The transition zones between traditional word classes cause problems in lexicography. This research addresses the issue of estimating the level of adjectivization in Estonian by proposing a set of close-context indicators (“test patterns”) based on the existing literature and detectable in annotated corpus text. The profile of prototypical adjectives (the “reference profile”) is established by analyzing the normalized frequencies of the test patterns in a random sample of validated adjectives (N = 100). A scale of similarity to the reference profile is established by using the method of calculating Euclidean distances, which is considered a heuristic of the cumulative similarity vs. the difference. As a result, the scalar nature of the similarity to the reference profile is revealed, among both validated adjectives and the control group of yet underspecified lexicographic headword candidates (N = 100). The results are discussed in respect to improving the toolbox of the test patterns as well as in respect to future studies on some intriguing features of the actual corpus behavior of adjectives as compared to what would be expected by their morphosyntactic potential described in the literature.
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Eesti keele prototüüpse adjektiivi morfosüntaktilise korpusprofiili jälil
Sõnavara kategoriseerimisel sõnaliikidesse valmistavad leksikograafias probleeme ennekõike üleminuekualad. Üks peamisi murekohti on raskus määratleda seejuures verbi ja adjektiivi vahelist piiri (Paulsen jt 2019, Paulsen jt 2020). Siinses uurimuses vaatleme partitsiipide adjektiviseerumisprotsesse korpusstatistika andmetele tuginedes. Lähenemine põhineb teoreetilisel eeldusel, et mistahes nähtusi kategoriseerivad inimesed alateadlikult liikmete sarnasust n-ö prototüüpsele esindajale ehk kategooria keskmele hinnates. See toob kaasa, et kategooria liikmed võivad olla selle prototüübiga kas rohkem või vähem sarnased; kategooria perifeerses osas võivad liikmed kuuluda juba ka mingisse naaberkategooriasse.
Adjektiividele omaste joonte väljaselgitamiseks korpuses kasutame testmustrite sarja, millest igaüks haarab potentsiaalse adjektiivi lähikonteksti. Kuus testmustrit põhinevad adjektiivide omadustel, mis on kirjanduses esile toodud ning ka eelmärgendatud korpusetekstides tuvastatavad. Kolm mustrit mõõdavad testsõna esinemist atribuudi rollis – eestäiendina üldiselt ning kahes kitsendatud positsioonis: ühilduvana põhisõnaga käändes ja arvus ning teiseks paiknevana lause alguses. Veel kätkesid mustrid esinemist keskvõrde vormis, laiendatavust vahetult eelneva adverbiga ning esinemist öeldistäitena st olema verbi jätkuna.
Prototüüpse adjektiivi korpuskäitumise profiil selgitati välja sajast sõnast koosneva juhuvalimi põhjal „Eesti keele põhisõnavara sõnastiku” adjektiividest. Kontrollrühm (N = 100) moodustati Eesti Keele Instituudi sõnastikubaasis Ekilex (Hein jt 2020) leiduvast sõnaliigimärgendita partitsiibist samuti juhuvalimina, silmas pidades erinevate partitsiibivormide võrdset esindatust.
Adjektiivi morfosüntaktilise käitumise prototüüpi valiti esindama katsetes kasutatud testmustrite suhteliste sageduste mediaanväärtused adjektiivide rühmas. Sarnasusmõõdikuna kasutasime eukleidilise kauguse meetodit, mis lubab analüüsida kõrvutatavate nähtuste mitmeid parameetreid korraga. Analüüsi tulemuseks on skaala, mis eristab määra, kuivõrd uuritav sõna sarnaneb oma korpuskäitumiselt tavalisele tüüpilisele adjektiivile. Analüüsi tulemusi lahkame testmustrite sarja tõhususe, aga ka testitud adjektiivide korpuskäitumise iseärasuste vaatenurgast.
This study was inspired by long-lasting debates in the Baltic states, Lithuania in particular, on the assessment results of study subjects in minority (Russian and Polish) schools, including proficiency in Lithuanian. The article presents solid evidence to the effect that national and international school examination results differ significantly with respect to disciplines (Lithuanian language vs. other subjects), ethnicity (titular vs. minority), and municipality (large cities vs. rural areas). The case study of Visaginas shows that the sociolinguistic environment and proficiency in an official language are significant defining factors of this town.
