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77-491: Kriwe Kriwaito ( Latvian : krīvu krīvs , Lithuanian : krivių krivaitis ) or simply Kriwe ( Latvian : krīvs , Lithuanian : krivis ) was the chief priest in the old Baltic religion . Known primarily from the dubious 16th-century writings of Simon Grunau , the concept of kriwe became popular during the times of romantic nationalism . However, lack of reliable written evidence has led some researchers to question whether such pagan priest actually existed. The title

154-650: A caron , ⟨č, š, ž⟩ , they are pronounced [tʃ] , [ʃ] and [ʒ] respectively. The letters ⟨ģ, ķ, ļ, ņ⟩ , written with a comma placed underneath (or above them for lowercase g ), which indicate palatalized versions of ⟨g, k, l, n⟩ representing the sounds [ɟ] , [c] , [ʎ] and [ɲ] . Latvian orthography also contains nine digraphs, which are written ⟨ai, au, ei, ie, iu, ui, oi, dz, dž⟩ . Non-standard varieties of Latvian add extra letters to this standard set. Latvian spelling has almost one-to-one correspondence between graphemes and phonemes. Every phoneme corresponds to

231-520: A dead key (usually ', occasionally ~). Some keyboard layouts use the modifier key AltGr (most notably the Windows 2000 and XP built-in layout (Latvian QWERTY), it is also default modifier in X11R6, thus a default in most Linux distributions). In the 1990s, lack of software support of diacritics caused an unofficial style of orthography, often called translits , to emerge for use in situations when

308-437: A Christian reader. Rowell points to a lack of corroborating evidence from other contemporary documents or archaeological research. Aleksander Brückner suggested that kriwe never existed and that the word denoted not a title for a priest but a rod that priests sent to people to gather them for an annual sacrifice. Some authors, including Marceli Kosman and Antanas Kučinskas  [ lt ] , went further and doubted that

385-486: A cedilla; and the postalveolars Š , Č and Ž are written with h replacing the háček , as in English. Sometimes the second letter, the one used instead of a diacritic, is changed to one of two other diacritic letters (e.g. š is written as ss or sj, not sh), and since many people may find it difficult to use these unusual methods, they write without any indication of missing diacritic marks, or they use digraphing only if

462-596: A certain rod (Latin: baculum ) or another symbol and commanded respect both from the nobles and the paupers. Kriwe could see dead people and describe them to the relatives. After a military victory, people would donate a third of their loot to kriwe who burned it. The same information was repeated by Dusburg's translator Nikolaus von Jeroschin who added that it was kriwe who maintained the sacred eternal flame and translated kriwe as "the highest judge". Jan Długosz (1415–1480) wrote that people who disobeyed kriwe faced execution. He also added that Adalbert of Prague

539-405: A child, Kuldi Medne, born in 2020 is reported to be a native speaker of Livonian. Her parents are Livonian language revival activists Jānis Mednis and Renāte Medne. The Latvian Government continued attempts to preserve the dialect following the restoration of independence in 1990 and currently it is learned by some people as a hobby. The Central dialect spoken in central and Southwestern Latvia

616-933: A classic Indo-European (Baltic) system with well developed inflection and derivation. Word stress, with some exceptions in derivation and inflection, more often is on the first syllable . There are no articles in Latvian; definiteness is expressed by an inflection of adjectives. Basic word order in Latvian is subject–verb–object ; however, word order is relatively free. There are two grammatical genders in Latvian (masculine and feminine) and two numbers , singular and plural. Nouns, adjectives, and declinable participles decline into seven cases: nominative , genitive , dative , accusative , instrumental , locative , and vocative . There are six declensions for nouns. There are three conjugation classes in Latvian. Verbs are conjugated for person, tense, mood and voice. Latvian in Latin script

