Estonian is a Uralic and Southern Finnic language. It is the official language of Estonia and is also spoken by minorities outside of Estonia, in places such as Russia.
The language sits in the same language group as Finnish and has similarities with the minority Karelian and Livonian languages. Estonian words have some similarities to the Germanic languages and use many words from the same language group.
The earliest written language is from the Kullamaa prayers printed in 1525. The writings were destroyed after printing despite it being the first book published in the Estonian language.
The actual birth of Estonian literature began in 1810 due to the poetry by Kristjan Jaak Peterson.
