#livonian

[tiivuline]

Livonian Heritage Day

@ Ikla-Ainaži border

[aroundtheworldinstamps]

I know this might not look too flashy, but this might be my favourite stamp sheet. These Estonian stamps are a language tree of the Uralic languages.

Going anti-clockwise from the bottom middle stamp, we have:

The Samoyedic Languages: Nenets, Enets, Nganasan, Selkup, and Kamasin

The Ugric Languages: Hungarian, Khanty and Mansi

The Permic Languages: Komi and Udmurt

The Mari and Mordvinic (Erzya and Moksha) Languages

The Sami Languages (Nortern, Southern, Skolt, Inari, Lule, Ume, Pite, Ter and Kildin Sami)

The Baltic-Finnic Languages: Veps, Karelian, Izhorian, Livonian, Finnish, Estonian and Votic

Languages in brackets weren't mentioned in the stamp, but I thought I'd elaborate anyway

Edit: put Ingrian instead of Izhorian. Should've known better, sorry

[fluffycloudprincess]

DON'T STOP

DON'T STOP CALLING YOURSELF SÀMI

DON'T STOP CALLING YOURSELF KARELIAN

DON'T STOP CALLING YOURSELF FOREST FINN

DON'T STOP CALLING YOURSELF KVEN

DON'T STOP CALLING YOURSELF INGRIAN

DON'T STOP CALLING YOURSELF SETO

DON'T STOP CALLING YOURSELF LIVONIAN

DON'T STOP CALLING YOURSELF THE NAME YOUR ANCESTORS SHOUTED WITH LOVE AND BLED FOR !!!

(One of the deadliest weapons of genocide is forced assimilation through language and self-identificstion)

[illustratus]

Knights of the Livonian Order by Bernhard Borchert

[languageroom]

Twenty Speakers, But Three Poets: Writing in Livonian

Two books of poetry originally written in the Livonian language, spoken by just twenty people, have recently appeared in English translation

[folkfashion]

Livonian folk ensemble, Latvia, Laula, by Alda Pinken

[gwendolynlerman]

Language Vitality

Language vitality can be measured on a scale ranging from “healthy” to “extinct.” A UNESCO paper proposes nine factors that determine a language’s viability:

Absolute number of speakers

Availability of materials for language education and literacy

Community members’ attitudes toward their own language

Governmental and institutional language attitudes and policies, including official status and use

Intergenerational language transmission

Proportion of speakers within the total population

Response to new domains and media

Shifts in domains of language use

Type and quality of documentation

Almost all of these factors include six degrees of endangerment: safe (healthy), unsafe/vulnerable, definitely endangered, severely endangered, critically endangered, and extinct.

The causes of language endangerment can be divided into four main categories:

Disease, famine, and natural catastrophes: The village of Malol in Papua New Guinea was destroyed by an earthquake in 1998. It was estimated that Malol had 3,330 speakers at the time.

Genocide and war: The Kasabe language of Cameroon became extinct in 1995 due to the Fulani jihad of the 19th century, which resulted in enslavement and massacre.

Overt repression (assimilation): Breton, spoken in France, is an example of a severely endangered language that suffered repression in the name of national unity.

Cultural/economic/political dominance: Santali, a language spoken in India, is classified as vulnerable due to the predominance of Bengali and especially Hindi, which is the official language of the country alongside English.

It is important to note the difference between an extinct language, which has no remaining speakers, and a dead language, which is one that no longer is the native language of any community, even if it is still in use. Latin, the official language of the Holy See, and Coptic, the liturgical language of the Coptic Orthodox Church, are two examples of dead languages. Adequate documentation is necessary to revive an extinct language, as was the case with Hebrew and Cornish, among others. This process is known as language revitalization, which also refers to the attempt to slow language death. Some examples include Ainu, Livonian, Navajo, and Māori.

[balticapocalypse]

🤍 Some very interesting Livonia women’s jewelry, zoom in to see the details and you will find small pieces of amber, a seashell, what looks like a Bear’s tooth and a beautiful sheath for a knife. Women in the Baltic region, of both Baltic and Finnic cultures are known for beautiful and elaborate metal jewelry. Livonian jewelry sets from Salaspils Laukskola, 9-11 century. From the "Rus" exhibit at Moesgård Museum. Photo by ASTRI BRIDE. #livonia #livonian #ironage #balticfinns #latvia #estonia (at Livonia) https://www.instagram.com/p/CeWhCm-Jt7G/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=