693-580: A crooked rod used in villages. Other authors that connected kriwe with the rod or with crookedness include Ludwig Passarge  [ de ] , Ludwig Rhesa , Aleksander Brückner , Kazimieras Būga , Vladimir Toporov . However, there were attempts at different interpretations. Johann Erich Thunmann was the first to analyze etymology of kriwe and claimed that it was derived from German Grewe meaning chief, supervisor. Jēkabs Lange  [ lv ] , Aaron Christian Lehrberg  [ de ] , and Gotthard Friedrich Stender believed that kriwe

770-548: A dream of Grand Duke Gediminas about the Iron Wolf (the story was first written in the Lithuanian Chronicles ) was a kriwe . He also wrote the double name for kriwe as kyrie kyrieito to draw parallels with Greek kyrios (lord). Matthäus Prätorius ( c.  1635  – c.  1704 ) described and drew examples of a crooked and twisted wooden stick called krywule  [ lt ] . It

847-458: A further eleven characters by modification. The vowel letters ⟨ a ⟩ , ⟨ e ⟩ , ⟨ i ⟩ and ⟨ u ⟩ can take a macron to show length, unmodified letters being short; these letters are not differentiated while sorting (e.g. in dictionaries). The letters ⟨ c ⟩ , ⟨ s ⟩ and ⟨ z ⟩ are pronounced [ts] , [s] and [z] respectively, while when marked with

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924-478: A language of its size, whereby many non-native speakers speak it compared to native speakers. The immigrant and minority population in Latvia is 700,000 people: Russians , Belarusians , Ukrainians , Poles , and others. The majority of immigrants settled in Latvia between 1940 and 1991; supplementing pre-existing ethnic minority communities ( Latvian Germans , Latvian Jews , Latvian Russians ). The trends show that

1001-603: A letter so that the reader can almost always pronounce words by putting the letters together. There are only two exceptions to this consistency in the orthography: the letters ⟨e, ē⟩ represent two different sounds: /ɛ æ/ and /ɛː æː/ . The second mismatch is that letter ⟨o⟩ indicates both the short and long [ɔ] , and the diphthong [uɔ] . These three sounds are written as ⟨o⟩ , ⟨ō⟩ and ⟨uo⟩ in Standard Latgalian , and some Latvians campaign for

1078-411: A man. Similarly, the double name Kriwe Kriwaito received varied interpretations. It is commonly assumed that it should be read as kriwe of kriwes (e.g. King of Kings). Kazimieras Būga believed that the double name is an error by Grunau who missed a connector between crywe kyrwaide . Vladimir Toporov suggested that kriwaito is a diminutive form of kriwe and reflect dual functions of kriwe as

1155-751: A place such as Lecropt (a Scottish parish) is likely to become Lekropta; the Scottish village of Tillicoultry becomes Tilikutrija. After the Soviet occupation of Latvia , the policy of Russification greatly affected the Latvian language. At the same time, the use of Latvian among the Latvians in Russia had already dwindled after the so-called 1937–1938 Latvian Operation of the NKVD , during which at least 16,573 ethnic Latvians and Latvian nationals were executed. In

1232-461: A radical vowel, a short vowel in the suffix, and vowel with a diacritic mark in the ending indicating two accents. Consonants were written using multiple letters following the example of German. The old orthography was used until the 20th century when modern orthography slowly replaced it. In late 1992, the official Latvian computing standard LVS 8-92 took effect. It was followed by LVS 24-93 (Latvian language support for computers) that also specified

1309-481: A religious and as a political leader. S. C. Rowell suggested that Peter of Dusburg invented kriwe and Romuva to portray the Baltic religion as a "counter-church". Such an account could have served several purposes: to demonstrate that pagans are so well organized that they have their own pope and pose a serious threat, to shame Christians into respecting their own pope, or to make pagan society easier to understand to

1386-600: A result of either migration or date to the common Indo-European roots. Vladimir Toporov argued that the Crooked Castle ( castrum curvum ) in Vilnius was really Kriwe's Castle. Latvian language Latvian ( endonym : latviešu valoda , pronounced [ˈlatviɛʃu ˈvaluɔda] ), also known as Lettish , is an East Baltic language belonging to the Indo-European language family and it

