- Official language in
- Latvia
- Script
- Latin
Where it's spoken
Latvian is the official language of Latvia: the constitution names Latvian the official language of the Republic of Latvia, and the Official Language Law states the same, naming Latvian the country's official language. Latvian is also one of the official languages of the European Union, of which Latvia is a member. The Official Language Law separately recognizes Latgalian as a historic written variant of Latvian, distinct from the standard language, that the state is to maintain and protect.
Sources
- Constitution of the Republic of Latvia (Satversme), Article 4 — Official language provision
- Official Language Law (Valsts valodas likums), Section 3 — Section 3(1) official language; Section 3(4) Latgalian written language
- Latviešu valodas aģentūra (Latvian Language Agency) — "Valsts valoda" — Latvian as an EU official language
Script & pronunciation
Latvian is written in the Latin alphabet, extended with diacritics: a macron over a vowel, as in ā, ē, ī or ū, marks it as long — a distinction that changes a word's lexical or grammatical meaning — as opposed to the same vowel written without the macron. This vowel-length distinction holds in every syllable of a word, not only the stressed one. Word stress usually falls on a word's first syllable, but a closed set of words is stressed on the second syllable instead, among them paldies ("thank you"). This app's romanization field marks these two things together, breaking the card's text into syllables and capitalizing the stressed one, as in SVEI-ki for Sveiki ("Hello / Hi"), stressed on the first syllable, and pal-DIES for Paldies ("Thank you"), stressed on the second.
Sources
- LU MII AiLab — Latviešu valodas skolas kurss — "Alfabēts" — 33-letter alphabet
- LU MII AiLab — Latviešu valodas skolas kurss — "Patskaņi" — Macron marks long vowel; vowel length changes meaning
- Markus, Dace & Bond, Dzintra (1999). "Stress and Length in Learning Latvian." Proceedings of the 14th International Congress of Phonetic Sciences (ICPhS 1999), San Francisco — §1 Introduction: vowel length contrastive in all syllables; fixed first-syllable stress
- LU MII AiLab — Latviešu valodas skolas kurss — "Vārda uzsvars" — Stress rule and closed exception list including paldies
Grammar essentials
Word order in a Latvian sentence is not strictly fixed, because the language's case endings already show how the words in it relate to one another; even so, the subject most often comes first. Latvian nouns are declined in seven cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative, and vocative. The locative case can mark location by itself: this app's Laipni lūdzam Latvijā ("Welcome to Latvia") has no separate word for "in" — the ending on Latvijā carries that meaning, which the card describes as its locative form. This app's Es nerunāju latviski ("I can't speak Latvian") shows negation formed with the prefix ne- on the verb: nerunāju is described in the card as the negated first-person singular of runāt ("to speak").
Sources
- LU MII AiLab — Latviešu valodas skolas kurss — "Vārdu kārta" — Word order not strictly fixed; subject usually first
- LU MII AiLab — Latviešu valodas skolas kurss — locījumi (noun case paradigm) — Seven-case declension table (N. Ģ. D. A. I. L. V.)
Politeness & etiquette
Latvian has an informal singular pronoun tu ("you") and jūs, which is grammatically the plural "you" and, in this app's cards, also the formal way of addressing one person: the card for Vai jūs runājat angliski? ("Do you speak English?") notes that jūs is the formal second person there. The greeting Sveiki is likewise described in this app as the plural of Sveiks (said to a man) or Sveika (said to a woman), used as a plural or as a polite form of address; a related pair appears in Atvainojiet ("Excuse me / I'm sorry"), described as a formal plural imperative, alongside the casual Atvainojies. Among this app's greetings, Labdien is marked as a polite daytime greeting used with strangers and in shops, while the general-purpose Sveiki carries no such formality marking.
Sources
- LU MII AiLab — Latviešu valodas skolas kurss — "Vietniekvārdi" — Personal pronoun list: es, tu, viņš, viņa, mēs, jūs, viņi, viņas