Translation from Estonian into Russian
ALBA Translation Agency does translation from Estonian into Russian and from Russian into Estonian of texts on any themes. After Estonia had declared its independence from the USSR, the demand for translations from Estonian rose sharply. The most popular is translation from Estonian of private papers, including birth/marriage/divorce certificates, passports and work record books.
Estonian is the official language of Estonia, where it is spoken by 1.1 million people, and is a language of the Baltic group of the Uralic languages (it is closer than all to Finnish). The Estonian dialects are divided into two groups (the northern and southern dialects), which are usually associated with the cities of Tallinn and Tartu, respectively. The writing system of Estonian is based on the Latin alphabet.
Since the 13th century, Estonian has developed under a strong influence of the languages of those countries a part of which Estonia has been (Denmark, Germany, Sweden and Russia). The first attempts to make a scientific description of Estonian were made in the 17th century. There were lectures on Estonian at the University of Tartu in 1803, and the teaching in Estonian started from 1919. The first studies on Estonian were published later. The first work dedicated to the history of Estonian was the work by Mihkel Veske published in 1870. Today Estonian is studied at the Institute of the Estonian Language in Tallinn, the University of Tartu, Tallinn Pedagogical University and Estonian Humanitarian Institute.
Interesting facts about Estonian:
• Most Estonian vowels have three phonetic lengths (short, long and extra-long), which gives Estonian speech its peculiar sounding and is the reason for funny stories.
• Kristjan Jaak Peterson (1801–1822) is considered the founder of Estonian poetry and Standard Estonian. Kristjan Jaak Peterson was the first Estonian student at the University of Tartu in 1819–1820, and his works were first published only at the beginning of the 20th century. Kristjan Jaak Peterson’s birthday on 14 March is celebrated in Estonia as the Mother Tongue Day.
• The first book in Estonian was the translation of a Lutheran catechism from German into Estonian by the pastors Simon Wanradt and Johann Koell in 1535 during the Protestant Reformation. The first Estonian Grammar was printed in в 1637. The New Testament was translated into Estonian in 1868 (the North-Estonian dialect group).
• Estonian is one of the few languages of Europe which are not Indo-European. Without regard to later borrowings, Estonian bears no resemblance to the languages of the neighbouring countries of Estonia: Swedish, Latvian, Lithuanian and Russian.