OBJETIVO ESPECIFICO N°1

Wiedemann was faced with the task of adopting a consistent orthography for Livonian from the idiosyncratic script used in

Sjogren's notes. He settled on the following characters (p.6):

a, a, a, b, d, e, f, g, (h), i, j, k, 1, m, n, n, o, o, o, p, r,

s, è, t, u, Ü, V, O f z, &.

(In practice the letter 1' is also found in the text to indicate the palatalised 1; u is also used for a long u.)

unfortunate choice, especially as variants had to be created to represent both 'umlaut' and length, such as a, ii. But it does at least serve to consistently represent the range of sounds in both dialects of Livonian and both the Courland subdialects. A detailed account is given of the complex range of Livonian vowels and diphthongs. On the vexed subject of vowel quantity, Sjogren clearly sensed that the Livonian system was unique, but stopped

short, as mentioned earlier, of acknowledging broken tone (p.1 1):

In der Dehnung der Vocale unterscheiden die Liven noch zwei Stufen. Sie unterscheiden z.B. pilpb (von pil) und pin durch grdssere Lange des i von pilob (von pill) und pin. Etwas diesem ganz Aehnliches ist noch, dass sie auch in den Liquiden, welcher einer continuirlichen Aussprache, d.h. eines Verweilens der Stimme nicht auf dem Vocal der Sylbe sondern auf diesem Consonanten selbst, besonders fâhig sind, eine grdssere und geringere Lange unterscheiden, z.B.

bei bul'l'p (von bul'l' pi. bulid) langer auf dem 1'

verweilen als bei bul'l'p (von bul' pi. bulid).

Quantity is also an important feature in the discussion of

the behaviour of consonants, as is palatalisation

('Mouillierung').

The section on Word Formation attempts to enumerate every productive suffix in Livonian. Sjogren tries to distinguish what he believed were genuine Finnic endings from the borrowed Latvian ones. Among Latvian prefixes adopted into Livonian and noted by Sjogren/Wiedemann were the negative ne- with adjectives and nouns also of Latvian origin: nalaim 'misfortune' < nelaime; the diminutive adjective prefix pa- even with Livonian words: paoiski

'smallish'.

Sjogren/Wiedemann also distinguishes between the invariably separable 'prefixes' (actually adverbs of direction) used in conjunction with verbs, such as sizol laed 'hinein gehen', ulz

brou£s 'aus fahren', ul' ast 'hiniiber treten', and the

inseparable prefixes borrowed from Latvian such as ais- < aiz-: aisbrou£§ (Salis, 'weg fahren'); an-: apvott 'sich vornehmen'

(with a Livonian stem) ; is- < iz-, nuo- < no- [nuo-] and several more.

In the section on grammatical structure Sjogren enumerates all the noun cases in use (12 or 13 in number depending on whether the vestigial 'Caritive' case is included) and 32 classes of declension. All word classes are treated in detail, and verbs are treated thoroughly, divided into 12 classes. Variants found in the Salis dialect are treated separately.

Regarding pronouns, Sjogren comments on the poverty of both

Livonian and Latvian in expressing the pronoun forms

corresponding to 'dieser' and 'jener': ^ and tas respectively have to do service for both.

Other aspects of the 'poverty' of Livonian (as a Baltic- Finnic language) are blamed on Latvian influence elsewhere in this section, such as the imitation of Latvian participial usage for indirect speech (instead of an analogy with the Fi. ettâ construction) , and the use of las (<lai) + simple present for subjunctive/3rd person imperative clauses. Sjogren comments on this phenomenon again in the subsequent section on Syntax, a section where generally little external influence is noted.

'Sprachproben', consisting of short sentences for comparison in the Salis and Kuolka, and Salis and Piza (sub)dialects; passages of Bible translation in all three variants; riddles in the Salis dialect; proverbs, riddles and songs, superstitious sayings and formulaic utterances in the Kuolka and Piza subdialects; translated passages from Latvian in the Piza subdialect; original stories by several informants, mainly Prinz senior and junior;

a passage of conversation; letters to Sjogren from his

informants; and poetry by Prinz senior and junior. This section thus constitutes the most comprehensive body of texts in Livonian to be published for at least the next sixty years; that in itself makes it valuable, even considering that the transcription from

at least the Salis dialect is less than reliable. The

'Sprachproben' account for some 185 pages of text.

Brief mention should be made here of a volume published only two years after the Sjogren/Wiedemann volume: August Ahlquist's Suomalainen murteiskiria (Finnish Dialect Book, 1863). Samples of Livonian are included among the other so-called 'dialects' presented in this volume. The texts, amounting to twenty pages or so, cover the same general range as the 'Sprachproben' - proverbs, passages from the New Testament, brief narratives - and are borrowed from the earlier text. The orthography is slightly modified: the 'umlaut' is moved from below to above the vowel, but the distinction between Wiedemann's o [£f] and p [e] is lost

in the uniform 6 .

The other significant treatment of Livonian by a nineteenth- century scholar consists of a chapter on the language in Vilhelm Thomsen's Berorinoer mellem de finske ocrbaltiske Sproa (Contacts

between the Finnic and Baltic languages, 1891). The bulk of this volume is concerned with evidence of old Baltic loanwords in the Baltic-Finnic languages generally; the section on Livonian is merely an 'Exkurs'. For his sources Thomsen leaned exclusively on the Sjogren/Wiedemann text. He gives a detailed account of the phonology of the language, and seems more aware than Wiedemann or Sjogren of the phenomenon of quantity, probably through his consistent reference to Finnish, from which Livonian deviates significantly in this respect. Thomsen develops the notion of the 'sonantiske Koefficient', by which a long vowel or diphthong is compensated by a short consonant in the stem of an 'original' Livonian word, and likewise, longer consonants or clusters tend to be preceded by short vowels. Syllable length is thus generally

equalised. Thomsen drew these conclusions purely from

Sjogren/Wiedemann's observations, not having come into contact with spoken Livonian before writing this text. It is thus surprising that Thomsen is able to state that Sjogren/Wiedemann had placed too little emphasis on nuances of quantity and on the influence of Latvian on (especially vowel) quality. Thomsen enumerates (p. 52) the environments in which vowel lengthening can be expected, and the other changes in vowel quality that are dependent on phonetic environment. He notes also (p.56) how Finnic words in Livonian behave differently to Latvian loans as regards quantity.

Thomsen's perspicacity was little short of amazing, considering the paucity of his source material - and yet he was forced to considerably revise his views on the subject when, just as his text was going to press, he encountered a Livonian

informant. He felt obliged to append a postscript to his text. What astonished Thomsen most on hearing Livonian spoken was the presence of broken tone, something Sjogren and Wiedemann had consistently ignored or dismissed, yet which resembled very much the Danish phenomenon of stod. though Thomsen is quick to point out that it occurs in different environments. Forced to reassess the Livonian intonation system, Thomsen was openly amazed at Sjogren's and Wiedemann's insensitivity to Livonian stod. As most of his chapter is concerned with a discussion of Livonian phonological features, the enforced reassessment detracts from the overall value of Thomsen's study.

E.N.Setala (1864 - 1935) is significant in the history of