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'Keelepädevus hariduses: Leedu vähemusküsimuste ümberhindamine'
Uurimuse ajendiks on pikaaegne debatt rahvusvähemuste hariduse üle Leedus, aga ka Balti riikides üldiselt. Artiklis vaadeldakse riigieksamite hindamistulemusi Leedu vene ja poola õppekeelega koolides. Uurimistulemused kinnitavad, et riigikeelsete ja muukeelsete koolide eksamitulemuste erinevus sõltub oluliselt nii õppeainest (leedu keel vs. teised õppeained), etnilisusest (enamus vs. vähemus) kui ka omavalitsusest (suurlinnad vs. maapiirkonnad). Geograafiliselt, etniliselt ja kultuuriliselt eripärase Visaginase juhtumiuuring näitab, et sotsiolingvistiline keskkond ja riigikeele pädevus on olulised määratlevad tegurid.
Knowledge about the South Estonian language spoken in the parts of Livonia where Latvian prevailed is based on materials collected from the Leivus residing in Ilzene parish (Lv pagasts) of eastern Vidzeme. Very little language or none at all has been recorded from the South Estonian speakers who are known to have lived in the parishes bordering Ilzene. The article introduces and analyses the works of Latvian place name and dialect researchers focusing on Lejasciems and Kalnamuiža as well as Madona municipality (Lv novads) located in the southeastern corner of Vidzeme where South Estonians have historically lived.
Kokkuvõte. Lembit Vaba: Läti kohanimed ja murded: asjakohane allikas Vidzeme lõunaeesti keele uurimiseks. Teadmised lätikeelsel Liivimaal kõneldud lõunaeesti keelest rajanevad ainestikul, mida on kogutud Vidzeme idaosas Ilzene valla külades elanud leivudelt. Ilzenega piirnevatest valdadest, kus teadaolevalt elas samuti lõunaeestlaste rühmi, on keeleainest talletatud napilt või üldse mitte. Artiklis tutvustatakse ja analüüsitakse neid Läti kohanime- ja murdeuurijate töid, mis on seotud Lejasciemsi, Kalnamuiža ja Vidzeme kagunurga Madona piirkonnaga, kus ajalooliselt on elanud lõunaeestlasi.
The second issue of volume 12 of The Romanian Journal for Baltic and Nordic Studies continues to reflect the academic discussions occasioned by the Eleventh Conference on Baltic and Nordic Studies of May 2020. Prof. Radu Carp was one of the keynote speakers of the conference and his address on Combining soft power with the geopolitical approach - how difficult is it for the EU to change its attitude? elicited a great interest among the presenters and attenders of the scientific event. As in any such scholarly event, especially an international gathering with a critical focus on the construction/reconstruction of Europe in vital moments of its past and recent past aspirations, the viewpoints of the participants, including the analysis of Prof. Carp on the current challenges of the EU are passed on to the wider community of fellow researchers, the public and decision-makers. The call for stepping up to a new level of integration and geopolitical power projection is dissected both in its soft and hard power dimension without eschewing the focus on democracy, climate change mitigation measures or cybersecurity.
Dorijan Hajdu and Sabira Ståhlberg explore conceptually and empirically active citizen diplomacy and meld it with cultural bonds. The relations between Finland and Bulgaria, on the one hand, and Sweden and Serbia, on the other hand, are investigated in order to call for a refreshed research agenda mapping the multifarious implications of citizen diplomacy.
Ioana-Andreea Mureșan tackles in her article the rise of modernity in Norway as a result of mass Norwegian migration to the United States and concentrates on Knut Hamsun and Sigbjørn Obstfelder’s American experiences as evoked in their writings and recollections, while also scrutinizing their modernizing impact on their native country. Although their reminiscences of the American society were overtly derogatory, Mureșan ascertains that paradoxically their New World experiences released the handbrake of Modernism in Norway.
Enikő Molnár Bodrogi instead takes a more lukewarm perspective on modernization when concentrating on some of its side effects such as the assimilation policy directed against minority languages i.e. Meänkieli spoken by the Tornedalian Meänkieli community in Northern Sweden.
The beauty of the Arctic landscape as depicted in Krane’s Café: An Interior with Figures by Norwegian writer Cora Sandel and the complex relations between human being and topography is closely followed in Raluca-Daniela Răduț’s article. Răduț blends two research methods, the close reading technique and the spatial approach, to reflect on a multifaceted literary work which resembles an animated painting, as the author concludes.
