Latvian Language | Britannica

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External Websites

• CORE - The Latvian alphabet
• Omniglot - Latvian language

Latvian language Ask Anything Homework Help Also known as: Latviesu Valoda, Lettish language Written and fact-checked by Britannica Editors Encyclopaedia Britannica's editors oversee subject areas in which they have extensive knowledge, whether from years of experience gained by working on that content or via study for an advanced degree.... Britannica Editors History Britannica AI Ask Anything Table of Contents Table of Contents Ask Anything

Latvian language, East Baltic language spoken primarily in Latvia, where it has been the official language since 1918. It belongs to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European family of languages. (See Baltic languages.) In the late 20th century Latvian was spoken by about 1.5 million people.

The earliest texts in Latvian, a Roman Catholic catechism and a Lutheran catechism, both written in Gothic script, date from the 16th century. The first grammar of the language appeared in the 18th century, and by the end of the 19th century the literary language was well developed. A modified Latin alphabet was adopted in 1922.

Latvian has three dialect groups: East, or High, Latvian; West Latvian; and Central Latvian. The last is more conservative and was the basis for the modern literary language.

Also called: Lettish (Show more) Latvian: Latviesu Valoda (Show more) Related Topics: Baltic languages Latvian literature (Show more) See all related content Britannica Quiz Languages & Alphabets

Although closely related to Lithuanian, Latvian is more innovating than Lithuanian in many respects; for example, the reduction of vowels in final syllables has progressed much further in Latvian. Furthermore, because of the influence of Finnish, word accent has been fixed on the first syllable.