Estonian Alphabet

The Estonian alphabet (Estonian: eesti tähestik) is used for writing the Estonian language and is based on the Latin alphabet, with German influence. As such, the Estonian alphabet has the letters Ä, Ö, and Ü (A, O, and U with umlaut), which represent the vowel sounds, and, respectively. Unlike the German umlauts, they are considered to be separate letters and part of the alphabet, and are alphabetised as separate letters. The most distinguishing letter in the Estonian alphabet, however, is the Õ (O with tilde), which was added to the alphabet in the 19th century by Otto Wilhelm Masing and stands for the vowel . In addition, the alphabet also differs from the Latin alphabet by the addition of the letters Š and Ž (S and Z with caron/háček), and by the position of Z in the alphabet: it has been moved from the end to between S and T (or Š and Ž).

In Blackletter W was used instead of V.

Johannes Aavik insisted that the letter Ü be replaced by Y, as it has been in the Finnish alphabet.

The official Estonian alphabet has 27 letters:

A, B, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, Š, Z, Ž, T, U, V, Õ, Ä, Ö, Ü

The oblique letters are so-called "foreign letters" (võõrtähed). F, Š, Z and Ž occur only in loanwords and foreign proper names. C, Q, W, X and Y do not occur in Estonian words, but are used in writing foreign proper names.

Including also the "foreign letters", alphabet consists of the following 32 letters:

A, B, C, D, E, F, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, Q, R, S, Š, Z, Ž, T, U, V, W, Õ, Ä, Ö, Ü, X, Y

The alphabet is occasionally written and recited without even the letters appearing only in loanwords. In that case, it has 23 letters:

A, B, D, E, G, H, I, J, K, L, M, N, O, P, R, S, T, U, V, Õ, Ä, Ö, Ü