In practice English-language domains will face the bulk of the restrictions, to be replaced by Estonian. The change is directed at the web addresses themselves, and not at any foreign-language content which a government, state or municipal site may already hold.

One example of this is the envir.ee domain. This originally pointed to the old environment ministry (the Estonian term for environment being Keskkond), and held content from the Ministry of Climate, once the latter surpassed the former, last year.

However, that address now re-routes to the climate ministry's domain (kliimaministeerium.ee).

Several more positive linguistic changes have also taken place, without the need for direct orders or bans, ETV news show "Aktuaalne kaamera" (AK) reported.

For example, the Estonian Red Cross (Eesti Punane Rist) web address is expected to make the switch to Estonian soon, with the current rescue.ee domain, the site of the Rescue Board (Päästeamet), the national fire service, is set to change to paasteamet.ee.

Andreas Anvelt, Rescue Board deputy director general, said: "The current plan is that starting from November 1, we would migrate entirely over to the paasteamet.ee name, while still also using the rescue appellation - probably just as long as there is a need for it."

Meanwhile on Saaremaa, for whatever reason, the local government site has for years continued to use the English web address saare.events for many years, to inform local residents and visitors about various cultural events, exhibitions, dance nights and theater, AK found.

This is set to change too, however.

Deputy Mayor of Saaremaa Rural Municipality Koit Voojärv (Reform) said: "Saare.events in its current guise will become a thing of the past. We've been considering making the change after this summer season. However, there have been other suggestions to attract attention, via the event calendar's name, change at the start of the tourist season instead."

On the other hand, those considerations need also to take on board that fact that many visitors are from outside Estonia.

On this, Voojärv said: "The Visitsaaremaa.ee domain will stay. Visitsaaremaa.ee still represents the homepage, via [national tourist organization visit.estonia. This is something which gets marketed internationally, and we are not planning any changes on that."

While the state Language Board (Keeleamet) may criticize the use of foreign language web addresses, these are not barred under current law, the board's director, Ilmar Tomusk, noted.

Tomusk said: "The language law does not regulate web addresses, but we have been receiving complaints on this."

"The issue with foreign language web addresses is that if someone reads out a website on the radio, for instance, the listener should be able to write it down simply on hearing it. But with foreign languages, one never knows exactly how they should be written out, as there's no obligation to know that. This in turn can lead to many errors, meaning web addresses in Estonian or local dialects are far more preferable," Tomusk added.

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