Estonian studies at the University of Tartu

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For the academic year 2008/2009, a number of tuition grants providing an exemption from  tuition fee will be available for students interested in studying Estonian history, literature and language. The curricula/programs where the students interested in Estonian Studies can apply to, at both bachelor’s and master’s level, are the following:

 

Applicants for tuition grants need to explain their motivation for applying in a Statement of Purpose: to describe their educational background (bring out all information on courses/studies related to Estonia), to explain, in a clear manner, why she/he is the most suitable candidate and convince the Admissions Office that she/he would be a motivated and active learner.

As the language of instruction in these programs is Estonian, then applicants who have not studied the language before need to complete the Intensive Estonian Language course first.
Further information is available on the intensive language course and entrance requirements.

Compared to other European languages, Estonian is one of the smallest in respect of the number of its speakers. However, if we take into account that 95% of languages (from around 4500 languages spoken in the world today) have less than 100 000 speakers, Estonian is a relatively widely spoken language.

The Finno-Ugric language family includes about a dozen languages spoken in Eastern Europe, Scandinavia, Russia and Siberia. The largest Finno-Ugric languages are Hungarian (14 million speakers), Finnish (5 million speakers), Estonian and Mordvin (both around 900 000 speakers).