Latvian language

Latvian
latviešu valoda
Native to	Latvia, Australia, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania, New Zealand, Russia, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom, USA, Venezuela, Finland
Region	Europe
Native speakers	native 1.39 million (Latvia) 150,000 (Abroad) 1.54 million (Worldwide)[1] second language: 500,000
Language family	Indo-European Baltic Eastern Latvian
Writing system	Roman script
Official status
Official language in	Latvia, European Union
Regulated by	Latvian State Language Center
Language codes
ISO 639-1	lv
ISO 639-2	lav
ISO 639-3	lav

Latvian (Latvian: latviešu valoda), is the official state language of Latvia. It is also called Lettish and Lettisch.^[2] It is estimated that there are 1.75 million native speakers in Latvia.^[3]

The Latvian alphabet has 33 letters. The letters are based on the Latin alphabet.^[4] Along with the Lithuanian language, Latvian is the only live Baltic language.^[5]

Related pages

• Riga
• Baltic states
• Eastern Europe
• Uralic languages
• Roma people in Latvia
• Balto-Slavic languages

References

1. "Ethnologue report for language code:lav". Retrieved 2008-06-09.
2. Praulinš, Dace (2012-03-12). Latvian: An Essential Grammar. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-34536-4.
3. "What Languages Are Spoken In Latvia?". WorldAtlas. 25 August 2017. Retrieved 2021-03-19.
4. Wright, Richard. "Latvian Alphabet". www.languagehelpers.com. Retrieved 2021-03-19.
5. Campbell, George L.; King, Gareth (2020-07-01). Compendium of the World's Languages. Routledge. ISBN 978-1-136-25845-9.

Other websites

• "Latvian Language Law in English". Archived from the original on 2007-08-23. Retrieved 2020-09-13.
• The Latvian Alphabet Archived 2013-10-22 at the Wayback Machine
• Examples of Latvian words and phrases (with sound)
• Latvian for beginners
• ok-board.com Archived 2008-08-20 at the Wayback Machine Latvian online transliteration