Restoration of the Linguistic Tradition of Ethnic Livs: Aspects of Motivation

Abstract

Livs are one of the Baltic Finnish ethnic groups; their historical location is in the north-western part of Kurzeme and Vidzeme Regions in Latvia. According to the 2011 census in Latvia, 250 individuals defined themselves as Livs. This marks a significant rise in their population, compared to 48 individuals in the 1970s. Linguistically, Livs are Finno-Ugrians, thus differing from Latvians who represent the Indo-European speaking family. Ethnological data of the 19th and 20th century provide evidence that Livs have been predominantly bi-lingual, gradually leaving their own language in the second place and therefore natural inheritance of the language diminished as a result, until it was broken, supposedly in 2013. Nowadays we can observe a strong tendency to restore Liv culture and linguistic tradition. The present-day statistics indicate about 200 speakers of the Liv language. Field research shows that members of the Liv community recog- nise the increase of prestige and popularity of their language, nevertheless the main language experts today are researchers and those interested in ethnic identity matters. This might serve as evidence that the language tradition is revived rather than naturally inherited within the Liv community. What is the motivation to restore the language tradition in the 21st century, if the instrumental linguistic function of ethnic minorities has become clearly marginalised and only symbolic aspects have remained topical? This issue will be examined in the paper.

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“…Livs are one of the Baltic Finnish ethnic groups; their historical location is in the north-western part of Kurzeme and Vidzeme regions in Latvia. According to the 2011 census, 250 individuals in Latvia defined themselves as Livs [Muktupāvela, Treimane 2016]. Linguistically, Livs are Finno-Ugrians and therefore differ from Latvians, who represent the Indo-European family of languages.…”