Latvian language

Latvian
Latviešu Valoda
Spoken in: Latvia, Australia, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania, New Zealand, Russia, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom, USA, Venezuela,

Finland 
Region: Europe
Total speakers: native 1.5 million (Latvia)
150,000 (Abroad)
1.6 million (Worldwide)[1]
second language: 500, 000 
Ranking: 160th
Language family: Indo-European
 Balto-Slavic
  Baltic
   Eastern
    Latvian 
Writing system: Roman script 
Official status
Official language in: Flag of Latvia.svg Latvia, Flag of Europe.svg European Union
Regulated by: Latvian State Language Center
Language codes
ISO 639-1: lv
ISO 639-2: lav
ISO 639-3: lav
Note: This page may contain IPA phonetic symbols in Unicode.

Latvian (latviešu valoda) is the official state language of Latvia. Alternative names include Lettish and Lettisch. There are about 1.5 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language. Because of language policy in Latvia approximately 60% of the 900,000 ethnic-minority population of Latvia speak Latvian. The use of the Latvian language in various areas of the social life in Latvia is increasing.[2]

Latvian is a Baltic language and is most closely related to Lithuanian, although the two are not mutually intelligible, even in their written forms.

Latvian first appeared in Western print in the mid-16th century with the reproduction of the Lord's Prayer in Latvian in Sebastian Münster's Cosmographia Universalis, in Roman script.

Contents

Classification

Latvian is one of two living Baltic languages (the other being Lithuanian), a group of its own within the Indo-European language family. The Latvian and Lithuanian languages have retained many features of the nominal morphology of the proto-language, though in matters of phonology and verbal morphology they show many innovations, with Latvian being considerably more innovative than Lithuanian.

Dialects

There are three dialects in Latvian: the Livonian dialect, Latgalian and the Middle dialect. The Livonian dialect is divided into the Vidzeme variety and the Courland variety (also called tāmnieku or ventiņu). The Middle dialect, the basis of standard Latvian, is divided into the Vidzeme variety, the Curonian variety and the Semigallian variety. Note: Latvian dialects should not be confused with the Livonian, Curonian, Semigallian and Selonian languages.

Map showing geographical distribution of the dialects in Latvia

Livonian dialect

The Livonian dialect of Latvian was more affected by the Livonian language substratum than Latvian in other parts of Latvia. There are two intonations in the Livonian dialect. In Courland short vowels in the endings of words are discarded, while long vowels are shortened. In all genders and numbers only one form of verb is used. Personal names in both genders are derived with endings - els, -ans. In prefixes ie is changed to e. 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 and assimilated Livonian grammar into Latvian.

Middle dialect

The Vidzeme variety and the Semigallian variety are closer to each other than to the Curonian variety, which is more archaic than the other two. There are three intonations in the Middle dialect. In the Semigallian variety, ŗ is still used.

Non-native speakers

The history of the Latvian language (cf. below) has placed it in a peculiar position whereby it is spoken by a large number of non-native speakers as compared to native speakers. The immigrant and minority population in Latvia is 900,000 people, comprised of Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Poles, and others. The majority of immigrants came to Latvia during the Soviet period (1940–1991), supplementing pre-existing ethnic minority communities. In a recent survey, 60% of Latvia's ethnic minorities described their knowledge of Latvian as fluent.[3] Fluency in Latvian is prevalent among the younger generations of the minorities.

The adoption of Latvian by minorities was brought about by its status as the only official language of the country, its prominence in the education system, its sole use in the public sector and by changes in the society after the fall of the Soviet Union that 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.

Grammar

Main article: Latvian grammar

Latvian is an inflecting language with many analytical forms. There are two grammatical genders in Latvian (masculine and feminine) and two numbers, singular and plural. Nouns decline into seven cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative, and vocative. Primary word stress, with a few exceptions, is on the first syllable. There are no articles in Latvian. Basic word order in Latvian is Subject Verb Object, however word order is relatively free.

Orthography

Main article: Latvian orthography
Main article: Latvian alphabet

Latvian in western orthography was first written using a system based upon German phonetic principles, while the Latgalian dialect was written using Polish orthographic principles. At the beginning of the 20th century, this was replaced by a more phonetically appropriate system, using a modified Latin alphabet.

Standard orthography

Today, the Latvian standard alphabet consists of 33 letters:

A Ā B C Č D E Ē F G Ģ H I Ī J K Ķ L Ļ M N Ņ O P R S Š T U Ū V Z Ž
a ā b c č d e ē f g ģ h i ī j k ķ l ļ m n ņ o p r s š t u ū v z ž

The modern standard Latvian alphabet uses 22 unmodified letters of the Latin alphabet (all except Q, W, X and Y). It adds a further eleven letters by modification. The vowel letters A, E, I and U can take a macron to show length, unmodified letters being short. The letters C, S and Z, that in unmodified form are pronounced [ts], [s] and [z] respectively, can be marked with a caron. These marked letters, Č, Š and Ž are pronounced [tʃ], [ʃ] and [ʒ] respectively. The letters Ģ, Ķ, Ļ and Ņ are written with a cedilla or little 'comma' placed below (or above the lowercase g). They are modified (palatalized) versions of G, K, L and N and represent the sounds [ɟ], [c], [ʎ] and [ɲ]. Non-standard varieties of Latvian add extra letters to this standard set.

