Estonian is a member of the Uralic language family. It is known for its unique phonology, vocabulary, and grammar. It’s often seen as an isolate within Europe, surrounded by Indo-European languages. According to the eLinguistics.net analysis using specific software modules to assess linguistic relationships, the five languages most similar to Estonian are Finnish, Hungarian, Tajik, Turkmen, and Persian.
- Finnish (83.3)
By far the closest relative to Estonian is Finnish. Both languages belong to the Finnic branch of the Uralic family and shaere a significant amount of vocabulary and grammatical structures. Many words in Estonian are similar or identical to Finnish words, albeit with some differences in pronunciation. - Hungarian (50.5)
Hungarian is a Uralic language like Estonian, though it belongs to the Ugric branch. Despite significant differences, there are still notable similarities. Both languages are agglutinative, meaning they form words and express grammatical relations through the addition of prefixes and suffixes. - Tajik (33.7)
Outside of the Uralic language family, Tajik may be the most similar to Estonian. While not related to Finnish, Tajik, like other Central Asian languages, has been influenced by various Turkic languages. It is a member of the Indo-European language family, while Estonia is surrounded by countries that primarily speak Indo-European languages. - Turkmen (30.3)
Turkmen, a Turkic language, shares some distant linguistic connections with Estonian through historical contact between the Uralic and Turkic peoples. This contact has left its mark on the vocabulary and phonology of both languages. The agglutinative nature of Turkmen is reminiscent of Estonian’s structure as well. - Persian (30.2)
Persian is primarily spoken in Iran. There is minimal direct overlap between Persian and Estonian vocabulary, but Persian’s influence on Turkic languages, which in turn could have influenced Uralic languages, creates some interesting parallels. Both languages have been influenced by their linguistic neighbors, leading to some borrowed words.
(to be considered for the list, the language must be spoken by at least one million people)