LATVIAN LANGUAGE


Meaning of LATVIAN LANGUAGE in English

or Lettish language

East

Like Lithuanian, it is sparsely attested until the first printed books in Latvian appear in 1585–86. The essentials of the present orthography, which employs the {{link=Latin alphabet">Latin alphabet with a number of diacritics, were adopted in 1908. Literary Latvian is based on the dialect spoken in Riga, Latvia's capital, though in recent years there has been a resurgence of literature in High Latvian (Latgalian), the dialect of eastern Latvia. Relative to Lithuanian, Latvian has undergone a number of striking sound changes, though the grammatical structures of the two languages are similar.

Britannica English dictionary.      Английский словарь Британика.