Ioana-Andreea Mureșan and Raluca Pop tackle a byproduct of globalization, the diffusion of anglicisms in the Norwegian language. Again two research methods are employed in order to discern the infusion of western culture in the Norwegian teen drama web series “Skam”: code-switching (“inter-sentential and intra-sentential code-switching”) and the study of neologisms.
Adél Furu investigates the second language instruction and teaching in Finland in a globalization setting by using a mixed comparative, linguistic, cognitive, and sociocultural methodology. The research is introduced by four interrelated questions and hypotheses and concludes that “learning English and Finnish as a second language is considered essential to succeed in the Finnish society.”
Rūta Šermukšnytė approaches the museum narratives in Lithuania following the renewal of independence in 1990 and clusters “the tensions between ethnocentric and polycentric, civic, civilizational models of identity in historical culture” as manifesting in the museal and exhibition representations of Jewish history. Anchored on a fertile theoretic approach on historical culture, the author concludes that a wider display of Jewish culture and history, including the Holocaust, derived from both changes in political environment and institutional and individual initiatives.
Kalevalaic runosinging is a Baltic-Finnic tradition of metered oral poetry. In Finland, runo singing and the national epic Kalevala based on this tradition are often seen − especially in public speech − as nationally significant symbols of Finnishness. In this article, I examine how the idea of the Finnishness of traditional runo songs has been constructed in the changing paradigms of studying and performing folk music and oral poetry in Finland across the last hundred years, and how the concept of cultural appropriation relates to this. I will concentrate on early Finnish folk music studies as well as on the contemporary Finnish folk music scene; I tie these fields together by following the circulation of an Ingrian runosong theme called Oi daiafter it became part of archived folklore collections in Finland in 1906.
Witold Manczak’s Hypothesis about the Finno-Ugric Substrate in the Baltic Languages The paper discusses Witold Manczak’s hypothesis concerning a Finnic (particularly Balto-Finnic) substrate in the Baltic languages (Manczak 1990: 29–38; 1993: 151; 2008: 149–152), as well as J. H. Holst’s critical evaluation of the problem (Holst 2015: 151–173). Manczak lists as many as ten arguments in support of the substrate theory: According to Meillet (1925: 100–101), the disappearance of the neuter gender in Lithuanian and Latvian occurred under the influence of Balto-Finnic languages, since the category of gender is absent from Finno-Ugric; Old Lithuanian displays secondary local cases (i.e. illative, allative, adessive, ines-sive), formed using postpositions according to the Finno-Ugric pattern (Meillet 1925: 101); The Lithuanian constructions expressing evidentiality (e.g. Lith. neses velnias ak-menį) – as well as their Latvian counterparts – appeared due to substrate influence, according to Pisani (1959: 217); The Lithuanian numerals 11–19 ending in -lika (e.g, Lith. vienuolika ‘eleven’, dvýlika ‘twelve’, etc.) are of substrate origin (Pisani 1959: 217); The particle of the Lithuanian imperative -ki or -k (e.g. OLith. duoki ‘give’) – repro-duces a similar particle known from Finnish, according to some scholars (Топоров, Трубачев 1962: 249–250); The alternation of voiced and voiceless consonants like blekai / plekai ‘tripe’ (Kiparsky 1968: 76–90 lists 200 such doublets in Latvian and 50 in Lithuanian) may be caused by the influence of a Finno-Ugric substratum, since the Finno-Ugric lan-guages used to lack voiced consonants; There are Common Baltic terms of Finno-Ugric origin, e.g. the name for ‘amber’: OPrus. gentars, Lith. gintaras, Latv. dzĩtars m. ‘amber’ (Bednarczuk 1976: 47–48). The use of the genitive instead of an adjective in East Baltic (e.g. Lith. lietuvių kalba ‘Lithuanian language’, Latv. latviesu valoda ‘Latvian language’), unknown in other Indo-European languages, arose through Balto-Finnic influence – cf. Finnish suomen kieli ‘Finnish language’, Est. eesti keel ‘Estonian language’ (Bednarczuk 1968). The territory of Latvia abounds in hydronyms of Finnic provenance, while in Lithuania we may identify the name Nemunas (chief river in the area) as well as ca. 30 other river names of potential Finno-Ugric origin (Zinkevicius 1984: 155). The non-distinction of grammatical number in third-person finite verb forms in Lithua-nian, Latvian and Old Prussian was, according to some researchers (e.g. Thomason, Kaufman 1988: 243), caused by Balto-Finnic influence. Besides, the present author reviews Holst’s critical paper on the theory of a Uralic substratum in Common Baltic.
