Saturday, August 16, 2008
How to Pronounce My Name
Many people ask me about the correct pronounciation of my name. "Ilga" is easy. It is pronounced exactly as it is spelled, with a hard "g". Think "Olga", but with an "I" at the beginning--as in "ill".My last name is more challenging. Except that if you were Latvian, you would know how to pronounce it as it is spelled--since all of Latvian spelling is phonetic. The "j" is prounced like a "y". So Leja is pronounced LAY-a. T(he accent is always on the first syllable in Latvian.)
If you remember Princess Leia in the movie "Star Wars", then you will know how to pronounce my surname.
People also ask me about the origin of my name. It is Latvian. Latvia is one of the Baltic States in northeastern Europe, an independent country only since the 1990's. For the previous 50 years, it had been under Soviet domination.
Both my parents are Latvian. My mother was born and raised in the capital city, Riga, and my father came from a farm in western Latvia, near Liepaja. They fled their country when the Soviets invaded it during the Second World War.
And they ended up in Canada. In Newfoundland, to be precise, which is where I grew up. (Those of you who have seen some of my earlier posts might have noticed a certain bias towards that part of the world, a place I re-visited very recently.)
Stranglely, though, I don't speak Latvian--or rather I don't speak it well. We didn't speak it at home after all. But over the years, especially with trips to Latvia, I have learned enough so that I can manage, especially when I am immersed in it.
Every time I return, I am amazed again and again by the wealth of the knitting tradition there. Famous for its elaborated decorated mittens, most of them worked in the Fair-Isle fashion, Latvia boasts a wonderfully unique textile history. Many of you may be familiar with Lizbeth Upitis' book Latvian Mittens, published by Schoolhouse Press .
I could go on and on about Latvian mittens, but I'll wait to do that in future posts...
