One of the official languages of the European Union since 1973, Estonian is spoken in Estonia by 1.1 million people.
It is different from most spoken languages in Europe as it does not belong to the Indo-European group; it belongs to Uralic language family. It has been influenced by many languages such as German, Russian, Swedish and Latvian. Because of Estonia’s close proximity to Russia, Estonian people often speak Russian.
According to census figures for 2000, there are 109 languages spoken in Estonia as mother tongues. The Estonian language has long been researched because the language has remarkable structure. There are two major dialect groups in Estonia: Northern and Southern.
