ESTONIAN | EESTI KEEL
History of the Estonian Language
Estonian is apart of the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family which also includes Finnish in this branch, but Hungarian and Mansi are apart of the Uralic family as well according to aboutworldlanguage.com
There are about 1,124,250 speakers of Estonian according to Ethnologue.com
Other than Estonia, Estonian is spoken in Australia, Canada, Finland, Germany, Russia, Swedan, the USA, etc,. according to estinst.ee
It is more related to Finnish when it comes to grammar and intellect thinking, but the alphabet is based on the Germanic alphabet and most of the words are of German and Russian influence. There are two major dialects; Northern and Southern. The Northern dialect is based in the capital, Tallinn, and the Southern in the city Tartu (effectivelanguagelearning.com) Estonian is more based on the northern dialect, as it resides in the capital city.
The earliest known record of Estonian is made up of fourteen lines whom J. Köll used to add to his translation of another work by Simon Wanradt called catechism (1535). One sees the first signs of published grammar in the 17th century. The first being Anführung zu der Esthnischen Sprach (1637) (meaning "Introduction of the Estonian Language" in German) by Bishop Heinrich Stahl. This publication was of the Northern Estonian grammar and was also a dictionary. Many other Northern grammar and dictionary combos were also published in the following years and centuries. The frist sign of a Southern grammar and dictionary publication was in 1648 by Pastor Johann Gutsleff of Urvaste who wrote Observationes grammaticae circa linguam esthonicam (meaning "Observations about Estonian language grammar" in Latin.)
Screenshot taken on Google Maps.
Estonia was under rule by the Russian Csar (Ruler/King) beginning in 1790 until the empire fell in 1905 (Russian Revolution). From the mid-19th and end of the 19th century marked Estonia's "national awakening" which was the birth of high culture (estonia.eu) The end of the 19th and start of the 20th century marked the failure of Russia trying to Russianize Estonia (estonia.eu).
"...in 1907 the Eesti Kirkjanduse Selts (Estonian Literary Society) was founded," (Introduction To Estonian Linguistics by Alo Raun and Andrus Saareste, 1965,pg. 8) Their aim was to perseve "the study and cultivation of the Estonian langauge." (pg.8) This goes to show that Estonian is not a dying language, as there was a society formed dedicated to perserve the lanuage. They began standardizing and normalizing it in order "to advance the deveopment of the literacy langauge..."(pg.9)
In 1918 The Republic of Estonia was founded.