Livonian Language

Livonian Language

Livonian (līvõ kēļ or rāndakēļ) belongs to the Finnic branch of the Uralic languages. It is a nearly extinct language, with one of its last native speakers having died in February 2009. 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 learned 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 erroneously announced that Viktors Bertholds, who died on 28 February 2009, was the last native speaker who started the Latvian-language school as a monolingual. Some other Livonians recently argued, though, that there are some native speakers left, including Viktors Bertholds' cousin, Grizelda Kristiņa. 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.

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 by the Latvian Bureau of Lesser Used Languages (LatBLUL), a national branch of the European Bureau of Lesser Used Languages (EBLUL).

As a second language, Livonian has about 20 speakers in Latvia. However, the language is taught in universities in Latvia, Estonia and Finland, which constantly increases the pool of second-language speakers who do not constantly reside in Latvia.