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Estonians or Estonian people () are a Finnic ethnic group native to the Baltic Sea region in Northern Europe, primarily their nation state of Estonia.
Estonians primarily speak the Estonian language, a language closely related to other Finnic languages, e.g. Finnish language, Karelian and Livonian. Estonians can also be classified into subgroups according to (e.g. Võros, Setos), although such divisions have become less pronounced due to internal migration and rapid urbanisation in Estonia in the 20th century.
There are approximately 1.1 million ethnic Estonians worldwide, with the majority of them residing in their native Estonia. Estonian diaspora communities formed primarily in Finland, the United States, Sweden, Canada, and the United Kingdom.
The oldest known endonym of the Estonians is maarahvas, literally meaning "land people" or "country folk". It was used until the mid-19th century, when it was gradually replaced by Eesti rahvas "Estonian people" during the Estonian national awakening. Eesti, the modern endonym of Estonia, is thought to have similar origins to Aesti, the name used by the Germanic peoples for the neighbouring people living northeast of the mouth of the Vistula. The Roman historian Tacitus in 98 CE was the first to mention the " Aesti" in writing. In Old Norse, the land south of the Gulf of Finland was called Eistland and the people eistr. The Wanradt–Koell Catechism, the oldest known book in Estonian, was printed in 1535, while the oldest known examples of handwritten Estonian appear in 13th-century chronicles.
By 1800, more than a half of adult Estonians could read. The first university-educated intellectuals identifying themselves as Estonians, including Friedrich Robert Faehlmann (1798–1850), Kristjan Jaak Peterson (1801–1822) and Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald (1803–1882), appeared in the 1820s. The ruling elites had remained predominantly Baltic Germans in language and culture since the conquest of the early 13th century. Garlieb Merkel (1769–1850), a Baltic-German Estophile, became the first author to treat the Estonians as a nationality equal to others; he became a source of inspiration for the Estonian national movement, modelled on Baltic German cultural world before the middle of the 19th century. However, in the middle of the century, Estonians became more ambitious and started leaning toward the Finnish people and their so-called Fennoman movement as successful model of national movement. By the end of 1860s, the Estonians became unwilling to reconcile with German cultural and political hegemony. Before the attempts at Russification in the 1880s, their view of the Russian Empire remained positive.
Estonians have strong ties to the Nordic countries stemming from important cultural and religious influences gained over centuries during and Germany rule and settlement.Piirimäe, Helmut. Historical heritage: the relations between Estonia and her Nordic neighbors. In M. Lauristin et al. (eds.), Return to the Western world: Cultural and political perspectives on the Estonian post-communist transition. Tartu: Tartu University Press, 1997. According to a poll done in 2013, about half of the young Estonians considered themselves Nordic, and about the same number viewed Baltic identity as important. The Nordic identity among Estonians can overlap with other identities, as it is associated with being Finno-Ugric and their close relationship with the Finnish people and does not exclude being Baltic. In Estonian foreign ministry reports from the early 2000s Nordic identity was preferred over Baltic one. Estonian foreign ministry report , 2004 Estonian foreign ministry report , 2002
After the Treaty of Tartu (1920) recognised Estonia's 1918 independence from Russia, ethnic Estonians residing in Russia gained the option to acquire the citizenship of Estonia upon returning to the newly independent country. An estimated 40,000 Estonians lived in Russia in 1920, and 37,578 people resettled from Russia to Estonia in 1920–1923.
Over the years of independence, many Estonians have chosen to work abroad, primarily in Finland, but also in the UK, Benelux, Sweden, and Germany.
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When looking at maternal lineages, nearly half (45 %) of the Estonians have the haplogroup H . About one in four (24.2 %) carry the haplogroup U, and the majority of them belong to its subclade U5.
Estonians have the highest hunter-gatherer-related admixture of any European nation. [4]. ERR Novaator, 30 Nov 2016 They also have high steppe-like admixture, and are less farmer-related than Western and Central Europeans. The same pattern is found also in the Balts, Finns and Mordvins, for example. Uralic peoples typically carry a Siberia-related component, which is also present in Estonians and makes up about five percent of their ancestry on average. Although they have a smaller share of it than other Finnic-speakers, it is one factor that distinguishes them from the Balts. Estonians can also be modelled to have considerably more Finnish-like ancestry than Baltic-speakers.
Estonians have a high sharing of IBD (identity-by-descent) segments with other studied Finnic groups (Finns, Karelians and Vepsians) and the Sami people, as well as with the Polish people people.
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