When Sophia Smith Galer’s How to Kill a Language was reviewed under the provocative title “Sometimes It’s OK to Let a Language Die,” the discussion produced an unexpected response. Even people with little previous engagement with linguistics or language preservation found themselves defending the right of linguistic communities to maintain and use their languages. What initially appeared to be a debate about language death thus became a broader discussion about cultural identity, community rights, and the value of linguistic diversity.

For many people, language extinction has long been difficult to comprehend, both as a linguistic and as a cultural phenomenon. And when we imagine languages disappearing, we tend to associate them with distant and remote parts of the world rather than with Europe. Yet Europe has its own endangered languages, and some of their stories are surprisingly close to home. One such case is Livonian (līvõ kēļ), an autochthonous Finnic language of Latvia and the southernmost member of the Finnic language group. Its history offers a particularly revealing perspective on what it means for a language to survive, or to be considered alive in the first place.

Livonian occupies a distinctive position within Latvia’s cultural and linguistic landscape. Alongside other elements of Livonian intangible cultural heritage, the language is recognized in the Latvian Constitution, included in the Latvian National Register of Intangible Cultural Heritage, and represented in Latvia’s Cultural Canon. These forms of institutional recognition reflect the significance attributed to Livonian not only as a means of communication, but also as an element of cultural and historical identity.

The history of the Livonian(s) is closely connected to the geography of the region. Livonian was traditionally spoken in areas situated along major waterways and trade routes, places where different ethnic and linguistic communities came into contact, and at times even conflict. The northeastern coast of Courland (Kurzeme) and the Daugava River, for example, formed part of an eastern route used by Scandinavian groups arriving from the western Baltic Sea region.

Traditionally, the sea was of vital importance to Livonians. The sea was not simply the landscape along which Livonians lived; for the coastal communities, it was also their principal source of livelihood. From at least the eighteenth century, maritime fishing was the main economic activity in the Livonian villages of northern Courland. Fish formed an important part of the local diet, but it was also a commodity that could be salted, dried, smoked, and even traded. The close connection between the people and the sea was reflected even in their own language: Courland Livonians used the word kalāmīed, meaning “fishermen,” as one of their self-designations, while rāndalizt meant “coast-dwellers.” In this sense, fishing was more than an occupation. It was part of the social and cultural identity of the communities that developed along the Livonian Coast. This maritime way of life also helped shape the geography of Livonian settlement. The coastal villages were relatively isolated from the inland areas of Courland, separated in places by forests, marshes, and poor sandy soils. The importance of fishing continued well into the twentieth century, although the conditions under which it was practiced changed dramatically. During the Soviet period, for example, restrictions on coastal fishing contributed to the decline or relocation of several traditional fishing communities.

Today, however, the question of how many Livonian speakers there are is surprisingly tricky to answer.

While the 2011 Latvian national census provides one possible point of reference, with around 250 people identifying themselves as Livonians, ethnic or cultural identification and active language use are not the same thing. There is no direct proportional relationship between the number of people who identify as Livonian and the number of people who actively speak the language.

This distinction can take us to a much more complex question: what does it actually mean for a language to exist? If only a small number of people speak it every day, is the language “dead”? Can a linguistic identity survive when everyday language use has declined? And what happens when a language that has suffered a dramatic decline in intergenerational transmission is documented, taught, learned, and deliberately revitalized?

The story of Livonian offers a particularly revealing way of exploring these questions.

From documenting a language to writing in it

The history of written Livonian stretches back to the nineteenth century. In 1861, the first systematic grammar of Livonian was published by the linguists Anders Johan Sjögren and Ferdinand Johann Wiedemann. A grammar does more than list words: it describes how a language is structured, documents its sounds, word forms, and various rules for constructing sentences. Sjögren and Wiedemann’s work therefore provided one of the earliest detailed records of Livonian as a linguistic system at the time.

