An arts fair in Riga. Modern-day Latvians do not understand Livonian

The last native speaker of the ancient Baltic language of Livonian has died aged 103. Grizelda Kristina, who fled Latvia with her husband to escape the war in 1944, died in Canada after spending her last years helping to document a language that modern-day Latvians cannot understand.

She was born in Vaide, one of the dozen Liv fishing villages on the northern coast of Latvia where the thousand-strong pre-war community was devastated by the Nazis and then the Soviets.

Mrs Kristina recorded the language for researchers, helped to compile a Livonian language learning book LÄ«vÃµ kÄ“Ä¼ (Livonian language) in 2000 and wrote poetry in Livonian.

In the Latvian census of 2011, 250 people recorded their ethnicity as Liv, and the State Language Agency estimated that