The Estonian language is spoken as the
first language by the vast majority of Estonians; it is closely related to other
Finnic languages, e.g.
Finnish,
Karelian and
Livonian. The Finnic languages are a subgroup of the larger
Uralic family of languages, which also includes e.g. the
Sami languages. These languages are markedly different from most other native languages spoken in
Europe, most of which have been assigned to the
Indo-European family of languages. Estonians can also be classified into subgroups according to
dialects (e.g.
Võros,
Setos), although such divisions have become less pronounced due to internal migration and rapid
urbanisation in Estonia in the 20th century.
There are approximately 1 million ethnic Estonians worldwide, with the vast majority of them residing in their native Estonia. Estonian diaspora communities formed primarily in Finland, the United States, Sweden, Canada, the United Kingdom and other
European Union member states.
History
Prehistoric roots
Estonia was first inhabited about 10,000 years ago, soon after the ice from the
Baltic Ice Lake had melted. Living in the same area for more than 5,000 years would put the ancestors of Estonians among the oldest permanent inhabitants in Europe.[21] On the other hand, some recent linguistic estimations suggest that
Finno-Ugric language speakers arrived around the Baltic Sea considerably later, perhaps during the
Early Bronze Age (ca. 1800 BCE).[22][23] It has also been argued that Western Uralic tribes reached
Fennoscandia first, leading into the development of
Sami people, and arrived to the Baltic region later during the Bronze Age[24] or its transition to
Iron Age at the latest,[25] which lead into the formation of
Baltic Finnic population who would later become such groups as Estonians and
Finns.[24]
The oldest known
endonym of the Estonians is maarahvas,[26] literally meaning "land people" or "country folk". It was used until the mid-19th century, when it was gradually replaced by Eesti rahvas "Estonian people" during the
Estonian national awakening.[27][28]Eesti, the modern endonym of Estonia, is thought to have similar origins to Aestii, the name used by the ancient
Germanic tribes for the neighbouring people living northeast of the mouth of the river
Vistula. The Roman historian
Tacitus in 98 CE was the first to mention the "Aestii" people in writing. In
Old Norse the land south of the
Gulf of Finland was called Eistland and the people eistr. The
first known book in the Estonian language was printed in 1525, while the oldest known examples of written Estonian originate in 13th-century chronicles.
Although Estonian national consciousness spread in the course of the 19th century during the
Estonian national awakening,[29] some degree of ethnic awareness preceded this development.[30] By the 18th century the self-denomination eestlane spread among Estonians along with the older maarahvas.[26]Anton thor Helle's
translation of the Bible into Estonian appeared in 1739, and the number of books and brochures published in Estonian increased from 18 in the 1750s to 54 in the 1790s. By the end of the century more than a half of adult peasants could read. The first university-educated intellectuals identifying themselves as Estonians, including
Friedrich Robert Faehlmann (1798–1850),
Kristjan Jaak Peterson (1801–1822) and
Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald (1803–1882), appeared in the 1820s. The ruling elites had remained predominantly
German in language and culture since the conquest of the early 13th century.