Latvian spelling has almost perfect correspondence between graphemes and phonemes. Every phoneme has its own letter so that a reader need not learn how a word is pronounced, but simply pronounce it. There are only three exceptions to this that could cause mispronunciation. The first is the letter E and its long variation Ē, which are used to write two sounds that represent the short and long versions of either [ɛ] or [æ] respectively. The letter O indicates both the short and long [ɔ], and the diphthong [uɔ]. These three sounds are written as O, Ō and Uo in Latgalian, and some Latvians campaign for the adoption of this system in standard Latvian. However, the majority of Latvian linguists argue that o and ō are found only in loanwords, with the Uo sound being the only native Latvian phoneme. The digraph Uo was discarded in 1914, and the letter Ō has not been used in the official Latvian language since 1946. Likewise, the letters Ŗ and Ch were discarded in 1957, although they are still used in some varieties and by many Latvians living beyond the borders of Latvia. The letter Y is used only in the Latgalian language, where it is used to write a distinct phoneme that does not occur in other Latvian varieties. Latvian orthography allows nine digraphs, which are written Ai, Au, Ei, Ie, Iu, Ui, Oi, Dz and Dž.

Old orthography

Latvian Bible written in old orthography.

The old orthography was based on that of German and did not represent the Latvian language phonemically. At the beginning 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: there were as many as twelve variations of writing Š. In 1631 the German priest Georgs (Juris) Mancelis tried to systematize the writing. He wrote long vowels according to their position in the word — a short vowel followed by h for a radical vowel, a short vowel in the suffix and vowel with a diacritic mark in the ending indicating two different accents. Consonants were written following the example of German with multiple letters. The old orthography was used until the 20th century when it was slowly replaced by the modern orthography.

Latvian on computers

The rarely used Latvian ergonomic keyboard layout

Lack of software support of diacritics has caused an unofficial style of orthography, often called translit, to emerge for use in situations when the user is unable to access Latvian diacritic marks in today's computerised media (e-mail, newsgroups, web user forums, chat, SMS etc.). It uses the basic Modern Latin alphabet only, and letters that aren't used in standard orthography are usually omitted. In this style, diacritics are replaced by digraphs - a doubled letter indicates a long vowel; j indicates palatalisation of consonants, except for Š, Č and Ž that are indicated by using h. 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 the diacritic mark in question would make a semantic difference.[4] 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 widespread for financial and social reasons.

Standard QWERTY keyboards are used for writing in Latvian; diacritics are entered by using 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)). In the early 1990s, the Latvian ergonomic keyboard layout was developed. Although this layout may be available with language support software, it has not become popular because of a lack of keyboards with this layout.

Comparative orthography

For example, the Lord's Prayer in Latvian written in different styles:

First orthography
(Cosmographia Universalis)		 Old orthography[5] Modern orthography Internet style
Muuſze Thews exkan tho Debbes Muhſu Tehvs debbeſîs Mūsu tēvs debesīs Muusu teevs debesiis
Sweetyttz thope totws waerdtcz Swehtits lai top taws wahrds Svētīts lai top tavs vārds Sveetiits lai top tavs vaards
Enaka mums touwe walſtibe. Lai nahk tawa walſtiba Lai nāk tava valstība Lai naak tava valstiiba
Tows praetcz noteſe Taws prahts kai noteek Tavs prāts lai notiek Tavs praats lai notiek
ka exkan Debbes tha arridtczan wuerſſon ſemmes kà debbeſîs tà arirdſan zemes wirsû kā debesīs, tā arī virs zemes kaa debesiis taa arii virs zemes
Muſze beniſke mayſe bobe mums ſdjoben. Muhsu deeniſchtu maizi dod mums ſchodeen Mūsu dienišķo maizi dod mums šodien Muusu dienishkjo maizi dod mums shodien
Vnbe pammet mums muſſe parrabe Un pametti mums muhſu parradus [later parahdus] Un piedod mums mūsu parādus Un piedod mums muusu paraadus
ka mehs pammettam muſſims parabenekims kà arri mehs pamettam ſaweem parrahdneekeem kā arī mēs piedodam saviem parādniekiem kaa arii mees piedodam saviem paraadniekiem
Vnbe nhe wedde mums exkan kaerbenaſchenne Un ne eeweddi muhs eekſch kahrdinaſchanas Un neieved mūs kārdināšanā Un neieved muus kaardinaashanaa
Seth atpeſthmums no to loune bet atpeſti muhs no ta launa [later łauna] bet atpestī mūs no ļauna bet atpestii muus no ljauna
Aefto thouwa gir ta walſtibe Jo tew peederr ta walſtiba Jo tev pieder valstība Jo tev pieder valstiiba.
vnbe tas ſpeez vnb tas Goobtcz tur muſſige un tas ſpehks un tas gods muhſchigi [later muhzigi] spēks un gods mūžīgi speeks un gods muuzhiigi
Amen Amen Āmen Aamen

