| Also Known As: Livonian
Description:
Livonian (Līvõ kēļ or rāndakēļ) belongs to the Baltic Finnic branch of the Uralic languages. It is a moribund language until recently spoken by some 35 people, of whom only 10 were fluent. It is closely related to Estonian. The native land of the Livonian people is Livonia, located in Latvia, in the north of the Kurzeme peninsula.
Some ethnic Livonians are learning or have learnt the language in an attempt to revive it, but, as ethnic Livonians are a small minority, opportunities to use Livonian are limited. The Estonian newspaper Eesti Päevaleht announced that Viktor Berthold, the last native speaker who started the Latvian-language school as a monolingual, died on 28 February 2009. Some other Livonians recently argued, though, that there are some native speakers left. An article published by the Foundation for Endangered Languages in 2007 stated that there were only 182 registered Livonians and a mere six native speakers.
The promotion of the Livonian language as a living language has been advanced mostly by Livonian Cultural Centre (Līvõ Kultūr Sidām), an organisation of mostly young Livonians. Livonian as a lesser used language in Latvia – along with Latgalian – is represented..... full article at Wikipedia |
