There are approximately 1.1 million people who speak Estonian as their native language. Around 922,000 of them live in Estonia and another 160,000 can be found scattered throughout the world. Estonian is a southern Finic language, most similar to Finnish and has been influenced by German over the centuries. Estonian is a beautiful sounding language, often difficult for English speakers to learn but once you become familiar with its 14 grammatical cases and unique vowel sounds (Õ,Ä,Ö,Ü) all you need to do is practice, practice, practice.