Just two years later, in 1863, the Gospel of Matthew became the first book ever published in Livonian. Yet, there is an important clarification to this milestone. The book was not produced primarily for Livonian speakers to read themselves. It served largely as a linguistic resource: a text that could be collected, studied, and used to document the language. The appearance of this book, in other words, did not necessarily mean that Livonian had become a written language for everyday use among its speakers. That changed in 1880, when another edition of the Gospel of Matthew was published, this time specifically for Livonian readers. It was the first Livonian book intended for the Livonian-speaking community itself, which marked an important shift from scholarly efforts to document the language to using it as an actual medium of reading.

The next major step came in 1921 with the publication of Ežmi līvõd lugdõbrōntõz, the first secular Livonian reader, prepared by the linguists Lauri Kettunen and Oskar Loorits. A “reader” is a book designed to help people learn to read, usually through a series of short texts suited to learners. Unlike the earlier Gospel publications, this book was not primarily religious or documentary. It was intended to support literacy in Livonian and provide speakers with lively texts in their own language. Four additional readers followed by 1926.

The development of Livonian educational materials continued during the 1930s. In 1935, Livonian linguist and activist Pētõr Damberg produced another reader intended for use both in schools and in Livonian-speaking homes. The significance of such books went beyond literacy: they helped establish Livonian as a language that could be used in education and in everyday community life.

The 1930s also saw the publication of Līvli, a Livonian-language newspaper that appeared between 1931 and 1939. Newspapers can be particularly important in the development of a written language because they require writers and editors to make consistent decisions about spelling and grammar. In this respect, Līvli contributed to the development and standardization of modern Livonian orthography.

Another reader was written during this period by Kōrli Stalte, another prominent Livonian linguist and activist. Unlike the other publications, however, it remained unpublished for decades. It finally appeared in print only in 2011.

These publications show the gradual transformation of Livonian from a language being documented by scholars into a language that its speakers could read, write, teach, and encounter in their own community. Written language, however, needs readers and writers; and a real quality education requires more than books.

The question of survival therefore leads naturally to another question: how has Livonian been passed on from one generation to the next?

From the classroom to the community

The first organized Livonian-language instruction began in the 1920s, when Livonian was introduced as an elective subject in five village schools in Livonian-speaking areas. Despite the small size of the Livonian population, around 100 children attended these classes each year. The experiment, however, faced considerable difficulties. Students in the same classroom often had very different levels of proficiency, while teachers had limited access to suitable teaching methods and the materials were still rather scarce. Children also had few opportunities to use Livonian outside school. Even if a pupil learned new words and grammatical structures in class, there was often nowhere to use them afterwards.

Then came a much more dramatic interruption. Following the Soviet occupation of Latvia in 1940, formal Livonian-language instruction was interrupted. At the same time, broader political and social changes contributed to the displacement of Livonians from their historical homeland, which further led to a sharp decline in the number of speakers. With institutional education no longer available, efforts to maintain Livonian increasingly shifted away from schools and toward the community itself. When Latvia regained independence, Livonian classes resumed in Riga. By then, Livonian was increasingly being taught as a heritage language, a language connected to a person’s family or cultural background, even when it is no longer their first or everyday language. There had already been efforts to teach Livonian outside the formal school system, including work by the professional teacher Pētõr Damberg in the 1970s.

Yet even then many of the old problems remained. Learners were geographically dispersed, their levels of proficiency still varied considerably, the number of qualified teachers was low, and teaching materials and established pedagogical approaches were still limited. As a result, some language courses gradually became as much community gatherings as conventional classes. These gatherings played an important role in strengthening cultural identity and social connections, even if their direct impact on the actual language acquisition was limited. For a language with a very small speaker population, such as Livonian, teaching cannot be separated from the question of community. A language needs not only teachers and textbooks, but also people with whom it can be spoken, places where it can be heard, and situations in which using it feels natural. Then, things gradually start to change.

Keeping Livonian alive

One of the most important initiatives for younger Livonian learners has been the annual Mierlinkizt summer camp, established in 1992. The camp brought together children and teenagers from Livonian families and gave them a unique chance to learn the language, engage with Livonian culture, and develop relationships with other young people who share a connection to the community.

But even a successful summer camp leaves a problem: what happens when summer ends?

