Eesti


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Estonia is one of those countries that doesn't get much attention, sadly. Unless you know a bit about non-Indo-European languages in Europe (Estonian, Finnish, Hungarian, for instance), read English-language news about the Baltic nations (Finland and Estonia, for instance), follow nordic skiing, or maybe know a little bit about the origins of Skype, you probably don't think about Estonia much at all. 


Not that you should, really, but my goodness does Estonia have some great words to its credit. Just to start at the top: in the native language, the country's name is "Eesti" - which is really quite euphonious. For another example, this weekend's big cross-country ski races are in Otepää, a tiny little town in the south of the country. I mean, who else has the guts to put two umlauted vowels next to each other? (Besides the Finns, I mean.)


But really, the national language comes to the fore with the personal names. Here are just a few of the home-country skiers competing in this weekend's cross-country events in Otepää (the first five are men, the last four are women):

Priit Narusk

Andrus Veerpalu 

Jaak Mae

Kaspar Kokk

Aivar Rehemaa

Madis Vaikmaa

Keijo Priks

Kaija Udras

And of course, Silja Suija


If ever a nation's citizens sounded like characters from a cool underground sci-fi novel, Estonia's do.


(Visitestonia, please contact me via the comments for the free round-trip family vacation to your fine nation next winter - Otepää will host another World Cup in January 2009.)

Forecast: Significant blowing and drifting, with the possibility of heavy accumulation in rural areas.