Kōrli Stalte liivikeelseid vaimulikke tõlkeid: leer ja matused
Kōrli Stalte’s Livonian translations of religious texts for confirmations and funerals

Summary/Abstract: This article publishes two handwritten Livonian manuscripts for the first time, found by the author of this article among the documents of Finnish Lutheran pastor Rev. Helle Kalervo Erviö (1906–1951) at the National Archives of Finland. In the 1930s, Erviö was appointed by the Awakening Society (Herättäjä-Yhdistys) to travel several times per year to the Courland Livonian villages and fulfil his pastoral duties in Livonian. The publication of these manuscripts has two goals. The first of these is to expand the existing Livonian language corpus and add to the collection of Livonian religious texts and terminology. The other is to make these texts available to researchers. These manuscripts are published in their original written form, i.e., they are not updated to the modern Livonian orthography. Both manuscripts are translations from church handbooks. The first is a text used for confirmations and is written in Rev. H. K. Erviö’s handwriting, while the second text is intended for funerals and is in the handwriting of Livonian culture worker and community activist Kōrli Stalte (1870–1947). As the manuscripts are undated and their author is not specified, this article gives information concerning their dating and provides evidence that both manuscripts were likely translated into Livonian by K. Stalte. This assessment was made based on Rev. Erviö’s letters and published announcements about his work on the Livonian Coast as well as linguist Lauri Kettunen’s memories and the earlier studies of the author of this article. The translation of the confirmation text into Livonian dates to the period between summer 1931 and 23 July 1932, which was the date of the first confirmation in Livonian. The funeral text, on the other hand, was translated during the period between summer 1931 and the end of 1933.

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