Baltoscandia provided by the Panevėžys city municipality, but the functions of the academy did not meet the criteria of the functions of the mentioned municipality. The Nordic-Baltic Eight or "NB8", where 8 stands for the number of States (Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Iceland, Norway, Denmark, Finland and Sweden). Baltoscandia The Baltoscandian Confederation or Baltoscandia is a geopolitical concept of a Baltic–Scandinavian union (consisting of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, Iceland, Finland, Estonia, Latvia, and Lithuania). The idea was proposed by a Swedish professor Sten de Geer (1886–1933) in the journal "Geografiska Annaler" in 1928 and further developed by Professor (1893–1960), a Lithuanian scientist in
Languages of Estonia residing in the coastal areas and islands of what is now western and northern Estonia. The beginning of the continuous settlement of Estonian Swedes in these areas (known as "Aiboland") dates back to the 13th and 14th centuries, when their Swedish-speaking ancestors arrived in Estonia from what is now Sweden and Finland. Almost all of Estonia's Swedish-speaking minority fled to Sweden during World War II, and only the descendants of a few individuals who opted to stay are permanently resident in Estonia today. The Estonian Sign Language (ESL, ) is the national sign language of Estonia. In 1998 there were