Latvian, known as Lettish, is an Eastern Baltic language belonging to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family, spoken in the Baltic region.
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15 Facts About Latvian language
2.
The differentiation between Lithuanian and Latvian started after 800 CE, with a long period of being one language but different dialects.
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3.
Latvian as a distinct language emerged over several centuries from the language spoken by the ancient Latgalian tribe assimilating the languages of other neighbouring Baltic tribes—Curonian, Semigallian and Selonian—which resulted in these languages gradually losing their most distinct characteristics.
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4.
Oldest known examples of written Latvian language are from a 1530 translation of a hymn made by Nikolaus Ramm, a German pastor in Riga.
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5.
The oldest preserved book in Latvian language is a 1585 Catholic catechism of Petrus Canisius currently located at the Uppsala University Library.
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6.
Until the 19th century, the Latvian written language was influenced by German Lutheran pastors and the German language, because the upper class of local society was formed by Baltic Germans.
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7.
For example, Latvian language has two words for "telephone"— and, the former being a direct translation into Latvian language of the latter international term.
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8.
Livonian dialect of Latvian was more affected by the Livonian language substratum than Latvian in other parts of Latvia.
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9.
The Kursenieki Latvian language, which used to be spoken along Curonian Spit, is closely related to the varieties of the Middle dialect spoken in Courland.
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10.
Fluency in Latvian language is expected in a variety of professions and careers.
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11.
Basic word order in Latvian language is subject–verb–object; however, word order is relatively free.
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12.
Latvian language spelling has almost one-to-one correspondence between graphemes and phonemes.
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13.
The first writings in Latvian were chaotic: there were twelve variations of writing S In 1631 the German priest Georg Mancelius tried to systematize the writing.
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14.
Latvian language has 10 diphthongs, four of which are only found in loanwords, although some diphthongs are mostly limited to proper names and interjections.
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15.
Loanwords from other Baltic Latvian language include kermenis from Old Prussian, as well as veikals and pagiras from Lithuanian.
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