Latvian orthography
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The modern Latvian orthography is based on
Latin script The Latin script, also known as the Roman script, is a writing system based on the letters of the classical Latin alphabet, derived from a form of the Greek alphabet which was in use in the ancient Greek city of Cumae in Magna Graecia. The Gree ...
adapted to phonetic principles, following the pronunciation of the language. The standard alphabet consists of 33 letters – 22 unmodified Latin letters and 11 modified by
diacritic A diacritic (also diacritical mark, diacritical point, diacritical sign, or accent) is a glyph added to a letter or to a basic glyph. The term derives from the Ancient Greek (, "distinguishing"), from (, "to distinguish"). The word ''diacrit ...
s. It was developed by the Knowledge Commission of the Riga Latvian Association in 1908, and was approved the same year by the orthography commission under the leadership of
Kārlis Mīlenbahs Kārlis Mīlenbahs (his surname was formerly also written as Mühlenbach, Mühlenbachs, Mǖlenbachs or Mīlenbachs) (18 January 1853 in Courland, Russian Empire – 27 March 1916 in Võru, Livonia, Russian Empire) was the first native speaker o ...
and Jānis Endzelīns. It was introduced by law from 1920 to 1922 in the Republic of Latvia. Latvian orthography historically used a system based upon
German German(s) may refer to: * Germany, the country of the Germans and German things **Germania (Roman era) * Germans, citizens of Germany, people of German ancestry, or native speakers of the German language ** For citizenship in Germany, see also Ge ...
phonetic Phonetics is a branch of linguistics that studies how humans produce and perceive sounds or, in the case of sign languages, the equivalent aspects of sign. Linguists who specialize in studying the physical properties of speech are phoneticians ...
principles, while the Latgalian dialect was written using Polish orthographic principles.


Alphabet

The modern Latvian standard alphabet consists of 33 letters, 22 unmodified letters of the Latin alphabet and additional 11 modified by diacritics. The vowel letters '' A'', '' E'', '' I'' and '' U'' can take a macron to show length, unmodified letters being short. The letters '' C'', '' S'' and '' Z'', which in unmodified form are pronounced , and respectively, can be marked with a
caron A caron or háček ( ), is a diacritic mark () placed over certain letters in the orthography of some languages, to indicate a change of the related letter's pronunciation. Typographers tend to use the term ''caron'', while linguists prefer ...
. These marked letters, ''Č'', ''Š'' and ''Ž'' are pronounced , and respectively. The letters '' Ģ'', '' Ķ'', '' Ļ'' and '' Ņ'' are written with a
cedilla A cedilla ( ; from Spanish language, Spanish ', "small ''ceda''", i.e. small "z"), or cedille (from French , ), is a hook or tail () added under certain letters (as a diacritic, diacritical mark) to indicate that their pronunciation is modif ...
or a small comma placed below (or, in the case of the lowercase ''g'', above). They are modified ( palatalized) versions of ''G'', ''K'', ''L'' and ''N'' and represent the sounds , , and respectively. In alphabetical sorting, the letters ''Č'', ''Š'', ''Ž'', ''Ģ'', ''Ķ'', ''Ļ'' and ''Ņ'' are
collated Collation is the assembly of written information into a standard order. Many systems of collation are based on numerical order or alphabetical order, or extensions and combinations thereof. Collation is a fundamental element of most office fil ...
separately from their unmodified counterparts, but ''Ā'', ''Ē'', ''Ī'', and ''Ū'' are usually collated as plain ''A'', ''E'', ''I'', ''U''. The letters ''F'' and ''H'' appear only in
loanword A loanword (also a loan word, loan-word) is a word at least partly assimilated from one language (the donor language) into another language (the recipient or target language), through the process of borrowing. Borrowing is a metaphorical term t ...
s. However, they are common enough in modern Latvian, more common than ''Ž'', ''Ģ'', ''Ķ'', or ''Č''.


