Livonian
About the authors
Miina Norvik is an Associate Professor of Finnic Languages and Language Typology at the University of Tartu and head of the Collegium for Transdisciplinary Studies in Archaeology, Genetics, and Linguistics at the University of Tartu. She has been a postdoctoral fellow at both the University of Turku in Finland and Uppsala University in Sweden.
Tuuli Tuisk is a Research Fellow in Phonetics of Finnic Languages at the University of Tartu and a visiting researcher at the University of Latvia Livonian Institute. She did her postdoctoral research at the University of Copenhagen in Denmark.
We have truly walked our Livonian path together, though sometimes at different intervals. We first came across the Livonian language of Courland at the University of Tartu. Professor Tiit-Rein Viitso played an important role in this and it was under his guidance that we studied Livonian. Together with him, we conducted fieldwork and attended seminars in the Livonian areas of Courland, and alongside him, we also took our first steps in teaching Livonian. In addition to lecture courses at the University of Tartu, our path also took us to the University of Turku in Finland, the University of Debrecen in Hungary, and ELTE University in Budapest where we gave guest lectures. We have also taught Livonian at the International Livonian Summer Universities held in the historical Livonian areas of Courland (in 2013, 2017, 2021, and 2024).
We are engaged in scientific research on Livonian. We defended our doctoral theses in 2015, on the same day – November 12! In her dissertation “Future time reference devices in Livonian in a Finnic context”, Miina discussed the means for expressing the future in Livonian in the context of the other Finnic languages, while Tuuli focused on Livonian word prosody in her doctoral dissertation “Livonian word prosody”.
In teaching and researching Livonian, we have found excellent cooperation partners in our colleagues at the University of Latvia Livonian Institute. As members of the International Livonian Friends Society, we are involved in numerous initiatives related to Livonian language and culture.
About the translator
Uldis Balodis is a Research Fellow of Southern Finnic Languages and Language Typology at the University of Tartu and a Researcher at the University of Latvia Livonian Institute. He received his Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of California, Santa Barbara for his grammar of Yuki, an indigenous language of Northern California. He was a Kone Foundation postdoctoral fellow at the University of Helsinki in Finland during which time he documented the South Estonian Lutsi community of Latgale, Latvia and wrote a Lutsi language, culture, and history primer.
Uldis’s Livonian path began long ago and far away during his teenage years growing up in Arizona when he first began learning Livonian. Uldis is a descendant of Latvian WWII refugees and the first Livonians he knew (Erna Aizkalns (née Belte) of Pomona, California and Silvija Rudzītis (née Bertholds) of Hyde Park, Massachusetts) were also part of this community. Over the years, Livonian has always remained a part of Uldis’s life both in professional and personal contexts. He is the author of the English translation of the Livonian dictionary and has also studied the history of the Livonian community abroad.
