comments North and South Estonian may be separate languages. The traditional community was assimilated to the Swedish-speaking community. Present speakers are refugees from World War II or recent immigrants. SVO. Roman script used. Christian. Bible 1739-1995.