Livonian language
Finnic language in western Latvia / From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
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The Livonian language (Livonian: līvõ kēļ or rāndakēļ) is a Finnic language whose native land is the Livonian Coast of the Gulf of Riga, located in the north of the Kurzeme peninsula in Latvia but also used to be spoken in the Salaca River valley. Although initially its last native speaker died in 2013,[1][9] a child, Kuldi Medne, born in 2020 is reported to be a native speaker of Livonian. Her parents are Livonian language revival activists Jānis Mednis and Renāte Medne.[10] Also, there are about 40 reported L2 speakers and 210 having reported some knowledge of the language. Possibly uniquely among the Uralic languages but similarly to Latvian and Lithuanian, Livonian has been described as a pitch-accent language (or restricted tone language, see below).[11]
This article should specify the language of its non-English content, using {{lang}}, {{transliteration}} for transliterated languages, and {{IPA}} for phonetic transcriptions, with an appropriate ISO 639 code. Wikipedia's multilingual support templates may also be used - notably liv for Liv. (May 2019) |
Livonian | |
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līvõ kēļ | |
Native to | Latvia |
Region | Livonian Coast |
Ethnicity | Livonians |
Extinct | 2 June 2013, with the death of Grizelda Kristiņa (initial)[1][2] |
Revival | 1 native speaker[3] ~40 L2 speakers at B1 and up ~210 at A1–A2[4] |
Uralic
| |
Dialects |
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Official status | |
Recognised minority language in | |
Language codes | |
ISO 639-3 | liv |
Glottolog | livv1244 |
ELP | Livonian |
Livonian is classified as Critically Endangered by the UNESCO Atlas of the World's Languages in Danger | |
This article contains IPA phonetic symbols. Without proper rendering support, you may see question marks, boxes, or other symbols instead of Unicode characters. For an introductory guide on IPA symbols, see Help:IPA. |
Some ethnic Livonians are learning or have learned Livonian in an attempt to revive it, but because ethnic Livonians are a small minority, opportunities to use Livonian are limited. The Estonian newspaper Eesti Päevaleht erroneously announced that Viktors Bertholds, who died on 28 February 2009, was the last native speaker who started Latvian-language school as a monolingual.[12] Some other Livonians had argued, however, that there were some native speakers left,[13] including Viktors Bertholds' cousin, Grizelda Kristiņa, who died in 2013.[1] 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. In a 2009 conference proceeding, it was mentioned that there could be "at best 10 living native" speakers of the language.[14]
The promotion of the Livonian language as a living language has been advanced mostly by the 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 by the Latvian Bureau of Lesser Used Languages (LatBLUL), formerly a national branch of the European Bureau of Lesser Used Languages (EBLUL).
The language is taught in universities in Latvia, Estonia, Finland and Sweden, which constantly increases the pool of people with some knowledge of the language who do not permanently reside in Latvia.