Phonology

Consonants

  Bilabial Labiodental Alveolar Postalveolar Palatal Velar
Plosives p  b   t  d   c  ɟ k  ɡ
Affricates     t͡s  d͡z t͡ʃ  d͡ʒ  
Nasal m   n ɲ ŋ
Trill     r      
Fricative   f  v s  z ʃ  ʒ x
Central approximant     j  
Lateral Approximant     l ʎ  

The consonant sounds /f x/ are only found in loanwords. Latvian plosives are not aspirated (unlike in English and other Germanic languages).

Vowels and diphthongs

Latvian has six vowels, with length as distinctive feature:

Latin vowels
  Front Central Back
short long short long short long
Close i iː   u uː
Mid-open ɛ ɛː   ɔ ɔː
Near-open æ æː      
Open   a aː  

Vowel length ratio is about 1/2.5. Vowel length is phonemic and plays an important role in the language. For example ‘koka’ [`kuɔka] means 'made of wood', ‘kokā’ [`kuɔkaː] means 'on the tree'; ‘pile’ [`pilɛ] means 'a drop', ‘pīle’ [`piːlɛ] means 'a duck'.

Latvian also has 10 diphthongs ([ai], [ui], [ɛi], [aŭ], [iɛ], [uɔ], [iu], [ɔi], [ɛu], [ɔu]), although some diphthongs are mostly limited to proper names and interjections.

Pitch accent

In Latvian, long syllables—i.e. those containing a long vowel, a diphthong, or a so-called "mixed diphthong" (a short vowel followed by a sonorant consonant)—can take one of three tones:

level (also drawling) tone (stieptā intonācija)
high throughout the syllable
e.g., loks "spring onion" (pronunciation represented as "luõks" in Latvian phonetics)
falling tone (krītošā intonācija)
brief rise followed by a long fall
e.g., loks "arch, bow" (pronounced "lùoks")
broken tone (lauztā intonācija)
rising tone followed by falling tone with interruption in the middle or some creakiness in the voice
e.g., logs "window" (pronounced "luôgs")

This system is similar to the ones found in Lithuanian, Swedish, Norwegian and Serbian. The broken tone is similar to the Danish stød.

History

The Baltic languages are of particular interest to linguists because they retain many archaic features believed to have been present in the early stages of the Proto-Indo-European language.

There is some evidence to suggest the existence of a Balto-Slavic language group after the break-up of Proto-Indo-European, with the Slavic and Baltic languages splitting around the 10th century BC. However, some linguists: Meillet, Klimas, Zinkevičius oppose this view, providing arguments against Balto-Slavic group, and explaining similarities by one or several periods of close contacts. There exists a number of Baltic words that are similar to Sanskrit or Latin, which lack counterparts in Slavic languages. Latvian with Albanian, slavic and Indo-Iranian languages are grouped as satem languages. While the possession of many archaic features is undeniable, the exact manner by which the Baltic languages have developed from the Proto-Indo-European language is not clear.

According to some glottochronological speculations, the Eastern Baltic languages split from Western Baltic (or, perhaps, from the hypothetical proto-Baltic language) between 400 and 600. The differentiation between Lithuanian and Latvian started after 800, with a long period of being one language but different dialects. At a minimum, transitional dialects existed until the 14th century or 15th century, and perhaps as late as the 17th century.

Latvian emerged as a distinct language in the 16th century, having evolved from Latgalian and assimilating Curonian, Semigallian and Selonian on the way. All of these belong to the Baltic language group.

The oldest known examples of written Latvian are from a 1530 translation of a hymn made by Nikolaus Ramm, a German pastor in Riga.

Until the 19th century, the Latvian language was heavily influenced by the German language, because the upper class of local society was formed by Baltic Germans. In the middle of the 19th century the first Latvian National Awakening was started, led by “Young Latvians” who popularized use of Latvian language. Participants of this movement laid foundations for standard Latvian and also popularized latvianization of loan words. However in 1880s when tsar Alexander III came into power Russification started. During this period some Latvian scholars even suggested adopting the Cyrillic alphabet for use in Latvian. After the tsar's death, at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries, nationalist movements reemerged.