1463-419: A result, the proportion of the ethnic Latvian population within the total population was reduced from 80% in 1935 to 52% in 1989. In Soviet Latvia, most of the immigrants who settled in the country did not learn Latvian. According to the 2011 census Latvian was the language spoken at home by 62% of the country's population. After the re-establishment of independence in 1991, a new policy of language education

1540-511: A villager’s associations could attribute to it. The picturesque vocabulary of Donelaitis is akin to folklore . He never waters down a phrase, nor does he euphemize, but is able to recreate in words the substantiality of the world and the speech of the rustics he portrays. His diction is crisp and fresh, and - because of its authenticity - simple and dignified. On the other hand, the language is full of unique metaphors , personifications , analogies, and hyperbolas which make it highly poetical. It

1617-539: A word he preaches passive resistance, though with some exceptions. The author recognizes certain desirable traits in the newcomers. For instance, he urges Lithuanian women to learn industriousness and other useful virtues from the German women. In the general picture portrayed by the poem it is evident that with the aging and passing of the exponents of the old patriarchal culture the Lithuanian village with its traditions

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1694-782: Is a standard language , i.e., the Standard Latgalian, another historic variety of Latvian, which is based on deep non-Selonic varieties spoken in the south of Latgale . The term "Latgalic" is sometimes also applied to all non-Selonic varieties or even the whole dialect. However, it is unclear if using the term for any varieties besides the standard language is accurate. While the term may refer to varieties spoken in Latgale or by Latgalians , not all speakers identify as speaking Latgalic, for example, speakers of deep Non-Selonic varieties in Vidzeme explicitly deny speaking Latgalic. It

1771-712: Is characterized by his clear stand in the social, ethnic, and moral clash between the immigrant colonists and the old Lithuanian inhabitants. This was his original contribution. The Seasons is the first classical piece of fiction written in the Lithuanian language, the first Lithuanian poem as well as the most successful Lithuanian hexameter piece to date. It has long stepped over the borders of Lithuanian literature : it has been translated into Belarusian , Bulgarian , Czech , English , Finnish , French , Georgian , German , Hungarian , Japanese , Yiddish , Italian , Latvian , Polish , Russian , Romanian and Esperanto . The Seasons (most probably in its German translation )

1848-686: Is divided into the Vidzeme variety and the Courland variety (also called tāmnieku ). There are two syllable intonations in the Livonic dialect, extended and broken. In the Livonic dialect, short vowels at the end of words are discarded, while long vowels are shortened. In all numbers, only one form of the verb is used. Due to migration and the introduction of a standardised language, this dialect has declined. It arose from assimilated Livonians , who started to speak in Latvian. Although initially its last native speaker, Grizelda Kristiņa , died in 2013,

1925-534: Is in quantitative dactylic hexameters as often used for Latin and Ancient Greek poetry, but due to the nature of the Lithuanian language it has far fewer dactyls than in Virgil or Homer, and in more than half of the lines the only dactylic foot is the 5th. This poem of Donelaitis did not differ in literary form from fables , poems, and idylls then in vogue in Germany and Europe in general, nor did it depart from

2002-479: Is pronounced as /sː/ , šs and žs as /ʃː/ . Latvian has six vowels, with length as distinctive feature: /ɔ ɔː/ , and the diphthongs involving it other than /uɔ/ , are confined to loanwords. Latvian also has 10 diphthongs , four of which are only found in loanwords ( /ai ui ɛi au iɛ uɔ iu (ɔi) ɛu (ɔu)/ ), although some diphthongs are mostly limited to proper names and interjections. Standard Latvian and, with some exceptions in derivation and inflection, all of

2079-420: Is sinking in the maelstrom of immigrant culture. The Seasons does not have any single, simple plot, with characters described in detail. The narrative of the poem is often interrupted by asides, didactic passages and lyrical reflections. The characters are sketchy; they are simply good or simply bad, with few nuances. Donelaitis is not giving too detailed description of objects or persons. He shows them in

