Estonian

The Estonians are a Finnic people of the eastern Baltic shore, speaking a language kin to Finnish and Livonian. Tacitus mentioned the Aesti in 98 CE, and the old Estonian endonym maarahvas, meaning land folk, survived into the nineteenth century. Among Europe's last pagans, they fell to the Northern Crusades in the 1220s, Denmark taking the north after Lindanise in 1219, the Livonian Order and bishoprics the rest.

The Saint George's Night revolt of 1343 to 1345 was crushed by the Teutonic Order, and Denmark sold its Estonian duchy to the Order in 1346; the country joined the Livonian Confederation.

The Livonian War of 1558 to 1583 gave northern Estonia to Sweden. The first Estonian book, a catechism, had already been printed in 1535. Sweden lost the land to Russia by 1710, but Estonian stayed the peasants' speech; after the full Estonian Bible of 1739 literacy spread.