Researchers Participate in the Night of Museums Event in Liepāja with “The Basket of Words”

On 22 May 2026, the city of Liepāja hosted events as part of the international “Night of Museums” initiative. This year’s unifying theme, “The Adventures of an Object”, was inspired by a thought by Rainis: “Even a rag was once an honourable shirt.” The theme invited visitors to explore the stories and transformations of objects, revealing their significance across time and in people’s lives. The activities organised by RTU Liepāja Academy encouraged both locals and visitors to embark on a special journey through engaging games with letters, words, thoughts, and ideas.

Researchers from the project “Latvian Language in Time, Space and Society” (No. VPP-LETONIKA-2025/1-0012, project leader Sanda Rapa), implemented within the National Research Programme “Letonica – Fostering a Latvian and European Society”, also participated in the Night of Museums events. Leading researcher Dr. philol. Liene Markus-Narvila and researcher Dr. philol. Ieva Ozola introduced visitors to the regional diversity of the Latvian language and the cultural-historical significance of dialect words in the sub-event “The Basket of Words”. Within the subproject “Latvian Dialects and the Regional Linguistic Landscape” of the National Research Programme project “Latvian Language in Time, Space and Society”, several significant works in dialectology are currently being developed. Dr. habil. philol. B. Bušmane and her team are working on Volume 5 of the Dictionary of the Nīca Dialect; Dr. philol. A. Stafecka is preparing a monograph on the vocabulary of the Nautrēni dialect; and Dr. philol. L. Markus-Narvila is researching the vocabulary of the Rucava dialect. Meanwhile, under the supervision of Dr. philol. A. Vulāne, a new comprehensive collective monograph on the regional varieties of the Latvian language is being prepared in the field of Latvian dialectology.

At least 250 residents and guests of Liepāja drew words from the basket and tried to guess their meanings, thereby discovering dialect vocabulary and the linguistic richness of different regions of Latvia. Participants encountered such regional words as ēcis ‘juniper’ in Northern Kurzeme, knipsis ‘the end piece of a loaf of bread’ in Southern Kurzeme, roidas ‘small debris, leftovers, crumbs’ in Northern Vidzeme and the Livonian dialects of Vidzeme, and vuška ‘sheep’ in Latgale, often expressing surprise and delight at the diversity of the Latvian language.

Visitors were also invited to contribute a regional word still used in their own family today by placing it into the Basket of Words. As a result, the basket was enriched with words from Kurzeme, such as bimbals ‘horsefly’, blūdīt ‘to lie’, dorša ‘cod’, gaņģis ‘a cool entrance room in a house’, kārīši ‘small potatoes’, neben ‘no’, strimale ‘herring’, as well as words from Latgale, including buļbas ‘potatoes’, sipisnīks ‘cottage cheese’, and others.