Estonia

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Estonia is a country in Northern Europe also known as one of the Baltic countries. It is bordered to the north by Finland, to the west by Sweden, to the south by Latvia, and to the east by Russia. The territory of Estonia covers 45,227 km², coastline is 3794 km, land borders are 343.0 km with Latvia and 338.6 km with Russia.

The population of Estonia in 2003 numbered approximately 1.4 million, mainly Estonians (68%) and around 25% Russians. Other minorities are Belarussians, Ukrainians, Finns and others.

Government: Parliamentary democracy

Currency: Estonian kroon

Language

Estonian is spoken by about 1.1 million people worldwide, around 950,000 of whom live in Estonia itself. It is a member of the Finno-Ugric language group, being closely related to Finnish and more distantly to Hungarian. It's not an Indo-European language such as French or Spanish, and as a result the vast majority of words in Estonian will look thoroughly unfamiliar to someone whose mother tongue is English. Estonian, with its exotic vowel-rich words and almost song-like intonation, is arguably one of the world's most beautiful-sounding languages. Estonian has fourteen different cases and rich vocabulary.

Some basic words: jah - yes; ei - no; palun - please, you-re welcome; aitäh - thanks; tere - hi, hello; tere tulemast - welcome; vabandust - sorry, excuse me; pole viga - no problem; terviseks - cheers.

References

01. Official State Web Center

02. Speak Estonian

External links

1. Wikipedia: Estonia

2. Lonely Planet: Estonia

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