Par Lībiešu krasta (Līvõd rānda) iedzīvotāju runāto tāmnieku izloksni

The present paper describes the use of the Tamian subdialect (also: Courland Livonic subdialect) spoken by the inhabitants of the Livonian Coast (Livonian: Līvõd rānda) in villages such as Mazirbe, Košrags, Pitrags, Kolka, Melnsils, etc. The analysis is based on 24 speech data obtained during the period between the 1980s and 2019. The results of the present study show that the Livonians and their descendants speak with dialect features which are characteristic of the Tamian subdialects, i.e., labialization, vowel reduction, use of the vowel e//ę in the singular and plural locative and dative cases as well as in local adverbs, and the simple present and past of 2nd conjugation verbs and the simple past of 2nd and 3rd conjugation verbs, generalization of the 3rd person verb forms, and the neutralization of gender forms. It can be concluded that the Tamian subdialect spoken by the inhabitants of the Livonian Coast is not considered as strong as the subdialect spoken by the deep Tamians in northern Courland, especially in Ance and Dundaga. This could be due to the migration observed in the coastal area.