Stories 08.12.2015 Livonian language and culture Share: Renate Blumberga’s work on the Livonian language and culture is based on archival materials. Livonian was spoken in Western Latvia on the coasts of the Baltic Sea. The language withered away in the second half of the 20th century, and became recently extinct, when the last native speakers died. Dr Blumberga has studied an immense amount of unpublished material in archives in Latvia, Finland, Russia, and Estonia. A new collection of Livonian texts is based on this research, as well as a cross-disciplinary study on Livonian culture in the 1920’s and 1930’s. Dr Blumberga emphasizes the boldness of research on a small language and culture, even when it makes the scholar feel outside the mainstream. Watch the video (in Finnish).