Talk:Livonian language

miscellaneous

Are there any reports of something resembling an attempt to reviving Livonian? Things like these happen all over the world, so why not in Livonia/ West Latvia? Caesarion 14:01, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

Founf it out now - a little bit. Caesarion 14:13, 20 August 2005 (UTC)

What should these characters in the alphabet stand for: Ȭ/ȭ ; Ȫ/ȫ ? I think computer has not managed to present these correctly, the stripe (meaning prolonged articulation) should be laid on the top of Õ, not besides. As long as we can't print it this way, it should be better to replace Õ- characters (presumably standing for long õ) in the Black Flag (MUSTĀ PLAGĀ VALSÕ) text with simple õ (as in Estonian alphabet).--Constanz - Talk 15:22, 13 April 2006 (UTC)

I found some history on the German version of the page and translated it, and added some common phrases I found on the Czech and Esperanto pages. There's a similar and even better rundown of the history on the Dutch version of the page but I don't really know Dutch... maybe someone could take a look at that? I also added a page on Min izāmō, the national anthem of Livonia, borrowed from the German Wikipedia; is there a translation somewhere? Guypersonson 02:05, 10 February 2007 (UTC)

Are you sure that Livonian uses t-comma? All the other letters in its alphabet of a similar shape (with a subscript diacritic) use a cedille, including: d-cedille, n-cedille, l-cedille, and r-cedille. Logically it would follow that the t would also be t-cedille and not t-comma. V85 (talk) 22:38, 30 January 2009 (UTC)

All of the characters should be displayed with a comma accent. The confusion comes from the names of the Unicode characters, for example: the character called LATIN SMALL LETTER N WITH CEDILLA actually looks like an N with a comma accent. There are two important exceptions to this: S and T have precomposed characters with both cedillas and comma accents. The S-cedilla is used in Turkish, Azerbaijani..., the T-cedilla is used in an Arabic transliteration. The S-comma and T-comma are used in Romanian. For Livonian, the correct diacritic is the comma accent, so one must use t-comma accent. Unicode really messed up with the cedillas and comma accents early on, so we’re stuck with this inconsistancy of character names. languagegeek (talk) 18:59, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I am aware of the Unicode cedille/comma mix up. I have TNR as default-font, and, to me, the only letters that have a comma diacritic are D-cedille (Unicode-name) and T-comma; the diacritic on the others all seem to be equivalent to the diacritic on the letter Ç. By and large, I have some problems clearly understanding when either diacritic is used. The article Latvian language states that: 'The letters Ģ, Ķ, Ļ and Ņ are written with a cedilla or little 'comma' placed below (or above the lowercase g)'. Similarly, the article Comma states that 'Comparatively, some consider the diacritics on the Latvian consonants ģ, ķ, ļ, ņ, and formerly ŗ to be cedillas', while the article cedilla clearly states: 'In Latvian, the cedilla is used on the letters "ģ", "ķ", "ļ", "ņ", and historically also "ŗ", to indicate palatalization'.

To me, as a non-Latvian speaker, I would interpret this to mean that Latvian considers this diacritic to be a cedille. As Livonian orthography is based on both Estonian and Latvian, and the diacritic has the same effect as in Latvian (indicating palatalisation), I would assume that the diacritic would be the same as in Latvian: a cedille. And this, rather, is my question: Do speakers of Livonian see the diacritic as a cedille or a diacritical comma? (What the creators of Unicode see it as, is far less interesting, especially when they choose the fatalistic view that what they have done can never be altered.) V85 (talk) 13:17, 11 April 2009 (UTC)

Project Estonia not Latvia?

