Portal:Estonia
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Arts · Biography · Geography · History · Mathematics · Philosophy · Science · Society · Technology
The Republic of Estonia, or Estonia (Estonian: Eesti Vabariik or Eesti) is a country in Northeastern Europe. It borders the Baltic Sea to the west and the Gulf of Finland to the north. Estonia has land borders with Latvia to the south and Russia to the east, and a maritime border with Finland to the north.
Estonian (eesti keel ; IPA: [ˈeːs.ti ˈkeːl]) is the official language of Estonia, spoken by about 1.1 million people in Estonia and by some ten thousand in various émigré communities. It is a Finno-Ugric language and is closely related to Finnish.
One distinctive feature that has caused a great amount of interest in linguists is that Estonian has what is traditionally seen as three degrees of phoneme length: short, long, and "overlong", such that IPA /toto/, /toːto/ and /toːˑto/ are distinct, as are /toto/, /totːo/, and /totːˑo/. In actuality, the distinction isn't purely in the phoneme length, and the underlying phonological mechanism is still disputed.
Another feature that sets Estonian apart from most languages is the vowel õ ([ɤ]), a close-mid near-back unrounded vowel, which is farther back than the schwa ([ə]), but fronter than [o].
...that Otepää is a popular skiing resort, popularly known as the "winter capital" of Estonia and the site of an annual Cross-country skiing World Cup (pictured) event?
...that UNESCO proclaimed the island Kihnu's cultural space and traditions as a Masterpiece of the Oral and Intangible Heritage of Humanity on November 7, 2003?
...that Suurpea is the northernmost point of mainland Estonia and the northernmost point of the contiguous part of the European Union?
...that the Academia Gustaviana (now University of Tartu) in the then Swedish province of Livonia was the second university founded in the Swedish Empire, following Uppsala University (in Uppsala, Sweden proper) and preceding the Academy of Åbo (in Turku, Finland)?
...that the river in Estonia, which flows from Lake Võrtsjärv through Tartu County into Lake Peipus, is called Emajõgi, meaning "Mother River" in Estonian?
- 5 March 2007 Prime Minister Andrus Ansip's Reform Party wins a plurality in the parliamentary elections.
- 23 September 2006: Toomas Hendrik Ilves is elected the new President of Estonia.
- Estonia won 3 gold medals in the Winter Olympic Games 2006
- Join the Estonia WikiProject.
- Fix a stub.
- Expand this portal, for example by creating new sections or other Estonia-related features.
