Preservation of Livonian Traditions

The Livonian or Liv nationality has been on the edge of extinction for decades, as a distinct linguistic and cultural entity. This group within the Baltic-Finnic language family, inhabiting the central northern and northwestern parts of Latvia, has always been relatively small, compared to certain kindred groups like the Estonians and Finns. Their situation became critical during the last century. Just how precarious it is became clear to this author at the time of first learning about them, through the presentation of Joel Ashmore Nevis at the FUSAC conference of 1988 at Windsor, Ontario. His talk on the attrition of case forms in Livonian due to Latvian influence presented the concept of "language death" to describe the process by which Livonian was becoming limited to speakers of advanced age and unlikely to survive much longer. The published form of his talk (1989) suggests that the term "language attrition" might be more appropriate, but still alludes to a perilous trend. Shortly thereafter, Harri Mürk, FUSAC's former president and my Estonian instructor when he worked on his doctorate at Indiana University, brought me the folk song record album Liivi (Tallinn: Melodia, 1989), an anthology compiled by Ingrid Rüütel and Kristi Salve. He also recounted an incident he observed when the performers at the 1989 Baltica Folklore Festival in Tallinn walked past a crowd of observers. Someone in the crowd yelled out, "Elagu liivi rahvas!" [Long Live the Liv People!]. One of the Liv performers gave this breathtaking response: "Liiga hilja!" [Too Late!]. Ominous headlines have appeared in the news recently, such as: "Riga Journal; Baltic's Onetime Rulers Have Shrunk to a Handful" (Michael Specter, New York Times, Dec. 4, 1997), "Julgi Stalte-eelviimane mohikaanlane?" [JS--The Next-to-Last Mohican?] (Marko Mägi, Eesti