# Estonia, Viro or Eesti?



## PABLO DE SOTO

I have seen that,in Finnish, Estonia can be Viro or Eesti .
Which is the difference between both names?
Are they interchangeable?
Is it a matter or colloquial or formal language?.


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## Prometo

_Viro _está en el idioma finés, _Estonia_ en español.

_Eesti_ es estoniano.

ENG. _Viro_ is in Finnish and _Eesti_ is Estonian.  _Estonia_ in English.


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## Setwale_Charm

We need an opinion from a native Finnish speaker. I would second Prometo but is it possible that Finns have taken to calling Estonia :Eesti" colloquially or....?


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## Hakro

_Viro_ is the traditional name and it's still the only official name of Estonia in Finnish. In fact _Viro_ means only the northern or northeastern part of Estonia _(Virumaa)_ and that's why many Finnish speaking Estonians don't like it. So _Eesti_ has become a more and more common name for Estonia even in Finnish.

In colloquial language _Viro_ and _Eesti_ are interchangeable but in formal language you have to use _Viro._


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## Setwale_Charm

Hakro said:


> _Viro_ is the traditional name and it's still the only official name of Estonia in Finnish. In fact _Viro_ means only the northern or northeastern part of Estonia _(Virumaa)_ and that's why many Finnish speaking Estonians don't like it. So _Eesti_ has become a more and more common name for Estonia even in Finnish.
> 
> In colloquial language _Viro_ and _Eesti_ are interchangeable but in formal language you have to use _Viro._


 
What is the history of this "discrimination"?


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## Hakro

The history is very logical: During centuries Finns had contacts with the Virumaa people. There was no country named Estonia or Eesti. The area was occupied first by Germans, then by Swedes and finally by Russians. Obviously it was the Swedes who used the name Estland (= east land) and this name became established also in other languages, even in Estonian, but not in Finnish.

Choosing the name _Viro_ is not very exceptional. Sweden we call _Ruotsi_ because the Vikings came to Finland from the Roslagen area; Germany we call _Saksa_ because the merchants came from Sachsen. In a similar way the name of Germany and Germans in different languages have been taken from different German tribes.


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## Setwale_Charm

Hakro said:


> The history is very logical: During centuries Finns had contacts with the Virumaa people. There was no country named Estonia or Eesti. The area was occupied first by Germans, then by Swedes and finally by Russians. Obviously it was the Swedes who used the name Estland (= east land) and this name became established also in other languages, even in Estonian, but not in Finnish.
> 
> Choosing the name _Viro_ is not very exceptional. Sweden we call _Ruotsi_ because the Vikings came to Finland from the Roslagen area; Germany we call _Saksa_ because the merchants came from Sachsen. In a similar way the name of Germany and Germans in different languages have been taken from different German tribes.


 
So you Finns only choose what you like in every nation and make it your definition of the neighbouring nations based on that!


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## PABLO DE SOTO

Kiitos.
So, do estonians still call that area Virumaa or a similar name?
I remember a shopping mall in Tallinn called Viru Keskus, am I right?
I suppose this name has some kind of relation to the name Virumaa.


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## Setwale_Charm

I do not think such a word is used at all nowadays, but you might like to check Wikipedia for these.


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## PABLO DE SOTO

Just checked Wiki, and yes...Ida Viru is the name of one of the fifteen counties in which Estonia is divided.
Thanks to all of you, everything is clearer to me now.
Thank you.


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## Hakro

Setwale_Charm said:


> So you Finns only choose what you like in every nation and make it your definition of the neighbouring nations based on that!


Not at all! Remember how the names came up:
A man from the other side of the Gulf of Finland came here and said: "I'm from Virumaa."
A man from west came to Finland and said: "I'm from Roslagen."
A man from south came to Finland and said: "I'm from Sachsen."
In those days there was no Estonia, no Sweden, no Germany. We had to take the words they gave us.


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## Hakro

PABLO DE SOTO said:


> Just checked Wiki, and yes...Ida Viru is the name of one of the fifteen counties in which Estonia is divided.


