# Estonian Translation Services

> Estonian translation services for documents from Estonia, to and from English, by native human translators. Certified for USCIS, notarization included.

https://roxotranslations.com/estonian-translation/

Roxo Translations offers Estonian translation services for documents from Estonia and from the Estonian communities abroad, from Estonian into English and from English into Estonian. Every translation is done by a human translator, native in the target language, and reviewed by a second one, never by machine translation.

Send a photo or scan of the document, see the price and the deadline instantly, and receive the translation as a PDF. For the United States it comes certified and accepted by USCIS, with the signed statement and notarization included.

- Estonian to English and English to Estonian
- Certified for USCIS, with notarization included
- Instant online quote and fast delivery

## Where Estonian is spoken and where your translation is accepted

Estonian is the official language of Estonia and has been an official language of the European Union since 2004. It has more than 1 million speakers, most of them in Estonia. In 1944 tens of thousands of Estonians fled to Sweden and Germany, and many later settled in the United States, Canada and Australia, where their descendants still look for Estonian family records. The destination decides the type of translation.

| Where | What you need |
|---|---|
| United States: USCIS, courts, universities and employers | [Certified translation](https://roxotranslations.com/certified-translation/) into English, with the signed statement of accuracy and notarization included |
| Brazil: notary offices, universities and public agencies | [Sworn translation](https://roxotranslations.com/pt/traducao-juramentada/) into Portuguese, signed by a public sworn translator and valid nationwide. For Estonian, the sworn translation is confirmed in the quote |
| Estonia and other countries | Ask the receiving authority which format it accepts: we tell you the options before quoting, including the [Hague apostille](https://roxotranslations.com/apostille/) when it applies |
| Estonian consulates, citizenship and immigration processes | The translation into the language the authority asks for, with the apostille on the original when it is required |

## Estonian language pairs we translate

Today we translate Estonian with English, in both directions: from Estonian into English and from English into Estonian.

- Estonian to [English](https://roxotranslations.com/english-translation/)
- [English](https://roxotranslations.com/english-translation/) to Estonian

Need a pair that is not on the list? Talk to us: we answer within one hour, 7 days a week.

## Estonian translation services for Estonia and Estonians abroad

Estonian is close to Finnish, and speakers of the two often recognize each other's words, but it is not related to the languages of its southern neighbors. It has dialects, such as Võro and Seto in the southeast, but official documents are written in standard Estonian. A good translation follows the Estonian of the original, keeps every letter of the names and reads naturally to whoever receives it.

- Letters: Estonian uses the Latin alphabet with the letters õ, ä, ö and ü, and with š and ž in loanwords and foreign names. The õ is a letter of its own, not a variant of o. American documents often drop the marks, so Põld becomes Pold and Mägi becomes Magi. The translation keeps every name exactly as in the original, so tell us the form used in your US documents when you order.
- Names: an Estonian surname has the same form for men and women. Most rural families received surnames in the 1820s and 1830s, after the end of serfdom, and in the 1930s many families replaced German-sounding surnames with Estonian ones, so relatives can appear under different surnames in old records. The translation never adapts a name: it keeps the spelling of the original, and differences between your documents are something to point out when you order.
- Soviet-era records: between 1944 and 1991 many documents were issued in Russian, or in Estonian and Russian side by side, and the names of Russian speakers are written with Estonian rules, so Жуков becomes Žukov. If your document is only in Russian, or mixes both languages, tell us when you order and we confirm the options before quoting.
- Dates and numbers: dates are written day, month and year with dots, so 03.10.2026 is October 3, 2026, and the months are lowercase, as in 3. oktoober 2026. Decimals use a comma and thousands a space, so 1 500,00 is one thousand five hundred. The personal identification code (isikukood) has 11 digits: the first gives the sex and the century of birth, and the next six the date of birth.
- Documents from Estonia: the birth certificate (sünnitunnistus), the marriage certificate (abielutunnistus), the extract from the population register (rahvastikuregistri väljavõte), the diploma (diplom) with its academic transcript (akadeemiline õiend) and the criminal record extract (karistusregistri väljavõte). The translation reproduces every stamp, seal and note.

## The history of the Estonian language

Estonian is a Finnic language of the Uralic family, like Finnish and, more distantly, Hungarian, and not an Indo-European language. Its first written words appear in the Livonian Chronicle of Henry, a Latin chronicle from the 13th century, which records names of places and people in the language.

The oldest known connected texts in Estonian are the Kullamaa prayers, written down in the 1520s, and the first printed book with Estonian text, a Lutheran catechism, came out in Wittenberg in 1535. The University of Tartu was founded in 1632, and the complete Bible in Estonian was published in 1739. Friedrich Reinhold Kreutzwald published the national epic Kalevipoeg between 1857 and 1861, and the first Estonian song festival took place in Tartu in 1869.

Estonian became the language of the state with independence in 1918, and in the early 20th century the reformer Johannes Aavik created new words to modernize it. Under Soviet rule Russian took over much of the official life, and the Singing Revolution of the late 1980s helped lead to the restoration of independence in 1991. Since 2004 Estonian has been an official language of the European Union, and today it has more than 1 million speakers, in Estonia and in the communities abroad.

## We also translate other languages

- [Slovenian translation](https://roxotranslations.com/slovenian-translation/)
- [Maltese translation](https://roxotranslations.com/maltese-translation/)
- [Spanish translation](https://roxotranslations.com/spanish-translation/)
- [French translation](https://roxotranslations.com/french-translation/)
- [English translation](https://roxotranslations.com/english-translation/)