Estonian and Finnish are both Finno-Ugric languages, a subfamily of the Uralic languages. Hungarian is also a Finno-Ugric language, but Estonian and Finnish are undoubtedly more similar to one another than they are to Hungarian. Here is a comparison of 25 words in Estonian and Finnish:
1) lind lintu (bird)
2) leib leipä (bread)
3) võid voi (butter)
4) kella kello (clock)
5) päeval päivä (day)
6) muna muna (egg)
7) silma silmä (eye)
8) kala kala (fish)
9) metsa metsä (forest)
10) käsi käsi (hand)
11) jää jää (ice)
12) järv järvi (lake)
13) liha liha (meat)
14) suu suu (mouth)
15) öö yö (night)
16) nina nenä (nose)
17) jõgi joki (river)
18) kool koulu (school)
19) kinga kenkä (shoe)
20) taevas taivas (sky)
21) lumi lumi (snow)
22) täht tähti (star)
23) puu puu (tree)
24) vesi vesi (water)
25) tuul tuuli (wind)
9 of the 25 words are identical. Many words with a final vowel in Finnish lack the vowel in Estonian such as in leib/leipä and täht/tähti. The letter õ of Estonian is a mid back unrounded vowel and does not occur in Finnish. The letter ä is a low front unrounded vowel and is usually restricted to initial syllables in Estonian. This can be observed in word pairs such as metsa/metsä and silma/silmä.
The examples illustrate that Estonian and Finnish are related languages. Many words are similar in both languages. Word-final vowels are more common in Finnish than in Estonian. 24 of the 25 Finnish words end with a vowel, but only 16 of the Estonian words do.
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