Garlieb Merkel (1769–1850), a Baltic-German
Estophile, became the first author to treat the Estonians as a nationality equal to others; he became a source of inspiration for the Estonian national movement, modelled on Baltic German cultural world before the middle of the 19th century. However, in the middle of the century, the Estonians became more ambitious and started leaning toward the
Finns as a
successful model of national movement and, to some extent, toward the neighbouring
Latvian national movement. By the end of 1860 the Estonians became unwilling to reconcile with German cultural and political hegemony. Before the attempts at
Russification in the 1880s, their view of
Imperial Russia remained positive.[30]
Estonians have strong ties to the
Nordic countries stemming from important cultural and religious influences gained over centuries during
Scandinavian and
German rule and settlement.[31] According to a poll done in 2013, about half of the young
Estonians considered themselves Nordic, and about the same number viewed Baltic identity as important. The Nordic identity among Estonians can ovelap with other identities, as it is associated with being Finno-Ugric and their close relationship with the Finnish people and does not exclude being Baltic.[32] In Estonian foreign ministry reports from the early 2000s Nordic identity was preferred over Baltic one.[33][34]
After the
Treaty of Tartu (1920) recognised Estonia's 1918 independence from Russia, ethnic Estonians residing in Russia gained the option of opting for Estonian citizenship (those who opted were called optandid – 'optants') and returning to their fatherland. An estimated 40,000 Estonians lived in Russia in 1920. In sum, 37,578 people moved from
Soviet Russia to Estonia (1920–1923).[35][failed verification]
Within reborn Poland in the interwar period, the largest Estonian populations of 31 and 19, were based in
Warsaw and
Łódź, respectively, with few in other locations, according to the 1921 Polish census.[49][50]
During
World War II, when Estonia was
invaded by the Soviet Army in 1944, large numbers of Estonians fled their homeland on ships or smaller boats over the
Baltic Sea. Many refugees who survived the risky sea voyage to
Sweden or
Germany later moved from there to
Canada, the
United Kingdom, the
United States or
Australia.[51] Some of these refugees and their descendants returned to Estonia after the nation regained its independence in 1991.
Over the years of independence, increasing numbers of Estonians have chosen to work abroad, primarily in
Finland, but also in other
European countries (mostly in the UK,
Benelux,
Sweden, and
Germany), making Estonia the country with the highest emigration rate in Europe.[52] This is at least partly due to the easy access to oscillating migration to Finland.
Recognising the problems arising from both low birth rate and high emigration, the country has launched various measures both to increase the birth rate and to lure migrant Estonians back to Estonia. Former president
Toomas Hendrik Ilves has lent his support to the campaign Talendid koju! ("Bringing talents home!")[53] which aims to coordinate and promote the return of Estonians who have particular skills needed in Estonia.
Estonians in Canada
One of the largest permanent Estonian communities outside Estonia is in Canada, with about 24,000 people[7] (according to some sources up to 50,000 people).[54] In the late 1940s and early 1950s, about 17,000 arrived in Canada, initially in
Montreal.[55]Toronto is currently the city with the largest population of Estonians outside of Estonia. The first Estonian World Festival was held in Toronto in 1972. Some notable Estonian Canadians are
Endel Tulving,
Elmar Tampõld,
Alison Pill,
Uno Prii,
Kalle Lasn, and
Andreas Vaikla.
Genetics
Haplogroups
Y-chromosome haplogroups among Estonians include
N1c (35.7%),[56]R1a (33.5%)[57] and
I1 (15%).[56] R1a, common in Eastern Europe,[58] was the dominant Y-DNA haplogroup among the pre-Uralic inhabitants of Estonia, as it is the only one found in the local samples from the time of the
Corded Ware culture and Bronze Age. Appearance of N1c is linked to the arrival of Uralic-speakers.[25] It originated in East Eurasia[59] and is commonly carried by modern Uralic-speaking groups but also other North Eurasians, including Estonians' Baltic-speaking neighbors
Latvians and
Lithuanians.[56] Compared to the Balts, Estonians have been noticed to have differences in allelic variances of N1c haplotypes, showing more similarity with other Finno-Ugric-speakers.[60][61]
When looking at
maternal lineages, nearly half (45.8%) of the Estonians have the haplogroup
H . About one in four (24.3%) carry the haplogroup
U, and the majority of them belong to its subclade
U5.[62]
Autosomal DNA
Autosomally Estonians are close with Latvians and Lithuanians.[65][66] However, they are shifted towards the
Finns, who are isolated from most European populations.[67][68][69] Northeastern Estonians are particularly close to Finns, while Southeastern Estonians are close to the Balts; other Estonians plot between these two extremes.[64]
Estonians have high
steppe-like admixture, and less
farmer-related and more
hunter-gatherer-related admixture than Western and Central Europeans. The same pattern is found also in the Balts, Finns and
Mordvins, for example.[70] Uralic peoples typically carry a
Siberian-related component, which is also present in Estonians and makes up about 5 percent of their ancestry on average. Although they have a smaller share of it than other Uralic-speakers except
Hungarians, it is one factor that distinguishes them from the Balts.[59] Estonians can also be modelled to have considerably more Finnish-like ancestry than Baltic-speakers.[69][60]
^Statistics Finland does not record ethnicity and instead categorizes the population by their native language; in 2017, Estonian was spoken as a mother tongue by 49,590 people, not all of whom may be ethnic Estonians.[3]
^Ivković, Sanja Kutnjak; Haberfeld, M.R. (10 June 2015). Measuring Police Integrity Across the World: Studies from Established Democracies and Countries in Transition. Springer. p. 131.
