page_title: Estonian language
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Estonian language / History
caption_attribution_description: Estonian Grammar by Heinrich Stahl, published 1637 in Reval (Tallinn)
context_page_description: Estonian is a Uralic language of the Finnic branch spoken in Estonia. It is the official language of Estonia, spoken natively by about 1.1 million people; 922,000 people in Estonia and 160,000 outside Estonia. It is a Southern Finnic language and is the second-most-spoken language among all the Finnic languages.
context_section_description: The two different historical Estonian languages (sometimes considered dialects), the North and South Estonian languages, are based on the ancestors of modern Estonians' migration into the territory of Estonia in at least two different waves, both groups speaking considerably different Finnic vernaculars. Modern standard Estonian has evolved on the basis of the dialects of Northern Estonia.
  The oldest written records of the Finnic languages of Estonia date from the 13th century. Originates Livoniae in the Chronicle of Henry of Livonia contains Estonian place names, words and fragments of sentences.
caption: Estonian grammar published in Reval in 1637 by Heinrich Stahl
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