- Official language in
- Estonia
- Script
- Latin
Where it's spoken
Estonian is the official language of Estonia. Article 6 of the Constitution of the Republic of Estonia establishes Estonian as the country's official language. Estonian is also one of the official languages of the European Union.
Sources
- Constitution of the Republic of Estonia — Chapter I, Article 6
- European Union — "Languages"
Script & pronunciation
Estonian is written in the Latin alphabet. The alphabet used for Estonian has 27 letters, running from a to ü, and includes the letters õ, ä, ö and ü, as in this app's card "Kõik on korras" ('It's OK / I'm fine'). Four more of these letters — f, š, z and ž — are described as occurring only in loanwords, as in this app's card for oranž ('orange'). This app's romanization for Estonian keeps the ordinary spelling, adds hyphens between syllables, and marks the stressed syllable in capital letters, as in the card "Ma otsin mälukaarti" ('I'm looking for a memory card.'), romanized "ma OT-sin MÄ-lu-kaar-ti".
Sources
- Erelt, Mati; Erelt, Tiiu; Ross, Kristiina (2007). "Eesti keele käsiraamat" — "Kiri ja tähestik" (alphabet)
Grammar essentials
The position of a word or phrase in an Estonian sentence does not depend much on its grammatical role: the theme stands at the beginning of the sentence, while the most important and newest information stands at the end. Negation is formed with the invariable word ei, which stands immediately before the verb and cannot be separated from it by other words, as in this app's cards "Ma ei saa aru" ('I don't understand') and "Ma ei räägi eesti keelt" ('I can't speak Estonian'). Estonian nouns and adjectives take 14 grammatical cases; the partitive case is described as expressing unboundedness or partiality. This app's card "Ma otsin mälukaarti" ('I'm looking for a memory card.') notes that the verb otsima ('to look for'), an unbounded activity, takes a partitive object — mälukaart becomes mälukaarti — while the genitive mälukaardi would mark a completed action. Another of the 14 cases, the elative, appears in this app's card "Tere hommikust" ('Good morning'), whose note explains hommikust as the elative of hommik ('morning').
Sources
- Erelt, Mati; Erelt, Tiiu; Ross, Kristiina (2007). "Eesti keele käsiraamat" — "Morfoloogilised kategooriad" (cases)
- Erelt, Mati; Erelt, Tiiu; Ross, Kristiina (2007). "Eesti keele käsiraamat" — "Lause ehitus" (word order, negation)
Politeness & etiquette
In Estonian's set of personal pronouns, sina (sa) is the singular second person and teie (te) is the plural. This app's card for teie describes it as the polite form used with strangers and elders, and notes that travellers should default to it; its card for sina describes it as the informal form. This app's card for Tere ('hello') describes it as usable at any time of day, and its note gives Tere hommikust ('good morning') and Tere õhtust ('good evening') as time-of-day combinations.
Sources
- Erelt, Mati; Erelt, Tiiu; Ross, Kristiina (2007). "Eesti keele käsiraamat" — "Sõnaliigid" (personal pronouns)
- Eesti Keele Instituut. "Eesti keele seletav sõnaraamat" (EKSS), entry "teie" — Sense 2: teie used to address a single stranger or less-familiar listener, contrasted with informal sina