Estonians (Estonian Estonian (eesti keel; pronounced [ˈeːsti ˈkeːl] ) is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and tens of thousands in various émigré communities. It is an Uralic language and is closely related to Finnish: eestlased, previously maarahvas) are a Finnic people Finnic peoples are a linguistic group speaking Finnic languages: Baltic Finns, who live near the Baltic Sea, Volga Finns, who live near the Volga River, the Permians, who live in north-central Russia. [nb 1] [nb 2] closely related to the Finns Finnish Paganism and Catholic Christianity from 1050 until 16th century Today predominantly Protestant ; and inhabiting, primarily, the country of Estonia Estonia /ɛsˈtoʊniə/ (Estonian: Eesti), officially the Republic of Estonia (Estonian: Eesti Vabariik), is a country in Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by the Gulf of Finland, to the west by the Baltic Sea, to the south by Latvia (343 km), and to the east by the Russian Federation (338.6 km). The territory of Estonia covers 45,227. The Estonians speak a Finno-Ugric Finno-Ugric is a group of languages in the Uralic language family, comprising Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian and related languages. It comprises the Finno-Permic and Ugric language families language, known as Estonian. Although Estonia is traditionally grouped as one of the Baltic countries Estonians and the nearly linguistically extinct Livonian people in Latvia are descended from the Baltic Finns, sharing closely related languages and a common cultural ancestry. The Latvians and Lithuanians, linguistically and culturally related to each other, are descended from the Balts, an Indo-European people and culture. The peoples comprising, Estonians are linguistically and ethnically unrelated to the Baltic peoples of Latvia Latvia ( /ˈlætviə/ ; Latvian: Latvija), officially the Republic of Latvia (Latvian: Latvijas Republika) is a country in the Baltic region of Northern Europe. It is bordered to the north by Estonia (343 km), to the south by Lithuania (588 km), to the east by the Russian Federation (276 km), and to the southeast by Belarus (141 km). Across the and Lithuania Lithuania ( /ˌlɪθjuːˈeɪniə/ ; Lithuanian: Lietuva), officially the Republic of Lithuania (Lithuanian: Lietuvos Respublika) is a country in Northern Europe, the southernmost of the three Baltic states. Situated along the southeastern shore of the Baltic Sea, it shares borders with Latvia to the north, Belarus to the southeast, Poland, and.
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