Introduction

This survey is intended to give the reader a basic idea of the nature of Livonian grammar. All examples in sections 3-9, unless otherwise noted, are taken from Livõ Kel, authored by linguist Kersti Boiko in 2000. The basic text in section 10 is taken from Petõr Damberg's Jemakiel Lugdõbrantõz Skuol ja Kuod pierast, however, the translation is my own. The expressions in section 11 are taken from the Latvian-Livonian-English Phrase Book by Valda Suvcane.

Both Livonian and Latvian are languages filled with diacritical marks that are not in the standard character sets of most browsers. As a rule, in the general text, letters with diacritical marks are underlined. Equivalents for each underlined letter are given below.