Literature and language development in the dormant languages of the Baltic countries

• In Event: Amplifying Language at Home and Abroad

Abstract

Salaca Livonian and Lutsi are two dormant Finnic languages historically spoken in northern and eastern Latvia (Winkler & Pajusalu 2009, Balodis 2020). A dormant language, like an extinct language, no longer has any fluent first-language speakers; however, a dormant language still has a heritage or descendant community who associate part of their identity with that language. Salaca Livonian and Lutsi ceased being actively spoken by the 1860s and 1980s, respectively, and while most descendants of speakers of these languages nowadays consider themselves to be Latvian, they connect part of their identity with the language of their ancestors and its associated culture. Over the last decade, modern orthographies have been developed for both languages – which are suitable for use by both specialists and non-specialists – and new materials using these orthographies have been published during that time, including several poetry collections in Salaca Livonian and a language and culture primer for Lutsi. There are plans to publish other such works in the next years and also to create online language databases for both languages. This study describes the importance of creating orthographies, publishing new literature and pedagogical texts, and developing online resources for dormant languages like Salaca Livonian and Lutsi and the role of these resources for maintaining the identities of their heritage communities as well as for researchers outside of these communities.

Balodis, Uldis. 2020. Lutsi kiele lementar. Ludzas igauņu valodas ābece. Rīga: UL Livonian Institute.

Winkler, Eberhard & Karl Pajusalu. 2009. Salis-livisches Wörterbuch. Tallinn: Teaduste Akadeemia Kirjastus.

Short Bio

Uldis Balodis holds a PhD in Linguistics (2011; University of California, Santa Barbara) and is a Researcher at the University of Latvia Livonian Institute (Rīga). His research focuses on the South Estonian variety historically spoken by the Lutsi community of southeastern Latvia (Latgale) – one of the three South Estonian language islands, which was in extended language contact with Latvian and the other languages (Belarusian, Polish, Russian, Yiddish) spoken in this region. He is the author of Lutsi kiele lementar | Ludzas igauņu valodas ābece (2020), an introduction to Lutsi language, history, and the village communities were Lutsi was spoken. He also studies the Native languages of North America and is the author of Yuki Grammar with Sketches of Huchnom and Coast Yuki (2016), a reference grammar of the Yuki language of Northern California.

Karl Pajusalu is Professor of Estonian dialectology and the History of the Estonian language at the University of Tartu, Estonia, and Docent of the Finnic languages at the University of Helsinki, Finland. He has studied phonological and morphological variation of Southern Finnic and other Finno-Ugric languages, their areal contacts, language dynamics and sociolinguistics; he is an author of more than 100 publications on these research topics. Karl Pajusalu is a member of the Estonian Academy of Sciences and a foreign member of the Latvian Academy of Sciences.

Authors

• Uldis Balodis, University of Latvia

• Karl Pajusalu, University of Tartu