Riga, Latvia – The torturous events of the 20th century don’t interest her
much. She holds no views on nationalism. She has always been bored by
crusades and movements. But more than most people in the word today,
Pauline Klavina lives with the burden of history. That is because at the age
of 80, Mrs. Klavina is one of the last Livonians. When she dies she will take
to her grave much of a heritage that has been alive –and at times
booming- for 5,000 years.

 It is hard to imagine now, looking into her frail, fading eyes, that Livonians
once ruled the icy seas around the Baltic countries, sweeping down more
than a millennium ago from Finland through what is now Estonia and
Latvia. “There are at least four of us left,” she said, referring to people who
consider Livonian their native language. “There may be more. I like to think
we will all make it past the year 2000 –into one more era. But I prefer not
to think about the end.”

 Yet even she knows that the end is surely near. Languages depend, of
course, on the vitality of the people who speak them. And in this era of
superpowers, telephones, the global village and economic integration, they
are vanishing at a rate that has never been matched.

 More than 6,000 languages are spoken in the world today, but linguists
say that within a generation at least half of them will be gone. “The world
is getting very small, and these cultures are the victims,” said Kersti Boiko,
head of the Finno-Ugric language program at the University of Latvia.
Linguistically, Livonian is related to northern tongues like Estonian, Finnish,
Voltish and Karehar. “Of course, Finnish and Estonian will remain,” she
said, “but in 50 years the others will be gone.”

 It is a hrash sentence, but this is not the first century in which the power
of individual languages atrophied. Latin speakers once ruled the world, so
who should care about the disappearance of a moribund fishing culture that
started its decline more than 400 years ago when the Russian Navy
vanquished it in the brutal Livonian Wars? This is, after all, a nation that
had its finest days in the 12th century, during the era of the Teutonic
knights.

“I have never understood,” said Mara Zirnite, a researcher in cultural history
at the Latvian Academy of Sciences, “why it is more important to save the
tiger than to save a culture which has been on earth for thousands of
years. That just never made sense to me.”

 Mrs. Zirnite is working on an oral and photographic history project in an
attempt to preserve what she can of Livonia in today’s Latvia. “Cultures are
not like restaurants or even people,” she said. “For humans it is simple:
you are born, you die and then you are gone. But cultures can live forever.
Why should we have to go aound searching for the shards of a society as if
it wewre ancient pottery? But once a language is gone, that is what e have
to do.”

 Livonians have always been sea people. Their folk calandar divided the
year into two parts: the time for fishing and the period when the seas were
rough, to make nets. Their marshy land was poor, and farming was nearly
impossible. Their myths involve boats and brave men fighting towering
waves.

 Historically, there were two Livonias. One was a proonce of medieval
Germany, and it encompassed present-day Latvia and Estonia. By the 16th
dentury it had been defeated as a power. Since then, and particularly under
the Soviets, there has been nohing but retrenchment. Today Livonia is the
descriptive term for a 50-mile strip of land along the coastal region of
northwestern Latvia.

 Uldis Balodis, a Latvian living in the United States who ha studied the
culture, says that about 2,000 people live there, but nion consider Livonian
their native language. And that is why most experts believe that the
culture is in peril.

 Mrs. Zirnite is doing everything possible to preven the day when Livonia
disappears. She offers a class in its culture and has encouraged young
people  of Livonian ancestry to try to study the language.

 The Soviet Union did much to hasten the death of Livonia by moving many
of its people from their coastal villages and  by forbidding the language to
be taught in schools. Since the end of Soviet power, Latvia has helped to
reestablish the heritage. Every summer there is a Livonian folk camp
attended by about 10 children in the town of Marzirbe, on the northwest
coast. There are feasts and gatherings and classes and traditional games,
but none of the children speak the language of their ancestors.

 “It is hard,” said renate Blumberga, 26, a student of Livonian history and
language. Ms. Blumberga speaks only a little of the language, but she is
determined to learn more. She and a few of her friends –all of Livonian
heritage- study with Ms. Boiko. “I have decided that if I can to something
to keep this language living,” Ms. Blumberga said, “it will be a worthwhile
goal.”

 Mrs. Klavina certainly agrees. Speaking in Latvian, she says that
sometimes even she loses the ability to talk in her native language. Since
her husband died 30 years ago, the opportunities for casual conversation
are few. But she still dreams in Livonian, she insists, and she willingly
recites her poetry in the language as well. You can almost hear the loss in
rhythms of her sad speech.

                    “My language is the tongue of the sea.
                         It sounds like a divine voice.
                             I shall never forget it,
                        As I cannot forget my mother.”