In 1908, Latvian linguists Kārlis Mīlenbahs and Jānis Endzelīns elaborated the modern Latvian alphabet, which slowly replaced old orthography used before. Another interesting feature of the language, in common with its sister language Lithuanian, that was developed at the time is that proper names from other countries and languages, no matter how obscure, are altered phonetically to fit the phonological system of Latvian. Even if the original language also uses the Latin alphabet, this process takes place. Moreover the names are modified to ensure they have noun declension endings, declining like all other nouns. For example a place such as Lecropt (a Scottish parish) is likely to become Lekropta; the Scottish village of Tillicoultry becomes Tilikutrija. This is a good example of linguistic purism in this ancient language.

During the years of Soviet occupation (1940–41 and 1945–91) the policy of Russification greatly affected the Latvian language. Through these periods many Latvians and Latvia’s other ethnicities faced deportations and persecutions. A massive immigration from the Soviet republics of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and others followed, largely the result of Stalin's plan to integrate Latvia and the other Baltic republics into the Soviet Union by means of Russian colonisation. As a result, the proportion of the ethnic Latvian population within the total population was reduced from 80% in 1935 to 52% in 1989. In the Soviet Latvia, most of the immigrants who settled in the country didn't learn Latvian. Today, Latvian is the mother tongue of more than 60% of the country's population.

After the re-establishment of independence in 1991, a new policy of language education was introduced. The primary goal declared 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 is available in primary schools for ethnic minorities. These include Russian, Jewish, Polish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Estonian, and Roma schools. Latvian is taught as a second language in the initial stages to encourage proficiency in the language, aiming to avoid alienation from the Latvian-speaking linguistic majority and to facilitate academic and professional achievement. 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, 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 Law on State Language was adopted on December 9, 1999. Several regulatory acts associated with this law have been adopted. The observance of the law is monitored by the State Language Centre run by the Ministry of Justice.

To counter the influence of Russian and English, government organizations (namely the Terminology Commission of the Latvian Academy of Science and the State Language Center) try to popularize the use of Latvian terms and linguistic purism. Purism is often observed in the coining of new terms, which are usually disputed by the public — although purists have invented some euphonic words, many neologisms are widely seen as 'alien' and unnecessary, as pre-existing words could be used instead; for example, a heated debate arose when the Terminology Commission suggested that “eira”, with its 'latvianized' ending, would be a better term for euro than the widely used “eiro”. Other new terms are literal translations 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, more euphonic loanwords rather than Latvian words. For example, "computer" can be either "dators" or "kompjūters". Both are loanwords (the native Latvian word for 'computer' is "skaitļotājs"). However, for some time now “dators” has been considered an appropriate translation.

There are several contests held annually to promote correct use of Latvian.[6][7] Notably, the State Language Center holds contests for language mistakes, named "Gimalajiešu superlācis" after an infamous incorrect translation of Asiatic Black Bear. These mistakes, often quite amusing, are both grammatical and stylistic; sometimes also obvious typos and mistranslations are considered to belong here. Organizers claim that mistakes are largely collected in areas heavily populated by Russians-speakers, as well as from Lithuanian-owned chain stores. Mistranslations are not necessarily grammatical, but also stylistic and vocabulary mistakes, such as literal translations from the English language.

Bibliography

Literary histories in Latvian

References

  1. ↑ Ethnologue report for language code:lav
  2. ↑ DELFI - Rihards Svelpe: Trîs veidi kâ pârdot Latviju starptautiski
  3. ↑ DELFI - Rihards Svelpe: Trīs veidi kā pārdot Latviju starptautiski (Latvian)
  4. ↑ Veinberga, Linda (2001). "Latviešu valodas izmaiņas un funkcijas interneta vidē" (in Latvian). politika.lv. Retrieved on 2007-07-28.
  5. ↑ BIBLIA, published Riga, 1848 (reprint), original edition 1739; "modern" old orthographies published into the 20th century do not double consonants
  6. ↑ "2006. gada vārds — "draugoties", nevārds — "hendlings"" (in Latvian), Apollo (2007-01-22). Retrieved on 2007-07-28. 
  7. ↑ BNS (2006-03-30). "Akcijā pret valodas kropļošanu aicina nofilmēt 'gimalajiešu lāci'" (in Latvian), DELFI. Retrieved on 2007-07-28. 

External links

Baltic languages

Curonian · Galindian · Latgalian · Latvian · Lithuanian · Old Prussian · Samogitian · Selonian · Semigallian · Sudovian (Yotvingian)
Official languages of the European Union

Bulgarian · Czech · Danish · Dutch · English · Estonian · Finnish · French · German · Greek · Hungarian · Irish · Italian · Latvian · Lithuanian · Maltese · Polish · Portuguese · Romanian · Slovak · Slovene · Spanish · Swedish