"Livonian language is part of the WikiProject Estonia, a project to maintain and expand Estonia-related subjects on Wikipedia" They lived in Latvia, Vidzeme and southern Estonia was name after them (Livonia). —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.118.205.130 (talk) 08:39, 9 October 2007 (UTC)

• Although Livonians lived mostly in the territory of modern Latvia, Livonian language is closely related to and sometimes considered to be a sub-branch of Estonian language, therefore the language is also a field of interest of Estonians. Avellano (talk) 11:00, 27 June 2008 (UTC)

Possible extinction

According to the latest journalistic reports, Livonian is currently among the languages with one speaker: 1, 2. For the record, these reports also include the Wintu language, the original language of the Caixanas (btw, is it confirmed that such a language exists at all?), and Yahgan in this list). However, I have been informed from an unreliable source that the last native speaker of Livonian recently died. Could anyone confirm or refute this? --Omnipaedista (talk) 20:08, 6 April 2009 (UTC)

I believe that the last speaker who grew up in a Livonian speaking environment has passed away. There are still people who have learned Livonian as a second language and I recall hearing that there are children who learned Livonian in the home. Many claims of language extinction ignore revitalisation projects. languagegeek (talk) 18:53, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

I have the same information regarding the revitalization effort (and I morally support it, for what it's worth). Besides, I was very careful with my formulation: possible extinction, native speaker. By the way, I find it extremely unfair that under the current Language-subcommittee's policy, the Livonian Wikipedia test-project has no chance of opening (since it has no native, but only literate/competent potential users); its opening would be a unique opportunity for the language to acquire a (free) digital corpus and thus get "immortalized". --Omnipaedista (talk) 08:58, 10 April 2009 (UTC)

A Livonian Wikipedia would be very useful to everyone, including all the students of Livonian. The Universities of Latvia, Tartu and Helsinki teach it on a regular basis, so the annual number of students studying Livonian could be several dozen. Ohpuu (talk) 13:52, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Well, I edited and co-wrote the Eesti Päevaleht article on Viktor Berthold, and I was very careful with the formulations. I styled Berthold "the last native speaker of the older generation", which is certainly true. I happen to know three native speakers who are in their 20s and 30s. Would it be necessary to write another article about these three people to make Livonian "un-extinct"? Or could – someone who commands Latvian better than me, preferably – be bothered to search for such existing articles in the Latvian press? The case of Livonian is a bit more complex than with some languages that have become extinct and have been revived decades later, for a continuous chain of native speakers has not been broken, although the number of native speakers is small. How many people speak Livonian as a second language is difficult to establish – I would estimate that at least 20 or 30 linguists are able to converse in Livonian and even sometimes do that; the number of speakers is also growing in Latvia due to interest in the language. That seems enough for me to not consider it extinct. (Although I fear that about to follow is a detailed discussion of what is a "native speaker" and what level of a language test must be passed by a second-language-speaker to qualify. This, in turn, amounts to a number of linguistic problems with no "established truth" to the matter.) Ohpuu (talk) 07:36, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Being no specialist in the matter, I also tried to argue that the extinction is not an established fact. Well, until a user 'established the truth' in the article...--Miacek (t) 09:03, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

« I happen to know three native speakers who are in their 20s and 30s. » is not a valuable source. --A user aka Budelberger (   ) 13:16, 22 May 2009 (UTC).

Alright, The Baltic Course has interviewed some of them. See here. Ohpuu (talk) 13:28, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Sorry, turns out it was Agence France-Presse. Ohpuu (talk) 13:28, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

The reference to the article published in the online edition of Eesti Päevaleht is this: Jaak Prozes, Ott Heinapuu. Suri viimane vanema põlve emakeelne liivlane, Eesti Päevaleht Online, March 4, 2009. Someone more wiki-fluent than me could add the reference tag where appropriate. Ohpuu (talk) 13:47, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