2156-418: Is spoken by approximately 15% of Latvia's population, but almost all of its speakers are also fluent in the standard Latvian language and they promote the dialect in popular culture in order to preserve their distinct culture. The Latvian Government since 1990 has also taken measures to protect the dialect from extinction. The history of the Latvian language (see below) has placed it in a peculiar position for

2233-659: Is spoken in the Baltic region . It is the language of Latvians and the official language of Latvia as well as one of the official languages of the European Union . There are about 1.5 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and 100,000 abroad. Altogether, 2 million, or 80% of the population of Latvia, spoke Latvian in the 2000s, before the total number of inhabitants of Latvia slipped to 1.8 million in 2022. Of those, around 1.16 million or 62% of Latvia's population used it as their primary language at home, though excluding

2310-492: Is taught as a second language in the initial stages too, as is officially declared, to encourage proficiency in that language, aiming at avoiding alienation from the Latvian-speaking linguistic majority and for the sake of facilitating academic and professional achievements. Since the mid-1990s, the government may pay a student's tuition in public universities only provided that the instruction is in Latvian. Since 2004,

2387-728: Is the basis of standard Latvian. The dialect is divided into the Vidzeme variety, the Curonic variety and the Semigallic variety. The Vidzeme variety and the Semigallic variety are closer to each other than to the Curonic variety, which is more archaic than the other two. There are three syllable intonations in some parts of Vidzeme variety of the Central dialect, extended, broken and falling. The Curonic and Semigallic varieties have two syllable intonations, extended and broken, but some parts of

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2464-484: The Governorate of Courland and 563,829 (43.4%) speakers of Latvian in the Governorate of Livonia , making Latvian-speakers the largest linguistic group in each of the governorates. After the death of Alexander III at the end of the 19th century, Latvian nationalist movements re-emerged. In 1908, Latvian linguists Kārlis Mīlenbahs and Jānis Endzelīns elaborated the modern Latvian alphabet, which slowly replaced

2541-643: The Latgale and Riga regions it is spoken as a native language in villages and towns by over 90% of the population. As a Baltic language , Latvian is most closely related to neighboring Lithuanian (as well as Old Prussian , an extinct Baltic language); however, Latvian has followed a more rapid development. In addition, there is some disagreement whether Standard Latgalian and Kursenieki , which are mutually intelligible with Latvian, should be considered varieties or separate languages . However, in Latvian linguistics, such hypotheses have been rejected as non-scientific. Latvian first appeared in print in

2618-614: The Uppsala University Library . The first person to translate the Bible into Latvian was the German Lutheran pastor Johann Ernst Glück ( The New Testament in 1685 and The Old Testament in 1691). The Lutheran pastor Gotthard Friedrich Stender was a founder of Latvian secular literature. He wrote the first illustrated Latvian alphabet book (1787), the first encyclopedia " The Book of High Wisdom of

2695-749: The Windows-1252 coding, it is possible to input those two letters using a numerical keypad . Latvian language code for cmd and .bat files - Windows-1257 For example, the Lord's Prayer in Latvian written in different styles: Consonants in consonant sequences assimilate to the voicing of the subsequent consonant , e.g. a p gabals [ˈa b ɡabals] or la b s [ˈla p s] . Latvian does not feature final-obstruent devoicing . Consonants can be long (written as double consonants) mamma [ˈmamːa] , or short. Plosives and fricatives occurring between two short vowels are lengthened: upe [ˈupːe] . Same with 'zs' that

2772-407: The "Best word", "Worst word", "Best saying" and " Word salad ". In 2018 the word zibmaksājums ( instant payment ) won the category of "Best word" and influenceris ( influencer ) won the category of "Worst word". The word pair of straumēt ( stream ) and straumēšana (streaming) were named the best words of 2017, while transporti as an unnecessary plural of the name for transport