Yes, there is Idavirumaa or Ida Viru (East Viru land) and Läänevirumaa (West Viru land). In Tallinn there is Hotel Viru, Viru Shopping Centre, and of course Viru Valge, the famous Estonian vodka...


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## KotkaSLC

Isn't that just as good as calling everybody what the Swedes call them, i.e. Finland, Estland?


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## Hakro

KotkaSLC said:


> Isn't that just as good as calling everybody what the Swedes call them, i.e. Finland, Estland?


Or why wouldn't we use as well Swahili or Chinese or some other foreign language?


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## Gavril

Hakro said:


> The history is very logical: During centuries Finns had contacts with the Virumaa people. There was no country named Estonia or Eesti. The area was occupied first by Germans, then by Swedes and finally by Russians. Obviously it was the Swedes who used the name Estland (= east land) and this name became established also in other languages, even in Estonian, but not in Finnish.



A little bit off topic, but are you sure that the names Eesti/Estonia/etc. are based on the Germanic word for "east"?

I don't think there's a consensus on the origin of this name, and it is possible that it comes from a word meaning "east", but if so, this word doesn't seem to have been directly inherited into the later Germanic languages: if it were, we would expect "Östland" in Swedish (rather than _Estland_) and "Austland" in Icelandic (rather than the actual _Eistland_).


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## KotkaSLC

Gavril said:


> A little bit off topic, but are you sure that the names Eesti/Estonia/etc. are based on the Germanic word for "east"?
> 
> I don't think there's a consensus on the origin of this name, and it is possible that it comes from a word meaning "east", but if so, this word doesn't seem to have been directly inherited into the later Germanic languages: if it were, we would expect "Östland" in Swedish (rather than _Estland_) and "Austland" in Icelandic (rather than the actual _Eistland_).




Going by something I read earlier, which I can't find again or confirm right now, the name was from Old Swedish (or possibly Old German) and was literally Eastland). I also just found Tacitus' writing about the Aesti tribe. Many instances, however, have been cited here, where the official name of a foreign nationality in many languages is not accurate, completely representative, or what that nationality calls itself. These instances are by no means slurs. The argument for translation versus transliteration between two Germanic languages would hardly explain how Österreich became Austria, or how English, alone among the Germanic languages, calls the East Sea the Baltic (in Russian it's the West Sea).


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## sirammaris

KotkaSLC said:


> I also just found Tacitus' writing about the Aesti tribe. Many instances, however, have been cited here, where the official name of a foreign nationality in many languages is not accurate, completely representative, or what that nationality calls itself.



The official version taught in Estonian schools is that Tacitus's "aestid" was the earliest name attributed to the tribes living in the area that is now Estonia and this is where the name Eesti comes from. We don't know where Tacitus got it from, because no older written sources exist. He might have invented it, or heard it from the Swedish Vikings.


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## tarinoidenkertoja

The informations Tacitus had at his disposal were so scarce that he could  have been  as well referring to the Estonians as the "Fenni" he mentions in the "De Germania". After all, back then no Roman would have dared  venture that north to identify every barbarian tribe he might have heard of


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## henseri

Yes, the correct form in finnish is indeed Viro. In the finnish language we have our own words for countries, so it's grammatically correct to only use those. For example, Sweden is Ruotsi in finnish, Norway is Norja, and so on, even though Sweden is Sverige in swedish and Norway is Norge in norwegian, just as Estonia is Eesti in estonian.


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## osemnais

And where does the name Venäjä come from? It seems very obscure.


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## Gavril

osemnais said:


> And where does the name Venäjä come from? It seems very obscure.



Here's the explanation given in Häkkinen's Nykysuomen etymologinen sanakirja (= etymological dictionary of modern Finnish):



> Nimitys on vanha germaaninen laina. Germaanin *_weneđ_- on alkuaan viitannut slaaveihin yleisesti, mutta myöhemmin se on germaanisissa kielissä täsmentynyt tarkoittamaan Itämeren etelärannikolla asuneita, länsislaaveihin kuuluneita vendejä, saksaksi _Wenden _tai_ Winden_ [...] joiden jälkeläiset tunnetaan nykyään sorbeina. Itämerensuomalaisissa kielissä sana on alkanut viitata paremmin tunnettuihin itäslaavilaisiin naapureihin.



