Estonian

Every year, we offer introductory, intermediate, and advanced Estonian classes taught by the IU Senior Lecturer in Estonian.

Estonian language learning as part of the CEUS undergraduate major and minor

Estonian is one of the languages available for the CEUS undergraduate major. Tracks with two or three years of language study are available.

Fulfill your foreign language requirement in a small class with dedicated teachers. You can also receive a CEUS Minor with two years of Estonian language study and a related culture course.

Why Study Estonian?

Estonian is the official language of Estonia, spoken natively by about 1.1 million people there and tens of thousands in diaspora communities elsewhere. It belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic language family. Like Finnish, Estonian employs the Latin script as the basis for its alphabet, which adds the letters ä, ö, ü, and õ, plus newer additions of š and ž.

IU is the only university in the US that offers three levels of Estonian every year. Seize this unique opportunity and learn a less commonly taught language with:

  • An easily recognizable alphabet (you can handle a few diacritics: rõõm ´joy´, õlu ‘beer’, töö ‘work’, ülikool ‘university’)
  • A straightforward and fairly regular grammatical system (the 14 cases are there just for you to boast to your friends about; 11 of these work like English prepositions stuck to the end of the word: ülikoolis ‘at the university’)
  • Familiar features in the structure and loanwords in the vocabulary due to international influences (guess the meaning of elekter, kohv, tomat, buss, muusika, kontsert…)

IU Course Offerings

Course offerings are made available in accordance with class level and student interest. Several IAUNRC languages - including Estonian - are part of IU’s Summer Language Workshop.

Estonian Alphabet

A, a aa /a/
B, b bee /b/
C, c cee /ts/
D, d dee /d/
E, e ee /e/
F, f eff /f/
G, g gee /ɡ/
H, h haa /h/
I, i ii /i/
J, j jott /j/
K, k kaa /k/
L, l ell /l/
M, m emm /m/
N, n enn /n/
O, o oo /o/
P, p pee /p/
Q, q kuu /q/
R, r err /r/
S, s ess /s/
Š, š šee /ʃ/
Z, z zee /z/
Ž, ž žee /ʒ/
T, t tee /t/
U, u uu /u/
V, v vee /v/
W, w veedubbelvee /v/
Õ, õ õõ /ɤ/
Ä, ä ää /æ/
Ö, ö öö /ø/
Ü, ü üü /y/
X, x ikks /ks/
Y, y ypsilon /ɨ, y/