2849-614: The 13th century after the Livonian Crusade and forced christianization , which formed a unified political, economic, and religious space in Medieval Livonia . The oldest known examples of written Latvian are from a 1530 translation of a hymn made by Nikolaus Ramm  [ lv ] , a German pastor in Riga . The oldest preserved book in Latvian is a 1585 Catholic catechism of Petrus Canisius currently located at

2926-469: The 1941 June deportation and the 1949 Operation Priboi , tens of thousands of Latvians and other ethnicities were deported from Latvia. Massive immigration from Russian SFSR , Ukrainian SSR , Byelorussian SSR , and other republics of the Soviet Union followed, primarily as a result of Stalin's plan to integrate Latvia and the other Baltic republics into the Soviet Union through colonization . As

3003-417: The Latvian dialects have fixed initial stress. Long vowels and diphthongs have a tone, regardless of their position in the word. This includes the so-called "mixed diphthongs" composed of a short vowel followed by a sonorant . During the period of Livonia , many Middle Low German words such as amats (profession), dambis (dam), būvēt (to build) and bikses (trousers) were borrowed into Latvian, while

3080-401: The Latvian language phonemically. Initially, it was used to write religious texts for German priests to help them in their work with Latvians. The first writings in Latvian were chaotic: twelve variations of writing Š . In 1631 the German priest Georg Mancelius tried to systematize the writing. He wrote long vowels according to their position in the word – a short vowel followed by h for

3157-691: The Ministry of Justice. To counter the influence of English , government organizations (namely the Terminology Commission of the Latvian Academy of Science and the State Language Center) popularize the use of Latvian terms. A debate arose over the Latvian term for euro . The Terminology Commission suggested eira or eirs , with their Latvianized and declinable ending, would be a better term for euro than

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3234-645: The Vidzeme variety has extended and falling intonations. In the Curonic variety, ŗ is still used. The Kursenieki language , a historic variety of Latvian, which used to be spoken along Curonian Spit , is closely related to the varieties of the Central dialect spoken in Courland . High Latvian dialect is spoken in Eastern Latvia. It is set apart from the rest of the Latvian by a number of phonological differences. The dialect has two main varieties – Selonic (two syllable intonations, falling and rising) and Non-Selonic (falling and broken syllable intonations). There

3311-627: The World and Nature  [ lv ] " ( Augstas gudrības grāmata no pasaules un dabas ; 1774), grammar books and Latvian–German and German–Latvian dictionaries. Until the 19th century, the Latvian written language was influenced by German Lutheran pastors and the German language , because Baltic Germans formed the upper class of local society. In the middle of the 19th century the First Latvian National Awakening

3388-412: The adoption of this system in standard Latvian. However, Latvian grammarians argue that ⟨o⟩ and ⟨ō⟩ are found only in loanwords, with the /uɔ/ sound being the only native Latvian phoneme. The digraph ⟨uo⟩ was discarded in 1914, and the letters ⟨ō⟩ and ⟨ŗ⟩ have not been used in the official Latvian language since 1946. Likewise,

3465-409: The concept of a "pagan pope" became very popular during the times of romantic nationalism but very little is actually known, interpretations abound. The most commonly accepted etymology of kriwe is that the word is derived from "curved, crooked" (Lithuanian: kreivas , Latvian: krievs , Latin: curvus ). Gottfried Ostermeyer  [ lt ] was the first to connect kriwe with krywule ,

3542-449: The country's only official language and other changes in the society after the fall of the Soviet Union that mostly shifted linguistic focus away from Russian . As an example, in 2007, universities and colleges for the first time received applications from prospective students who had a bilingual secondary education in schools for minorities. Fluency in Latvian is expected in a variety of professions and careers. Latvian grammar represents

3619-448: The diacritic mark in question would make a semantic difference. Sometimes an apostrophe is used before or after the character that would properly need to be diacriticised. Also, digraph diacritics are often used and sometimes even mixed with diacritical letters of standard orthography. Although today there is software support available, diacritic-less writing is still sometimes used for financial and social reasons. As š and ž are part of

