Latvian language

From Simple English Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Latvian
latviešu valoda
Native toLatvia, Australia, Belarus, Brazil, Canada, Estonia, Germany, Ireland, Lithuania, New Zealand, Russia, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom, USA, Venezuela, Finland
RegionEurope
Native speakers
native 1.39 million (Latvia)
150,000 (Abroad)
1.54 million (Worldwide)[1]
second language: 500,000
Roman script
Official status
Official language in
Latvia, European Union
Regulated byLatvian State Language Center
Language codes
ISO 639-1lv
ISO 639-2lav
ISO 639-3lav

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]

References[change | change source]

  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[change | change source]