Talk:Estonia

German occupation

This sentence sounds retarded: "The Germans pillaged the country for the war effort and unleashed the Holocaust." It sounds like a cheesy episode of He-Man or something. I'm guessing the Germans didn't really do anything except take control of the government and somebody wants to make it more EEVVVAAALLL!!! then it really was. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.234.60.143 (talk) 09:20, 19 August 2010 (UTC)

Russian language

Since the majority of Estonian can speak fluent Russian, can it be considered a vehicular language of Estonia ?Mitch1981 (talk) 19:05, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

Hello again. My response to you on the Latvia page applies here. I would also add that in the case of Estonia, even during Soviet occupation, using Russian as a lingua franca was merely an invitation for glares and bad service. Latvia having been more cosmopolitan (Riga once having had street signs in Latvian, German, and Russian), there was some more flexibility, if that's the right word. VЄСRUМВА  ♪  19:43, 7 September 2009 (UTC)

The majority of the population of Estonia can NOT speak Russian fluently or as "near-fluently" as to make it a vehicular language. Of course, most people in Estonia understand at least some Russian and can put it, at least, to occasional limited informal use. The same can be said about the use of English and Finnish languages in Estonia. Cheers, 3 Löwi (talk) 07:25, 8 September 2009 (UTC)

Younger generations don't speak Russian at all - on the other hand, I have plenty of Russians, Ukrainians and Jewish people among my friends who all speak fluent Estonian therefore the vehicular language here is indeed Estonian.--Sorent (talk) 16:13, 30 January 2010 (UTC)

Riigiteataja

Couldn´t find that, but it is important, so it should be added somewhere. home page Pelmeen10 (talk) 12:46, 11 May 2010 (UTC)

illegally annexed

oh, yes, I am pretty sure, whenever URSS annexed something was illegal, the rest of "annexions" are quite legal, is there any "leagl annexation" that could be shonw as example? The term "illegally" must be removed from that sentence or should be incorporated to the whole wikipedia, for any action in which one army enters the territory of another estate or province.

E.g, the cro-magnon tribes illegally entered the lands of neanderthal tribes; this was the cause of a widely media commented trial. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.252.72.61 (talk) 14:02, 10 November 2010 (UTC)

illegally annexed (reply)

The annexation of Texas by the U.S. was legal as the Texans themselves wanted to be a part of the Union. Just... for example... so no, they shouldn't remove the word "illegal".

Jews

The article has a link to every single minority in Estonia's population except one; Jews. Under "Demographics" it reads "The largest minority groups in 1934 were Russians, Germans, Swedes, Latvians, Jews, Poles, Finns and Ingrians. " with a link to every single one of those populations except the Jews.

Such obvious and blatant discrimination by someone who somehow considers itself intellectual enough to be writing in Wikipedia at all is quite offensive and should never be tolerated. It comes as even worst being that the Estonian Jews where targets of discrimination throughout all of history and that population has been nearly totally wiped out of Estonia precisely due to intolerance. Anti-Semites are the ones who should not be tolerated, not Jews and not any ethnic or religious population or nationality.

It should be noted that no mention whatsoever exists to why the Jews have ceased to be an important minority in Estonia, which by the way, wasn't through very normal circumstances. I would write about it myself but prefer someone who is better educated in the subject to do so.

No need to be hysterical about a random act of vandalism committed sometime after 23:31, 22 January 2011 (I didn't care to pinpoint who exactly did this). There are and will always be anti-Semites, anti-Estonians, anti-Americans, etc. If one cannot handle this calmly, one may die of heart attack soon. As for "Jews have ceased to be an important minority in Estonia", I have two bullets to list:

• See Holocaust in Estonia and History of the Jews in Estonia, ling time ago written by "someone who is better educated in the subject" and less nervous.
• about "important minority" - please keep in mind that if you continue poking into everyones' faces that the Jews are "important" or "Chosen People", then anti-Semitic crowds will only grow.

So much fuss about unnoticed vandalism, sheesh! Kérek kerék kerek (talk)

GDP data in $ ?

Now that Estonia joined the Eurozone it should certainly have its economic figures displayed in €..Lhoaxt (talk) 17:20, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

I don't think that bears any relevance to how the data is displayed. The Germany and France articles also display the value in $. tty29a:talk 17:25, 1 January 2011 (UTC)

As I guess, the data for varuius countries are shown in the same currency unit for ease of comparison. An additional benefit is this would eliminate braintwisting math related to conversion rate fluctuations, which may be significant over time. Kérek kerék kerek (talk) 19:07, 25 February 2011 (UTC)

Re-independent

There is no such words "reindependent" or "re-independent" in English dictionaries. A brief google search shows that this usage is popular in Estonia (I have even seen the expression "newly-reindependent"), but I doubt it is standard English, and I saw opinions that editors and proofreaders don't like it. I also see that some split hair between "reindependent" and "newly independent". In any case, I don't think it is a good word for section title. Kérek kerék kerek (talk) 19:18, 25 February 2011 (UTC)