3696-644: The didactic element so popular at the time. Donelaitis was among the first European writers of the age to employ the classical hexameter. ( Friedrich Gottlieb Klopstock , for example, used it in 1748 ). Furtheron, this Lithuanian poet nature was not conceived in the spirit of the Age of Enlightenment ; the peasants he portrayed were not sentimentalized stereotypes . People in The Seasons are drawn realistically, with their labors, experiences, cares, and primitive mentality , abounding with mythology . Thirdly, Donelaitis

3773-423: The digraph ⟨ch⟩ was discarded in 1957, although ⟨ō⟩ , ⟨ŗ⟩ , and ⟨ch⟩ are still used in some varieties and by many Latvians living beyond the borders of Latvia. The letter ⟨y⟩ is used only in Standard Latgalian, where it represents / ɨ / , a sound not present in other dialects. The old orthography was based on German and did not represent

3850-405: The dynamic of life, acting and speaking, even larger than life. The poet, moreover, knows the psychology of peasant and serf. To this end the poet makes ingenious use of synecdoche . He also employs hyperbole , exaggerating tempo of action, distances, and results to the point of demolishing the bounds of reality and creating a new artistic world. Donelaitis has nature operating in terms which only

3927-405: The fashion of writing in imitation of the ancient Greek and Roman poets. The Seasons , moreover, followed the literary tendency of the day to portray not cities and aristocrats but rather the natural setting of the village and its inhabitants (for example James Thomson , Albrecht von Haller , Ewald Christian von Kleist , Barthold Heinrich Brockes ). In the poem the reader finds a good deal of

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4004-511: The gentry and the government of exploiting the people. However, such characters are not portrayed sympathetically; they are considered degenerates by the villagers in the poem and by its author. The poet contents himself with telling his readers that all men were created equal in the beginning and that only later did some become lords and others serfs. Donelaitis calls the latter būrai (boors), and shows deep sympathy for them. He reprimands their evil exploiters, but he does not raise any protest against

4081-617: The hypothetical proto-Baltic language ) between 400 and 600 CE. The differentiation between Lithuanian and Latvian started after 800 CE. At a minimum, transitional dialects existed until the 14th century or 15th century, and perhaps as late as the 17th century. Latvian as a distinct language emerged over several centuries from the language spoken by the ancient Latgalians assimilating the languages of other neighboring Baltic tribes— Curonian , Semigallian , and Selonian —which resulted in these languages gradually losing their most distinct characteristics. This process of consolidation started in

4158-454: The indigenous population became the lower class of serfs . In The Seasons the village life of the latter is depicted as patriarchal in structure. The natural virtues idealized by the Pietist movement, diligence, piety, honesty, and submission to authority, flourish. Social consciousness of the people is largely dormant. There appear only a few characters through whose lips the poet accuses

4235-514: The mid-16th century with the reproduction of the Lord's Prayer in Latvian in Sebastian Münster 's Cosmographia universalis (1544), in Latin script . Latvian belongs to the Indo-European language family. It is classified as a part of the Baltic branch of the family. It is one of two living Baltic languages with an official status, the other being Lithuanian . The Latvian and Lithuanian languages have retained many features of

4312-484: The native Latvian word for "computer" is skaitļotājs , which is also an official term. However, now dators has been considered an appropriate translation, skaitļotājs is also used. There are several contests held annually to promote the correct use of Latvian. One of them is "Word of the year" ( Gada vārds ) organized by the Riga Latvian Society since 2003. It features categories such as

4389-432: The natural setting of Lithuania Minor , its people, their work, and their customs. The poem depicts a realistic portrayal of Lietuvininkai (Prussian Lithuanians) peasants' life in the middle 18th century, as it was affected by colonization of East Prussia . Germans and Austrians , Swiss and French , brought in and given special consideration by the government, became the upper class of landlords and officials, while

4466-632: The nominal morphology of Proto-Indo-European , though their phonology and verbal morphology show many innovations (in other words, forms that did not exist in Proto-Indo-European), with Latvian being considerably more innovative than Lithuanian. However, Latvian has mutual influences with the Livonian language . According to some glottochronological speculations, the East Baltic languages split from West Baltic (or, perhaps, from

