Estonian

Eesti

Uralic > Finno-Ugric > Finno-Permic > Finno-Volgaic > Finno-Lappic > Baltic-Finnic

Spoken by: 1.1 million according to Ethnologue.com, 1989

Official in: Estonia

Spoken primarily in: Estonia

Estonian is closely related to Finnish, and the languages are to some extent mutually intelligible. Specific for Estonian in a Finno-Ugric context is the lack of vowel harmony. Estonian also features three different vowel lengths: short, half-long and long, although only two lengths are distinguished in the orthography. The same goes for consonants, where the three lengths of stops are distinguished in writing: b/p/pp, d/t/tt, and g/k/kk. All the stops are voiceless unaspirated.