Obsolete letters

Historically the letters ''CH'', ''Ō'' and '' Ŗ'' were also used in the Latvian alphabet. The last of these stood for the palatalized dental trill which is still used in some dialects (mainly outside Latvia) but not in the standard language, and hence the letter ''Ŗ'' was finally removed from the alphabet on 5 June 1946, when the
Latvian SSR The Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic (Also known as the Latvian SSR, or Latvia) was a Republics of the Soviet Union, constituent republic of the Soviet Union from 1940 to 1941, and then from 1944 until 1990. The Soviet occupation of the Bal ...
legislature passed a regulation that officially replaced it with ''R'' in print. A spelling reform replacing ''Ŗ'' with ''R'', ''CH'' with ''H'', and ''Ō'' with ''O'', was enacted in 1938, but then ''Ŗ'' and ''CH'' were reinstated in 1939, ''Ō'' was reinstated in 1940, ''Ŗ'' and ''Ō'' were finally removed in 1946 and ''CH'' was finally removed in 1957. The letters ''CH'', ''Ō'' and ''Ŗ'' continue to be used in print throughout most of the Latvian diaspora communities, whose founding members left their homeland before the post-World War II Soviet-era language reforms. An example of a publication in Latvia today, albeit one aimed at the Latvian diaspora, that uses the older orthography—including the letters ''CH'', ''Ō'' and ''Ŗ''—is the weekly newspaper ''
Brīvā Latvija ''Brīvā Latvija'' (Free Latvia; ) is a weekly newspaper for Latvians living outside Latvia, aimed mainly at those residing in western Europe. It was founded in 1986 through the merger of two émigré newspapers: the UK-based ''Londonas Avīz ...
''.


Latgalian alphabet

The
Latgalian language Latgalian (, ) is an East Baltic language. The language law of Latvia classifies it as a "historical variant of the Latvian language". It is mostly spoken in Latgale, the eastern part of Latvia. The 2011 Latvian census established that 164,500 ...
(variously considered a separate language or a dialect of Latvian) adds two extra letters to this standard set: ''Ō'' and ''Y''.


Spelling of foreign names


Q, W, X, and Y

The Latvian alphabet lacks Q (''kū'' , W (''dubultvē'' ubultveː, X (''iks'' ks and Y (''igrek'' grek of the
ISO basic Latin alphabet The ISO basic Latin alphabet is an international standard (beginning with ISO/IEC 646) for a Latin-script alphabet that consists of two sets (uppercase and lowercase) of 26 letters, codified in various national and international standards and u ...
. In modern standard written Latvian, they are only used in foreign words and expressions and in international symbols. The letter ''Y'' is also used in the Latgalian language/dialect. The letter ''W'' was used for the "v" sound in the older (German-based) orthography that was used until the 20th century when it was replaced by the new orthography, in which the letter ''W'' was replaced by ''V''. While the letters ''Q'', ''W'', ''X'', and ''Y'' are used in some forms of the Latvian keyboard, they are normally not used in modern standard written Latvian. Loanwords and foreign personal and geographical names are assimilated into Latvian phonology, orthography, and morphology, so the letters are replaced by "k(v)/h", "v", "ks", and "i"/"j" respectively, e.g.: * , etc.; * , etc.; * , etc. However, foreign spellings—and therefore the letters ''Q'', ''W'', ''X'', and ''Y''—are retained: * in multi-word foreign expressions, e.g. , ;Svešvārdu vārdnīca. Rīga, Jumava, 1999. * in certain specialized words such as Italian musical terms, e.g. ; * in some recent words such as ' (also spelled '); * in foreign proper names that are neither personal nor geographical, such as names of periodicals, agencies, brands, sports clubs, etc., e. g. ''Pixar'', ''Toyota'', ''Sony'', ''British Airways'', ''Qantas'', ''Radio SWH'', ''Musiqq''. The letters ''Q'', ''W'', ''X'', and ''Y'' are also used in international symbols, such as: *''x'' and ''y'' as unknowns or variables in mathematics; *X as a Roman numeral for 10; *W and Bq as physical units (however, when written in full, the words are written using Latvian letters: ''vats, bekerels''); *Q, Y, y, q as metric prefixes (when written in full, the prefixes are written using Latvian letters: ''kveta-, jota-, jokto-, kvekto-''); *W, Xe, Y as symbols of chemical elements (when written in full, the words are written using Latvian letters: ''volframs, ksenons, itrijs'').