4543-510: The old orthography used before. Another feature of the language, in common with its sister language Lithuanian, that was developed at that time is that proper names from other countries and languages are altered phonetically to fit the phonological system of Latvian, even if the original language also uses the Latin alphabet. Moreover, the names are modified to ensure that they have noun declension endings, declining like all other nouns. For example,

4620-399: The pagan society even had a class of religious officials. Kriwe as a more or less authentic pagan priest is accepted by Norbertas Vėlius and Gintaras Beresnevičius . Beresnevičius suggested that Grunau's description was drawn from Prussian tradition though likely heavily distorted. He drew parallels between Baltic kriwe and Celtic druids and suggested that the common elements could be

4697-686: The period of Swedish Livonia brought loanwords like skurstenis (chimney) from Swedish . It also has loanwords from the Finnic languages , mainly from Livonian and Estonian . There are about 500 to 600 borrowings from Finnic languages in Latvian, for example: māja ‘house’ (Liv. mōj ), puika ‘boy’ (Liv. pūoga ), pīlādzis ‘mountain ash’ (Liv. pī’lõg ), sēne ‘mushroom’ (Liv. sēņ ). Loanwords from other Baltic language include ķermenis (body) from Old Prussian , as well as veikals (store) and paģiras (hangover) from Lithuanian . The first Latvian dictionary Lettus compiled by Georg Mancelius

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4774-480: The proficiency of Latvian among its non-native speakers is gradually increasing. In a 2009 survey by the Latvian Language Agency 56% percent of respondents with Russian as their native language described having a good knowledge of Latvian, whereas for the younger generation (from 17 to 25 years) the number was 64%. The increased adoption of Latvian by minorities was brought about by its status as

4851-540: The state mandates Latvian as the language of instruction in public secondary schools (Form 10–12) for at least 60% of class work (previously, a broad system of education in Russian existed). The Official Language Law was adopted on 9 December 1999. Several regulatory acts associated with this law have been adopted. Observance of the law is monitored by the Latvian State Language Center run by

4928-548: The system of serfdom . The social contrast coincided with a national and even a moral division. The villagers, who cultivated the aforementioned virtues, were Lithuanian. The immigrant colonists tended to weaken these virtues with their drunkenness and their backsliding from the Church. The poet condemns the imported vices and urges his brother Lithuanians (Lietuvininkai) not to succumb to the novelties but to preserve their traditions, including their language, customs, and dress. In

5005-477: The user is unable to access Latvian diacritic marks (e-mail, newsgroups, web user forums, chat, SMS etc.). It uses the basic Modern Latin alphabet only, and letters that are not used in standard orthography are usually omitted. In this style, diacritics are replaced by digraphs – a doubled letter indicates a long vowel (as in Finnish and Estonian); a following j indicates palatalisation of consonants, i.e.,

5082-452: The way Latvian language (alphabet, numbers, currency, punctuation marks, date and time) should be represented on computers. A Latvian ergonomic keyboard standard LVS 23-93 was also announced several months later, but it did not gain popularity due to its need for a custom-built keyboard. Nowadays standard QWERTY or the US keyboards are used for writing in Latvian; diacritics are entered by using

5159-522: The widely used eiro , while European Central Bank insisted that the original name euro be used in all languages. New terms are Latvian derivatives, calques or new loanwords. For example, Latvian has two words for "telephone"— tālrunis and telefons , the former being a direct translation into Latvian of the latter international term. Still, others are older or more euphonic loanwords rather than Latvian words. For example, "computer" can be either dators or kompjūters . Both are loanwords;

5236-649: Was adopted by Romuva , the neo-pagan movement in Lithuania, when Jonas Trinkūnas was officially installed as krivių krivaitis in October 2002. Peter of Dusburg wrote about kriwe in his chronicle Chronicon terrae Prussiae finished in 1326. According to him, kriwe lived in Romuva and was respected as a Catholic pope not only by the Old Prussians but also by other Baltic tribes . His envoys carried