ISBN9781493922796. Estonia is considered Protestant when classified by its historically predominant major religion (Norris and Inglehart 2011) and thus some authors (e.g., Davie 2003) claim Estonia belongs to Western (Lutheran) Europe, while others (e.g., Norris and Inglehart 2011) see Estonia as a Protestant ex-Communist society.
^Ringvee, Ringo (16 September 2011).
"Is Estonia really the least religious country in the world?". The Guardian. For this situation there are several reasons, starting from the distant past (the close connection of the churches with the Swedish or German ruling classes) up to the Soviet-period atheist policy when the chain of religious traditions was broken in most families. In Estonia, religion has never played an important role on the political or ideological battlefield. The institutional religious life was dominated by foreigners until the early 20th century. The tendencies that prevailed in the late 1930s for closer relations between the state and Lutheran church [...] ended with the Soviet occupation in 1940.
^
abLang, Valter: Homo Fennicus – Itämerensuomalaisten etnohistoria, pp. 335–336. Finnish Literature Society, 2020.
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abSaag, Lehti; Laneman, Margot; Varul, Liivi; Malve, Martin; Valk, Heiki; Razzak, Maria A.; Shirobokov, Ivan G.; Khartanovich, Valeri I.; Mikhaylova, Elena R.; Kushniarevich, Alena; Scheib, Christiana Lyn; Solnik, Anu; Reisberg, Tuuli; Parik, Jüri; Saag, Lauri; Metspalu, Ene; Rootsi, Siiri; Montinaro, Francesco; Remm, Maido; Mägi, Reedik; D’Atanasio, Eugenia; Crema, Enrico Ryunosuke; Díez-del-Molino, David; Thomas, Mark G.; Kriiska, Aivar; Kivisild, Toomas; Villems, Richard; Lang, Valter; Metspalu, Mait; Tambets, Kristiina (May 2019).
"The Arrival of Siberian Ancestry Connecting the Eastern Baltic to Uralic Speakers further East". Current Biology. 29 (10): 1701–1711.e16.
doi:
10.1016/j.cub.2019.04.026.
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abAriste, Paul (1956). "Maakeel ja eesti keel. Eesti NSV Teaduste Akadeemia Toimetised 5: 117–24; Beyer, Jürgen (2007). Ist maarahvas ('Landvolk'), die alte Selbstbezeichnung der Esten, eine Lehnübersetzung? Eine Studie zur Begriffsgeschichte des Ostseeraums". Zeitschrift für Ostmitteleuropa-Forschung. 56: 566–593.
^Piirimäe, Helmut. Historical heritage: the relations between Estonia and her Nordic neighbors. In M. Lauristin et al. (eds.), Return to the Western world: Cultural and political perspectives on the Estonian post-communist transition. Tartu: Tartu University Press, 1997.
^Lappalainen, Tuuli: Human genetic variation in the Baltic Sea region: features of population history and natural selection. PhD thesis. Helsinki University Print, Helsinki. 2009.
http://hdl.handle.net/10138/22129