Sound–spelling correspondences

Latvian has a phonetic spelling. There are only a few exceptions to this: * The letter ''E'' and its long variation ''Ē'', which are used to write two sounds that represent the short and long versions of either or respectively: ''ēdu'' (, I ate) vs. ''ēdu'' (, I eat) and ''dzer'' (, 2sg, you drink) vs. ''dzer'' (, 3sg, s/he drinks) * The letter ''O'' indicates both the short and long , and the
diphthong A diphthong ( ), also known as a gliding vowel or a vowel glide, is a combination of two adjacent vowel sounds within the same syllable. Technically, a diphthong is a vowel with two different targets: that is, the tongue (and/or other parts of ...
. These three sounds are written as ''O'', ''Ō'' and ''Uo'' in Latgalian, and some Latvians campaign for the adoption of this system in standard Latvian. However, the majority of Latvian linguists argue that ''o'' and ''ō'' are found only in loanwords, with the ''Uo'' sound being the only native Latvian phoneme. The digraph ''Uo'' was discarded in 1914, and the letter ''Ō'' has not been used in the standard orthography since 1946. Example: ''robots'' (a robot, noun) vs. ''robots'' o(toothed; adjective); ''tols'' (tolite; noun) vs ''tols'' o(hornless; adjective). * Also, Latvian orthography does not distinguish intonation homographs: ''sējums'' (crops) vs ''sējums'' (book edition), tā (that, feminine) vs tā (this way, adverb). * Positional sound changes are not indicated in writing. These include: consonant assimilation (''bs>ps, cd>dzd, sč>šč'', etc.), simplifying word-final consonant clusters (''ts>c, šs>š''), pronouncing word-final or pre-consonantal combinations "vowel+'j'" and "vowel+'v'" as diphthongs (''aj>ai, av>au''), prolonging voiceless obstruents between vowels (''apa>appa''). In these cases, the spelling of morphemes remains the same as in other environments: ''labs'' 'good', ''piecdesmit'' 'fifty', ''pusčetri'' 'half past three', ''svešs'' 'strange', ''tavs'' 'your', ''lapa'' 'leaf'. Latvian orthography also uses digraphs ''Dz'', ''Dž'' and ''Ie''.


Old orthography

The old orthography was based on that of German and did not represent the Latvian language phonemically. At the beginning it was used to write religious texts for German priests to help them in their work with Latvians. The first writings in Latvian were chaotic: there were as many as twelve variations of writing ''Š''. In 1631 the German priest Georg Mancelius tried to systematize the writing. He wrote long vowels according to their position in the word — a short vowel followed by ''h'' for a radical vowel, a short vowel in the suffix and vowel with a diacritic mark in the ending indicating two different accents. Consonants were written following the example of German with multiple letters. The old orthography was used until the 20th century when it was slowly replaced by the modern orthography. Old Latvian newspaper advertisement for Mentzendorff's colonial goods.jpg, Newspaper advertisement, ca. late 19th or early 20th c., showing the use of German script and German-influenced orthography Das Buch der Schrift (Faulmann) 246.jpg, 19th-century Latvian alphabet (upper) Rīkojums par ortogrāfijas reformu in Izglītības Ministrijas Mēnešraksts, 1921-02-01.png, Rules of the spelling reform of 1921


Knot writing system

Latvian was also traditionally written using a knot system known as . One or two threads of differently colored yarn would be tied in knots and wound onto a peg, which created a ball that was unraveled to read the full message. This system was mostly used for recording folk songs or for textile patterns. The system became lost and died out, but lived on with some older individuals until the 20th century.