5313-496: Was chosen as the worst word of 2017. There are three dialects in Latvian: the Livonic dialect, High Latvian and the Central dialect. Latvian dialects and their varieties should not be confused with the Livonian , Curonian , Semigallian and Selonian languages. The Livonic dialect (also called Tamian or tāmnieku ) of Latvian was more affected by the Livonian language substratum than Latvian in other parts of Latvia. It

5390-401: Was derived from krievi , Latvian ethnonym for Russians . Kazimieras Jaunius argued that it was derived from kerėti , Lithuanian word for enchant, prophesize. Rolandas Kregždys proposed that kriwe should be derived from Curche , Prussian god mentioned in the 1249 Treaty of Christburg . Antoni Julian Mierzyński  [ pl ] argued that kriwe was not a title but a proper name of

5467-497: Was first based upon the German orthography , while the alphabet of the Standard Latgalian variety was based on the Polish orthography . At the beginning of the 20th century, it was replaced by a more phonologically consistent orthography. Today, the Latvian standard orthography employs 33 characters: The modern standard Latvian alphabet uses 22 unmodified letters of the Latin alphabet (all except ⟨q, w, x, y⟩ ). It adds

5544-502: Was introduced. The primary declared goal was the integration of all inhabitants into the environment of the official state language while protecting the languages of Latvia's ethnic minorities. Government-funded bilingual education was available in primary schools for ethnic minorities until 2019 when Parliament decided on educating only in Latvian. Minority schools are available for Russian , Yiddish , Polish , Lithuanian , Ukrainian , Belarusian , Estonian and Roma schools. Latvian

5621-512: Was murdered in 997 by the order of a kriwe . Simon Grunau (died c.  1530 ) provided most detailed description of the pagan priest and introduced the double title Kriwe Kriwaito or Criwo Cyrwaito . He listed the names of all kriwe , from the first Bruteno, one of the legendary kings of Prussia alongside his brother Widewuto , to Alleps. According to Grunau, kriwe was the center of both religious and political life of Prussians; for example, he could start or end wars. An elderly kriwe

5698-565: Was published in 1638. The first grammar of the Latvian language is a short “Manual on the Latvian language” ( Latin : Manuductio ad linguam lettonicam ) by Johans Georgs Rehehūzens  [ lv ] , published in 1644 in Riga. The Seasons (poem) The poem consists of 4 parts: "Spring Joys" ( Pavasario linksmybės ), "Summer Toils" ( Vasaros darbai ), "Autumn Boons" ( Rudenio gėrybės ), and "Winter Cares" (Žiemos rūpesčiai) . In these 4 idylls , totaling 2997 hexameters , are depicted

5775-466: Was started, led by " Young Latvians " who popularized the use of Latvian language. Participants in this movement laid the foundations for standard Latvian and also popularized the Latvianization of loan words. However, in the 1880s, when Czar Alexander III came into power, Russification started. According to the 1897 Imperial Russian Census , there were 505,994 (75.1%) speakers of Latvian in

5852-477: Was supposed to sacrifice himself to the gods by self-immolation though that happened infrequently. A new kriwe would be selected by lower rank priests and prophets (also known as waidelottes  [ lt ; lv ] ). Augustinus Rotundus (1520–1582) described the temple of Perkūnas in Šventaragis' Valley in Vilnius and that it was attended by kriwe . Maciej Stryjkowski ( c.  1547  – c.  1593 ) wrote that Lizdeika who interpreted

5929-508: Was used by village elders to call neighbors to a gathering to discuss common matters. The tradition survived into the 19th century and a few examples of krywule were collected by ethnographers for various museums. Such gathering was mentioned by Kristijonas Donelaitis (1714–1780) in his epic poem The Seasons . Later authors, including Jonas Bretkūnas , Marcin Kromer , Alexander Guagnini , provided no new information about kriwe . Since

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