The paper examines virtually all Finno-Ugric plant names containing zoosemisms with the meaning ‘sheep’. A vast majority of such phytonyms can be well found in the Baltic Finnic languages, while their share in other Finno-Permic languages is far less which is supposedly due to the fact patterns of Finnish and Estonian folk phynonymy had been decently collected (registered). The study revealed no similar plant names in the Mordvinic languages ― Erzya and Moksha ― nor were identified any in some other Baltic Finnic languages, such as Vepsian, Votian, and Livonian. The article considers over 60 compound Finno-Ugric phytonyms containing zoosemisms with the meanings ‘sheep’ and ‘ram’. Still, only few of them can be found among somewhat common nominative patterns of certain languages. And the commonness of patterns by no means implies any commonness (ancientness) of phytonyms’ origins which could be suggested only in rare cases where there is at least fragmentary identity of components of compound names denoting the same plant. The work concludes that all the plant names considered are essentially compound and consist of two or more components, and that there are no simple phytonyms containing the meaning ‘sheep’ ― except for the Karelian phytonym lampahaiset denoting Antennaria. No plant names to contain over three components have been discovered. The study identifies two plants the names of which most frequently contain words with the meaning ‘sheep’ ― Plantago and Knautia ― though there is a total of over seventy such plants and mushrooms. Sometimes zoosemisms with the meaning ‘sheep’ denote mushrooms, as is the case with Finnish, Ingrian, and Mari. Such plant nominative patterns (models) can be common for a number of genetically related languages. The identified models are as follows: ‘sheep’ + ‘determinant’ or ‘sheep’ + ‘part of the body’. Other nominative models basically function only in one of the examined languages. The word ‘ram’ acts as a component to the Finnish name of Geum rivale, the Livonian name of the blackberry species Rubus caesius, and the Mari name of Grifola frondosa. Few plant nominative patterns to contain names of sheep can be discovered beyond the Baltic Finnic languages. In most Finno-Permic languages there are no phytonyms with the meaning ‘sheep’. In general, such ‘sheep’ nominative models within the considered languages are individual enough, and even some rare common models denote different plants, and thus none of them can be recognized as structurally ancient. The study suggests this results from the fact that historically sheep breeding was not widespread evenly among Finno-Ugric peoples, with due regard of certain economic peculiarities, but these issues are completely non-linguistic and cannot be an object of the current research.
Results of recent genetic studies of Slavic-speaking populations correlate well with held beliefs about the Slavic spread, suggesting a combination of 1) migrations of Slavs into new territories and 2) language shift among autochthonous populations. Here I compare genes and languages across the three traditional Slavic sub-groupings: West, South, and East Slavic. Male genetic markers (Y-chromosomes) divide Slavic-speaking populations into distinct northern vs. southern groups (Rębała 2007). Bulgaria, Macedonia, Bosnia, Serbia, and northern Croatia form the southern group, which genetically patterns more with Southern European populations than with other Slavs and linguistically belongs to the greater Balkan Sprachbund. West and East Slavic Y-chromosomes pattern with one another more than with neighboring non-Slavic, e.g., German, populations (Ploski 2002, Rębała 2007). However, northwestern Russian populations have a much higher frequency of Y-chromosomes that match neighboring Finnic and Baltic populations (Malyarchuk 2004). This corresponds to the known language shift from Finnic (and Baltic) to Slavic in these areas, evidenced in particular by substratal features in northwestern Russian. Interestingly, maternal lineages (mitochondrial DNA/mtDNA) reveal different patterns. In both East and West Slavic, mtDNA differences are gradual precisely where Y-chromosomes show marked differentiations (Malyarchuk 2004). This suggests that Slavs migrated throughout the central latitudes of Slavic-speaking areas, Slavic males mixing with local populations. But in the south and far northeast, Slavic spread more through language shift than through population movements. Genes are a powerful tool for delimiting the extent of prehistoric language shift, revealing a greater than supposed degree of shift in southern and northeastern Slavdom.