« "People have been talking about the last (native) Livonian (speaker) dying and suddenly it emerges that he is very far from the last," Valts Ernstreins, 34, one of the leaders of Latvia's Livonian Cultural Center told AFP. » : « very far from the last » ?… : « He says he knows of five native Livonian speakers living on three continents. » : « five native Livonian speakers » ! Ernstreins himself is not a native speaker. « In Latvia, the recently deceased Viktors Bertholds belonged to the last generation of children who started their primary Latvian-language school as Livonian monolinguals. » Herr Bertholds as a child is the last Livonian monolingual. Please, list those « very far from the last » native speakers. --Budelberger (   ) 17:30, 25 May 2009 (UTC).

if Ohpuu is the author of the article Budelberg first used as a reference and the author himself argues here for more careful attitude, i.e. not declaring Livonian extinct yet, I cannot really understand why someone would need to push into the article the POV (and synthesis?!) that Livonian is extinct. --Miacek (t) 22:03, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

Of the five surviving native speakers of the older generation, three live in Latvia, one or two in Canada. They are Edgars Refenbergs, Erna Vanada and her two sisters, whose names Valt Ernštreit was unable to produce, and Grizada Kristin. Born in the years from 1910 to 1940, the oldest being 99 years old. This is, of course unpublished information, received five minutes ago on the telephone from Mr Ernštreit. Ohpuu (talk) 08:14, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Yes, regardless of the formal WP:V requirements, your information is sufficient to undo the abrupt classification User:Budelberger has been pushing through. Wikipedia cites sources and reflects facts, it does not aim at doing original synthesis, i.e. 'establishing' the fact of extinction here. --Miacek (t) 11:56, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

Ohpuu is right. --Qatan —Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.113.106.112 (talk) 09:44, 27 May 2009 (UTC)

« This is, of course unpublished information » : « unpublished information » = no reliable source. --Budelberger (   ) 11:36, 28 May 2009 (UTC).

« Articles should be based upon reliable, third-party published sources with a reputation for fact-checking and accuracy. ». --Budelberger (   ) 12:08, 28 May 2009 (UTC).

The consensus on talk page has been pretty obvious, besides, the article has already sources depicting that viewpoint. Budelberger, please stop POV-pushing and do some constructive editing. --Miacek (t) 11:41, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Agree with Ohpuu and Miacek. --Martintg (talk) 12:04, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

There's a B5 quote that fits here (but then again, there's a B5 quote to fit everything): They are a dying people. We should let them pass. And dear Budelberger, this process does not involve issuing the obituaries and reading the eulogies prematurely. Διγουρεν_{Εμπρος!} 19:43, 28 May 2009 (UTC)

Typo in Song Lyrics

It seems there is a typo in the song lyrics given as the Text Example. The first word of the second last line is given as Kuñš. There is no letter ñ in Livonian. I’m guessing it should be õ, but it could easily be something else. languagegeek (talk) 19:03, 9 April 2009 (UTC)

New category

Here : Articles containing Livonian language text.

Budelberger (   ) 17:37, 25 May 2009 (UTC).

Written language example

This section makes me laught.

1. First, which other wikipedia language article has a long poem inside them?

2. If there has to be an example: does it really make sense to use one which is clearly written years after the language went out of use? Nice work, but the author did not have a chance to talk with anyone in this language at the time it was written.

3. It there has to be an example, should not it be at least original? This poem is a translation from Estonian, from song by Estonian singer-anarchist Trubetsky. There are plenty of original Livonian texts written by people who used the language for communication.

4. Does the name "Trubetsky" mean the Estonian author himself translated his poem into Livonian? I doubt it. Estonian "Kui naine kord aeg avab meilegi süle" (Like a woman, the time will once open her bossom for us) is (mis)translated to "Až nai ikškõrd vāldiž ka mäddõn tīeb sillõ" (If a woman also once opens bossom for us) Looks to me that the translator just did not understand the very confusing meaning of Estonian lyrics and that means he or she is not a native Estonian speaker (that excludes Trubetsky as author/translator of the Livonian text). Funny, because the popularity of Wikipedia makes Trubetsky now look like some kind famous Livonian poet.Warbola (talk) 04:39, 24 December 2009 (UTC)