In 2023, Valts Ernštreits and Gunta Kļava, leading researchers of the Livonian Institute under the University of Latvia, drew attention to precisely this problem. After the summer camp ended, children had few opportunities to continue practicing Livonian before the following year. The challenge, therefore, was not simply to teach the language, but to create regular opportunities to use it.

This observation helped motivate a new generation of more sustained language-learning activities and community events. Since then, regular Livonian language courses have been organized by the University of Latvia’s Livonian Institute and funded by the Latvian Ministry of Education and Science. Courses have been offered since the 2024/2025 academic year, following the year structure of Latvia’s formal education system.

The programme has grown rapidly. In its first year, Livonian was taught in a single group of 12 participants. By the second year, the programme had expanded to five groups, with approximately 35 regular participants. Including those who attended only one semester or participated intermittently, the total number of participants reached around 45. The groups themselves illustrate the diversity of the contemporary Livonian learning community. In 2025/2026, one group was specifically intended for children and included five participants, one of whom was not Livonian and joined in the second semester. Two teenage groups were also formed. One had five regular participants, with another two or three attending occasionally; all of the regular participants identified a Livonian family background. The second combined teenagers and adults and had three regular participants, with another two or three attending occasionally. Most had a Livonian background, with one exception. A further mixed group brought together 13 regular participants and three occasional attendees. All but one were Livonian, while the group also included two researchers of the institute.¹

These numbers may appear small compared with conventional language programmes. For Livonian, however, they represent a meaningful expansion of opportunities to learn and use the language. At the same time, the small number of potential learners and the practical constraints of the Latvian education system make it unlikely that Livonian will become a regular subject in mainstream schools. Instead, the Livonian Institute has developed a more flexible model, allowing learners of different ages, backgrounds, proficiency levels, and geographical locations to participate.

This flexibility reflects a broader reality of language revitalization. A highly endangered language cannot survive simply because it appears on a timetable. It needs an ecosystem of use. That ecosystem is increasingly being built both online and in person.

Learners and speakers now have access to digital resources such as the Livonian-Latvian-Estonian-English Dictionary Livonian.tech, as well as online spaces for language practice. Face-to-face courses provide opportunities for learners with different levels of proficiency to study together. Other initiatives focus specifically on using Livonian rather than simply learning about it. On social media for example, the community Pōlaks līvõkīelkõks on Instagram and Facebook provides another space where communication takes place exclusively in Livonian.

Such initiatives may look small from the outside: a social-media page, a summer camp, a handful of language classes. Taken together, however, they address one of the central problems facing an endangered language: the lack of places in which the language can actually be used. It is also important to distinguish between community participation and the infrastructure that makes such participation possible. Many of these initiatives have been established and continue to be actively coordinated by the Livonian Institute, which plays a central role in creating the physical and digital spaces where Livonian can be encountered and used. The Livonian Institute was established in 2018 and has played a crucial role in the language ecosystem ever since.

So, is Livonian alive?

The history of Livonian is, in many ways, a history of interruptions. Its traditional communities were transformed; its number of speakers declined; formal teaching disappeared and later returned; books were produced, then left unpublished; and generations grew up with increasingly limited opportunities to use the language. Yet there is another way to read this history.

Livonian has been documented, written down, taught, printed, read, researched, learned, spoken, and, perhaps most importantly, deliberately created spaces in which it can be used again. Its speakers and learners are not simply preserving an artifact from the past. They are negotiating what place the language can have in the present. This makes the question “How many speakers does Livonian have?” less important than it first appeared. Counting speakers is important. So are documentation, education, and intergenerational transmission. But none of these measures alone can fully capture what is happening to the language. A language can exist in the memories of families, in books and dictionaries, in classrooms and summer camps, in social-media conversations and reading circles. It can exist as a marker of identity even when it is not someone's everyday language. And it can acquire new speakers who have no childhood memory of hearing it at home.

Perhaps the more useful question is what people are doing to keep Livonian alive. The answer, in the case of Livonian, is remarkably concrete: they are writing books, teaching children, organizing summer camps, building dictionaries, holding reading circles, creating digital spaces, learning the language as adults, and finding new ways to speak it to one another.

¹ Based on statistical data provided by the Livonian Institute.