This article is the second part of a longer writing about Hiiumaa older folk songs. Relying on the critical analysis of the folk song collections, which represent the heritage of the second biggest island in Estonia, Hiiumaa1, as well as on manifold background information, the character of the singing tradition in the changing social and cultural context is drafted. The first part of the study was published in the previous, 67th volume of Folklore: Electronic Journal of Folklore. It focused on the history of folk song collecting in Hiiumaa (from 1832 to 1979) and analyzed the representativeness of the collected material. The present article highlights the specific features of Hiiumaa older folk songs, which represent the historical styles of Baltic-Finnic alliterative songs: regilaul, transitional song, and archaic vocal genres. The settlement history of Hiiumaa is studied and related to the putative processes in folk song tradition. The analysis reveals regional western Estonian features and the process of historical changing, especially a pervasive impact of bagpipe music in Hiiumaa songs. The singing tradition has been influenced mainly by cultural contacts with the Estonian and Swedish population on Estonian islands and the western coast, and also by the contacts of local sailors. keywords: Estonian Swedes, folklore collection, Hiiumaa, regilaul, traditional music
"Analysis of the comprehension tasks of national standardised tests of Estonian language"
Text comprehension is a complex process where low- and high-level skills are likely to interact. In this article the comprehension tasks of national standardised tests of Estonian language for Grade 6 in 2013–2015 are analysed to detect levels of text comprehension in standardised tests. We found that the comprehension tasks in standardised tests are mostly focused on factual knowledge. Furthermore, 76% of questions in the national standardised test in 2014 and 57.1% in 2015 consisted of tasks which measured children’s ability to recall the details from the read or heard text. In 2013, such tasks comprised 42.9% of the national standardised test. We found only one task (in 2013) which demanded the highest skills – implementing pre-knowledge into the evaluation process. Thus, the tasks used in standardised test are not wide-ranging enough to determine students’ skills at different levels of text comprehension. As long as national standardised tests consist mostly of tasks that require readers’ memory, teachers also concentrate mainly on supporting students’ lower-level text comprehension skills. Therefore, there may not be enough attention devoted to developing the students’ high-level skills. As text comprehension at higher level is one of the most important competences students must acquire for successful academic and lifelong growth, teachers should concentrate more on supporting these skills.
Teksti mõistmine on protsess, mis eeldab madalama ja kõrgema tasandi oskuste rakendamist. Selles artiklis analüüsitakse 2013.–2015. aastal tehtud 6. klassi eesti keele riiklike tasemetööde ülesandeid, et selgitada välja, millistel tekstimõistmistasanditel hinnatakse õpilaste oskusi. Analüüsist selgub, et ülesannetes keskenduti peamiselt õpilaste faktiteadmiste kontrollimisele. Seejuures olid 2014. ja 2015. aasta tasemetööd koostatud nii, et üle poole kõikidest ülesannetest (2014. a 76%; 2015. a 57%) mõõtsid õpilaste sõnasõnalist tekstimõistmist. 2013. aasta tasemetöös oli nende ülesannete osakaal 43%. Kolme aasta tasemetööde võrdluses eristus ainult üks ülesanne (2013. aastal), milles õpilane pidi rakendama teksti hindamisel taustteadmisi. Uurimusest ilmneb, et tasemetööde tekstimõistmisülesanded ei ole piisavalt mitmekesised, et hinnata õpilaste eri tasandite oskusi. Kui tasemetööd koosnevad valdavalt faktiteadmisi kontrollivatest ülesannetest, mis nõuavad õpilaselt lihtsate järelduste tegemist, siis keskenduvad ka õpetajad lugemistundides eelkõige madalama tasandi oskuste arendamisele ja õpilaste kõrgeima tasandi oskuste kujundamine jääb tagaplaanile. Kuna kõrgemal tasandil tekstimõistmine on üks peamisi oskusi edukaks toimetulekuks akadeemilises ja igapäevaelus, tuleks õppeprotsessis sellele rohkem tähelepanu pöörata.
