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.
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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 announced that Viktors Bertholds, the last native speaker who started the Latvian-language school as a monolingual, died on 28 February 2009. Some other Livonians recently argued, though, that there are some native speakers left, including Viktor Berthold's 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.