Computer encoding

Lack of software support of diacritics has caused an unofficial style of orthography, often called ''translit'', to emerge for use in situations when the user is unable to access Latvian diacritic marks on the computer or using cell phone. It uses only letters of the
ISO basic Latin alphabet The ISO basic Latin alphabet is an international standard (beginning with ISO/IEC 646) for a Latin-script alphabet that consists of two sets (uppercase and lowercase) of 26 letters, codified in various national and international standards and u ...
, and letters not used in standard orthography are usually omitted. In this style, diacritics are replaced by digraphs: *''ā'', ''ē'', ''ī'', ''ū'' — ''aa'', ''ee'', ''ii'', ''uu'' *''ļ'', ''ņ'', ''ģ'', ''ķ'' — ''lj'', ''nj'', ''gj'', ''kj'' *''š'' — ''sh'' (as well as ''ss'', ''sj'', etc.) Some people may find it difficult to use such methods and either write without any indication of missing diacritic marks or use digraphs only if the diacritic mark in question would make a
semantic Semantics is the study of linguistic Meaning (philosophy), meaning. It examines what meaning is, how words get their meaning, and how the meaning of a complex expression depends on its parts. Part of this process involves the distinction betwee ...
difference. There is yet another style, sometimes called "
Pokémon is a Japanese media franchise consisting of List of Pokémon video games, video games, Pokémon (TV series), animated series and List of Pokémon films, films, Pokémon Trading Card Game, a trading card game, and other related media. The fran ...
ism" (In Latvian Internet slang "Pokémon" is derogatory for
adolescent Adolescence () is a transitional stage of human physical and psychological development that generally occurs during the period from puberty to adulthood (typically corresponding to the age of majority). Adolescence is usually associated w ...
), characterised by use of some elements of
leet Leet (or "1337"), also known as eleet or leetspeak, or simply hacker speech, is a system of modified spellings used primarily on the Internet. It often uses character replacements in ways that play on the similarity of their glyphs via refle ...
, use of non-Latvian letters (particularly w and x instead of v and ks), use of c instead of ts, use of z in endings, and use of mixed case. The
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s have registered a subtag for the old orthography (, for
Fraktur Fraktur () is a calligraphic hand of the Latin alphabet and any of several blackletter typefaces derived from this hand. It is designed such that the beginnings and ends of the individual strokes that make up each letter will be clearly vis ...
)


Keyboard

Standard
QWERTY QWERTY ( ) is a keyboard layout for Latin-script alphabets. The name comes from the order of the first six Computer keyboard keys#Types, keys on the top letter row of the keyboard: . The QWERTY design is based on a layout included in the Sh ...
computer keyboard A computer keyboard is a built-in or peripheral input device modeled after the typewriter keyboard which uses an arrangement of buttons or Push-button, keys to act as Mechanical keyboard, mechanical levers or Electronic switching system, electro ...
s are used for writing in Latvian; diacritics are entered by using a
dead key A dead key is a special kind of modifier key on a mechanical typewriter, or computer keyboard, that is typically used to attach a specific diacritic to a base letter (alphabet), letter. The dead key does not generate a (complete) grapheme, charact ...
(usually or ). Some
keyboard layout A keyboard layout is any specific physical, visual, or functional arrangement of the keys, legends, or key-meaning associations (respectively) of a computer keyboard, mobile phone, or other computer-controlled typographic keyboard. Standard keybo ...
s use the
modifier key In computing, a modifier key is a special key (or combination) on a computer keyboard that temporarily modifies the normal action of another key when pressed together. By themselves, modifier keys usually do nothing; that is, pressing any of the , ...
, usually placed immediately to the right of the (most notable of such is the Windows 2000 and XP built-in Latvian QWERTY layout). On
macOS macOS, previously OS X and originally Mac OS X, is a Unix, Unix-based operating system developed and marketed by Apple Inc., Apple since 2001. It is the current operating system for Apple's Mac (computer), Mac computers. With ...
, diacritics can be entered by holding down the key followed by the respective letters from their unaccented counterparts (including the obsolete letters): * → ā * → č * → ē * → ģ * → ī * → ķ * → ļ * → ņ * → ō * → ŗ * → š * → ū * → ž In the early 1990s, the Latvian ergonomic keyboard layout was developed. Although this layout may be available with language support software, it has not become popular due to lack of keyboards with such a configuration.


External links

Rendering of personal names in Latvian


References

{{Authority control Latvian language Indo-European Latin-script orthographies Keyboard layouts