Eesti-vene meediatõlge on Eesti kultuuriruumis väga tähtsal kohal, kuid samas on seda tõlkesuunda Eesti tõlketraditsioonis siiamaani vähe uuritud. Üks instrumente, mis võib aidata tõlkijal võimalike lahenduste mitmekesisuses orienteeruda, on Ameerika tõlkeuurija Lawrence Venuti kodustava ja võõrapärastava tõlke dihhotoomia, mis seostab tõlkemeetodi valiku tõlke kultuurikontekstiga. Venuti dihhotoomiat kasutatakse tänapäeva tõlketeaduses erinevate tekstielementide tõlke uurimiseks. Nende hulgas on ka metafoor, mis on oma märkimisväärse kultuurilise varieerumise tõttu üks keerulisemaid tõlkeobjekte. Artikkel käsitleb Venuti kodustamise ja võõrapärastamise dihhotoomia kasutamise võimalust metafooride tõlkemeetodite uurimisel eesti-vene tõlkes telesaate “Pealtnägija” näitel. Kuigi “Pealtnägija” eesti-vene tõlkes on eelistatav tõlkemeetod kodustamine, on võõrapärastamist laialt kasutatud mittekonventsionaalsete, kontekstisidusate ja laenmetafooride tõlkimisel.
Abstract. Ekaterina Kornilitsina, Ingrid Rummo: Lawrence Venuti’s dichotomy of domestication and foreignization as a research instrument for translation methods of metaphor in Estonian-Russian translation. Estonian-Russian media translation occupies an important place in the cultural space of Estonia, although there are only a few studies on this translation direction. One of the instruments that may help a translator to choose between possible solutions is the translation dichotomy of domestication and foreignization by the American translation theorist Lawrence Venuti. This opposition connects the choice of a translation method with the cultural context of the translated text. Venuti’s dichotomy is used in contemporary translation research to study various text elements, among them metaphor. Metaphor is considered to be one of the most complex translation objects due to its remarkable cross-cultural variation. This article discusses the use of Venuti’s dichotomy for researching the translation methods of metaphors in the Estonian-Russian translation of the TV programme “Pealtnägija” (“Spectator”). Although the preferred translation method was domestication, foreignization was also widely used for unconventional, context-related and borrowed metaphors.
Keywords: domestication; foreignization; media translation; Estonian- Russian translation; Lawrence Venuti; metaphor; translation method
I believe that the Baltic loanwords detected in Finnnic languages can indeed shed some light on the still somewhat unclear history of the Baltic vowel system. The Âancient Baltic diphthong ei persists in the extinct Prussian and (partly) in the ÂCuronian language. The ei-words of the Samogitian dialect of Lithuanian, however, represent an older layer of the Curonian substrate. The Baltic diphthong ie is not a Proto-Baltic heritage, but a relatively recent innovation. However, there is no consensus on the phonetic history of ie as a Âcommon Latvian and Lithuanian innovation. According to one view, the Lithuanian and Latvian diphthong ie derived from the Proto-Baltic *ei diphthong only after the East Baltic languages had separated from the West Baltic ones, assuming that *ei was first monophthongized into a midhigh long closed *Ä, which was later diphthongized into ie. The assumption enjoys wide support among Balticists. My article suggests that the Proto-Baltic Âintermediary monophthong *Ä may be traced in some Baltic loanwords eventually identified as such in Estonian and Finnish: East Baltic *Ä > Finnic Ä > Est Ä (in front-vowel stems) resp. Liv, Est È (in back-vowel stems), Liv, Fin ie: (1) Late Finnic *Äla(s) ârowâ < East Baltic *ÄlÄ: Latv ìela, Lith eilà , eilẽ ârow etc.â; (2) Late Finnic *mÄlo1 âtransom, poleâ < East Baltic *mÄ + *-lo-: Latv miels âflight board of a beehiveâ; (3) Late Finnic *mÄlo2 âbrideâs presents to wedding guestsâ < East Baltic *mÄla-: Lith mielúoti, Latv mielât, miẽluôt âtreat, entertain, feedâ; (4) Late Finnic *nÄtä- âto swear, to curseâ < East Baltic *nÄd-: Lith nÃedÄti âdetest, hate, despise, humiliateâ. The words analysed belong to the Southern Finnic language group, while case (4) also occurs in West Finnish dialects, which can be regarded as indirect evidence of it belonging to a somewhat more Ârecent layer of Baltic loanwords, compared to those reflecting the Baltic *ei diphthong. Increased attention to the possible monophthongous intermediary *Ä of the Proto-Baltic ei diphthong could well have a heuristic role in identifying new Baltic etymologies, which could possibly contribute to our understanding of the development stages of the ie diphthong, which is a common Baltic innovation, yet still an object of debate.
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