Estonia’s easy assumptions that English has replaced Russian refuted

For the last 10 years English has become the most widespread foreign language in Estonia, the Statistics Department reported according to the population census.

According to the data 76% of Estonians speak a foreign language (975 320 people). English as a foreign language is spoken by 48% of the population.

Estonian is spoken or understood by 84% of the local population. In 10 years this figure has increased by 2 %. Thus, Estonian as a native language is spoken by 67% of the population, as a foreign language by 17%.

Estonian as a foreign language is used by Finns living in the republic (56%). Among Russians the same share is 50%. The share of Estonian-speaking Latvians, Ukrainians and Belarusians living in Estonia is 40-45%.

At the same time 29% of Estonians speak Russian as a native language and 38% as a foreign language (67% in total).

In other words, Russian is the second most popular language in Estonia after Estonian itself. If we talk about how many people use it as a foreign language, it is inferior to English in this respect.