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68-590: Jāzeps Vītols Latvian Academy of Music ( Latvian : Jāzepa Vītola Latvijas Mūzikas akadēmija ), formerly the Riga Conservatory, is a higher education establishment of music at 1 Barona Street, Riga , Latvia. The junior institute is the Emīls Dārziņš Music School. Latvian Conservatory of Music was founded in 1919 by the Latvian composer Jāzeps Vītols , who also became the first director of

136-650: 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

204-520: 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

272-402: A standard variety , some lect that is selected and promoted prescriptively by either quasi-legal authorities or other social institutions, such as schools or media. Standard varieties are accorded more sociolinguistic prestige than other, nonstandard lects and are generally thought of as "correct" by speakers of the language. Since the selection is an arbitrary standard , standard forms are

340-486: 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

408-405: 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

476-878: 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

544-458: 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

612-510: A language characterized by its own phonological , syntactic , and lexical properties." A variety spoken in a particular region is called a regional dialect (regiolect, geolect ); some regional varieties are called regionalects or topolects, especially to discuss varieties of Chinese . In addition, there are varieties associated with particular ethnic groups (sometimes called ethnolects ), socioeconomic classes (sometimes called sociolects ), or other social or cultural groups. Dialectology

680-478: 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

748-603: 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

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816-751: 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

884-461: 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

952-419: 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

1020-425: A specific community". More recently, sociolinguists have adopted the concept of the community of practice , a group of people who develop shared knowledge and shared norms of interaction, as the social group within which dialects develop and change. Sociolinguists Penelope Eckert and Sally McConnell-Ginet explain: "Some communities of practice may develop more distinctive ways of speaking than others. Thus, it

1088-782: 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

1156-482: Is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . This European university, college or other education institution article is a stub . You can help Misplaced Pages by expanding it . 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

1224-428: Is defined as "the language use typical of an individual person". An individual's idiolect may be affected by contact with various regional or social dialects, professional registers and, in the case of multilinguals , various languages. For scholars who view language from the perspective of linguistic competence , essentially the knowledge of language and grammar that exists in the mind of an individual language user,

1292-686: 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,

1360-613: Is divided into the following departments: The following have been Academy Rectors: Lūcija Garūta taught composition and music theory from 1940 and was elected to the professorship in 1960. During the republic, the State Conservatory had only one Jewish professor of music, Adolf Metz, head of the violin department. Many Jewish students emigrated to Lithuania. 56°56′58.8″N 24°7′2.6″E  /  56.949667°N 24.117389°E  / 56.949667; 24.117389 This Latvian education-related article

1428-619: Is general social acceptance that gives us a workable arbitrary standard, not any inherent superiority of the characteristics it specifies." Sociolinguists generally recognize the standard variety of a language as one of the dialects of that language. In some cases, an authoritative regulatory body , such as the Académie Française , maintains and codifies the usage norms for a standard variety. More often, though, standards are understood in an implicit, practice-based way. Writing about Standard English, John Algeo suggests that

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1496-479: 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

1564-418: 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

1632-659: 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

1700-492: 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,

1768-728: 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

1836-459: Is the study of dialects and their geographic or social distribution. Traditionally, dialectologists study the variety of language used within a particular speech community , a group of people who share a set of norms or conventions for language use. In order to sidestep the vexing problem of distinguishing dialect from language , some linguists have been using the term communalect – defined as "a neutral term for any speech tradition tied to

1904-477: Is within communities of practice that linguistic influence may spread within and among speech communities." The words dialect and accent are often used synonymously in everyday speech, but linguists define the two terms differently. Accent generally refers to differences in pronunciation , especially those that are associated with geographic or social differences, whereas dialect refers to differences in grammar and vocabulary as well. Many languages have

1972-484: 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

2040-643: 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

2108-570: The Latvian National Opera . He remained director until 1944, excepting 1935–1937 when the director was his choral assistant Pauls Jozuus. There were junior and senior courses that covered around 9 to 10 academic years. Beginning in 1940, the structure of the conservatory changed: the lower junior courses were transferred in secondary education system and later became a base for Jāzeps Mediņš's and Emīls Dārziņš's secondary schools of music. And there formed up courses of higher school in

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2176-614: 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

2244-749: 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

2312-407: 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

2380-403: The "correct" varieties only in the sense that they are tacitly valued by higher socio-economic strata and promoted by public influencers on matters of language use , such as writers, publishers, critics, language teachers, and self-appointed language guardians. As Ralph Harold Fasold puts it, "The standard language may not even be the best possible constellation of linguistic features available. It

2448-614: 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

2516-469: 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

2584-417: 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

2652-454: 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

2720-691: 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

2788-645: 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

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2856-627: 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

2924-412: 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,

2992-545: The conservatory. Beginning 1 October 1951 LPSR Institute of Theater was joined to the conservatory, reorganizing it to a faculty of theater with departments of acting and directing. In May 1958 it was renamed to the Jāzeps Vītols Latvian conservatory. In January 1964 conservatory had been renamed to J.Vītols Latvian institute of Art, but in July 1964 institute was renamed back to J.Vītols Latvian conservatory. The Academy

3060-449: 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

3128-701: The course of a communicative event as the relationship between speakers changes, or different social facts become relevant. Speakers may shift styles, as their perception of an event in progress changes. Consider the following telephone call to the Embassy of Cuba in Washington, DC . Caller: ¿Es la embajada de Cuba? ( Is this the Cuban embassy? ) Receptionist: Sí. Dígame. ( Yes, may I help you? ) Caller: Es Rosa. ( It's Rosa. ) Receptionist: ¡Ah Rosa! ¿Cóma anda eso? ( Oh, Rosa! How's it going? ) At first,

3196-448: 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

3264-423: 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

3332-466: The following sentence as an example of a nonstandard dialect that is used with the technical register of physical geography: There was two eskers what we saw in them U-shaped valleys. Most speakers command a range of registers, which they use in different situations. The choice of register is affected by the setting and topic of speech, as well as the relationship that exists between the speakers. The appropriate form of language may also change during

3400-617: 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

3468-514: 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

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3536-484: 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

3604-632: 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

3672-510: 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,

3740-686: 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

3808-480: 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

3876-418: The receptionist uses a relatively formal register, as befits her professional role. After the caller identifies herself, the receptionist recognizes that she is speaking to a friend, and she shifts to an informal register of colloquial Cuban Spanish . The shift is similar to metaphorical code-switching , but since it involves styles or registers, it is considered an example of style-shifting. An idiolect

3944-566: The standard variety "is simply what English speakers agree to regard as good". A register (sometimes called a style ) is a variety of language used in a particular social setting. Settings may be defined in terms of greater or lesser formality, or in terms of socially recognized events, such as baby talk , which is used in many western cultures to talk to small children or as a joking register used in teasing or playing The Dozens . There are also registers associated with particular professions or interest groups; jargon refers specifically to

4012-540: 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

4080-477: 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.,

4148-489: The vocabulary associated with such registers. Unlike dialects, which are used by particular speech communities and associated with geographical settings or social groupings, registers are associated with particular communicative situations, purposes, or levels of formality, and can constitute divisions within a single regional lect or standardized variety. Dialect and register may thus be thought of as different dimensions of linguistic variation . For example, Trudgill suggests

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4216-452: 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

4284-522: 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;

4352-496: 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

4420-497: 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

4488-502: 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

4556-626: 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. Variety (linguistics) Variation at the level of the lexicon , such as slang and argot , is often considered in relation to particular styles or levels of formality (also called registers ), but such uses are sometimes discussed as varieties as well. O'Grady et al. define dialect : "A regional or social variety of

4624-466: 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

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