"The term [= Venäjä] is an old Germanic loan. Germanic *_weneđ_- originally referred to Slavs in general, but later on the word came to refer specifically to the Wends (German _Wenden _or _Winden_), a West Slavic people who lived on the southern Baltic coast [...] and whose descendants are now known as the Sorbs. In the Baltic Finnic languages, the word began to refer to the more familiar East Slavic neighbors [of Finnic speakers]."

(Häkkinen, 1472; my translation)


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## danel32

Hakro said:


> Not at all! Remember how the names came up:
> A man from the other side of the Gulf of Finland came here and said: "I'm from Virumaa."
> A man from west came to Finland and said: "I'm from Roslagen."
> A man from south came to Finland and said: "I'm from Sachsen."
> In those days there was no Estonia, no Sweden, no Germany. We had to take the words they gave us.


Sorry, but this is complete lie 
Name "Eesti" is almost 2000 years old. First place Estonians were "Aestis", as us named Tacitus in "Germanica" (cir 98), after that name was changed to _Hestis_ (Cassiodorus, 523–526), _Aesti_ (Jordanis, 551), _Aisti_ (Einhard, 830), _Esto_, _Estum_ (Wulfstan, 887), _Iste_ (Widsith, 10. century). So, it was Roman who give us name. Additional information HERE.

Why Finnish calling our country _Viro_ seems to me odd too. BUT, Latvians calling our state _Igaunia_, which is even more odd.


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## Hakro

danel32 said:


> Sorry, but this is complete lie
> - - -
> Why Finnish calling our country _Viro_ seems to me odd too. BUT, Latvians calling our state _Igaunia_, which is even more odd.


Don't be sorry, it's not a lie. Odd or not, but for more than a thousand years we Finns have called your country as "Viro", Sweden as "Ruotsi" and Germany as "Saksa". The Romans gave your country a name that was reasonable in their language but not for us. And not for the Latvians.


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## danel32

Hakro said:


> Don't be sorry, it's not a lie. Odd or not, but for more than a thousand years we Finns have called your country as "Viro", Sweden as "Ruotsi" and Germany as "Saksa". The Romans gave your country a name that was reasonable in their language but not for us. And not for the Latvians.


I'd talked about you're sentence:


Hakro said:


> The history is very logical: During centuries Finns had contacts with the Virumaa people. There was no country named Estonia or Eesti. The area was occupied first by Germans, then by Swedes and finally by Russians. Obviously it was the Swedes who used the name Estland (= east land) and this name became established also in other languages, even in Estonian, but not in Finnish.



Origin of _Eest_i was not German or Swedish but Roman. Swedes and Germans must overtaken it, I agree.
The name of Estonia occurs first in a form of Aestii in the 1st century AD by Tacitus. According to one interpretation, Ptolemy in his _Geography III_ in the middle of the 2nd century AD mentions the Osilians (Ösel or nowadays Saaremaa) among other dwellers on the Baltic shore.
The name Estonia is first mentioned by Cassiodorus in his book from the 6th century. German invasion started 12th century. So, there were country named Estonia. That was my point.


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## arvistro

I doubt there was a “country” named Estonia in any way early centuries AD. There were tribes who did not have any super tribe above them. Tribe that was in contact with Finns was apparently Viro/Viru. Tribe that was in contact with Latvians was something like Ugandi(?), hence igauņi. (Latvians have their own names krievi (Kryviches, Russians), somi (Finns), Sāmsala (Saami island, Saaremaa), and even sāmenis (NW wind)).

P.s.
Also Aestii of Tacitus are still disputed and may have little to do with Estonians. They named amber glessum (which is similar to one of Old Prussian terms itself a borrowing from Germanic, Estonian has some other word meaning sea raisin).


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