Votic language

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Votic or Votian is the language spoken by the Votes of Ingria.

Closely related to Estonian, it is in the Balto-Finnic subgroup of Finno-Ugric languages.

Spoken only in Krakolye and Luzhitsy, two villages in the Kingisepp district, Votic is close to extinction. In 1989 there were 62 speakers left, the youngest born in 1930. In its 24 December 2005 issue, The Economist wrote that there are only approximately 20 speakers left. [1]

In the 19th century it was already declining in favour of Russian, but its decline was accelerated under Soviet rule, when the Vote population diminished by 90% between 1926 and 1959. Since then, the Votes have, as far as possible, concealed their Votic identity, pretending to be Russians in the predominantly Russian environment.

Votic originally comprised several dialects: Western, Eastern, Kukkusi and Kreevin (an enclave in Latvia). Of these, Kreevin became extinct in the 19th century and Eastern in the 1960s.

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