Latvian is the official state language of Latvia. It is spoken by approximately 1.4 million people in Latvia and approximately 150 thousand people abroad. It is noteworthy that the Latvian language is actively used by a relatively large number of non-Latvians: thanks to the language policy of the Latvian authorities, it is spoken by about 1.9 million people, or 79% of the population of Latvia.
The Latvian language belongs to the Baltic group of the Indo-European family. It is closely related to the other living Baltic language with official status, Lithuanian, although the languages are not mutually intelligible. According to some glottochronological hypotheses, the Western Baltic languages separated from the Eastern Baltic (or a hypothetical Proto-Baltic language) in 400-600 AD. The differentiation between the Lithuanian and Latvian languages began in the 9th century, after which they existed for a long time (possibly until the 14th-17th centuries) as dialects of the same language.
Latvian is an inflectional language with numerous analytical forms. It has two grammatical genders (masculine and feminine) and two numbers (singular and plural). Nouns are declined in seven cases (nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, prepositional, vocative). The main stress in a word (with few exceptions) is placed on the first syllable. There are no articles in the Latvian language, the basic word order is Subject-Predicate-Object.
The Latvian language has three dialects: Livonian, Latgalian (some linguists consider it an independent language) and Middle Latvian. The basis of the standard Latvian language was the Middle Latvian dialect.
Until the 19th century, the Latvian language was heavily influenced by German, since the upper classes of local society were Baltic Germans. When the national revival movement began in the country in the mid-19th century, it was led by the organization “Young Latvians,” which popularized the use of the Latvian language. It was the members of this organization who laid the foundations of the standard language. But when Emperor Alexander III came to power in the 1880s, a period of Russification began in Latvia - some Latvian scientists even proposed switching to the Cyrillic script.
After the death of the Tsar, at the end of the 19th century, nationalist sentiments flared up with renewed vigor. In 1908, Latvian linguists Kārlis Milenbahs and Jānis Endzelins created the modern Latvian alphabet, which gradually replaced the old spelling.
During the Soviet period, the development of the Latvian language was seriously influenced by the policy of Russification. At this time, many Latvians were deported, followed by large-scale immigration from Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and other Soviet republics. As a result, the share of the Latvian population decreased from 80% in 1935 to 52% in 1989. In Soviet Latvia, most immigrants did not learn Latvian. Today Latvian is the native language of more than 60% of the country's population.
After restoration of independence in 1991, a new language learning policy was introduced. The main goal was the integration of all residents into the environment of the official state language, coupled with the protection of the languages of Latvia’s national minorities. The government now funds the study of the Latvian language in primary schools for national minorities; these include Russian, Jewish, Polish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Estonian and Roma schools.
To counter the influence of the Russian and English languages, government organizations (the Terminological Commission of the Latvian Academy of Sciences and the State Linguistic Center) are trying to popularize the use of Latvian terms and linguistic purism. The latter manifests itself primarily in the creation of new words and expressions, which are then presented for discussion by the general public. And although purists managed to come up with a number of euphonious words, most neologisms are considered by the population as “alien” and unnecessary, instead of which words that were used earlier could be used.
For example, a heated debate broke out in Latvia when the Terminology Commission proposed replacing the word eiro (“euro”) with the word eira, with a “more Latvian” ending. As a result of this language policy, many borrowings in the Latvian language exist in the form of two variants - “foreign” and “Latvian”: telefons/tālrunis (“telephone”; the second word is a direct translation of the international term into Latvian), kompjūters/dators (“ computer"), etc.
120 hour Latvian language courses, two lessons per week from October 15, 2013 to March 19, 2014 and the “A” level exam passed. It probably sounds a little pretentious, but it worked! At the same time, when we went to the first lesson, we did not think at all about passing the exam with a positive result. What can I say, we weren’t going to go to the first Latvian language lesson so quickly.
Why learn Latvian?
The fact is that Russians living in Latvia, especially those who limit themselves to staying in Riga, Jurmala and their immediate surroundings, can do without knowledge of the Latvian language. Actually, this is exactly how we lived the first year in Latvia, without meeting a single person (!) who did not understand Russian. And, I assure you, we are not hermits sitting at home all day. Our occupation requires us to meet a lot of people, and our character is very sociable.
But this is precisely what became one of the incentives motivating the study of the Latvian language. Latvians speak Russian, but we don’t know Latvian, and yet we’ve been living in Latvia for a year! Everyone knows the difficulty of learning Russian, and Latvians were able to learn it, so why can’t we do the same? Of course, this is not the only reason that prompted us to start studying the Latvian language last year, and more about them later.
Knowledge of the state language is a mandatory condition for changing status from residence permit to permanent residence in Latvia.
If you know the language and at least know how to read, then it is easier to communicate with various public and private services, utilities and electricity or gas suppliers. They like to send some tricky letters by mail or e-mail, or slip various questionnaires and forms for them to fill out. The alternative to being able to read Latvian is to feel stupid or to run with each piece of paper to your friends who speak Latvian. This is not always convenient, and sometimes it is simply not possible.
Well, everything becomes especially complicated if you are going to make a living in Latvia. In addition to all the above reasons, signing a lot of papers at the bank, reading letters from the tax office and much more.
How we learned Latvian.
First, we bought ourselves a Latvian language textbook and a Russian-Latvian-Russian dictionary. They didn’t think much about what turned up at a nearby bookstore. The textbook turned out to be Liene Lieģeniece "Latvian language for everyone. Self-instruction manual", publishing house Zvaigzne, 2005. And a small, probably pocket-sized dictionary from the publishing house Avots, 2004, 22,000 words.
Then Dina Ezeriņa “Self-instructor of the Latvian language” appeared, 2007, several more dictionaries with a larger number of dictionary entries, and from the Internet a couple more textbooks published in ancient times.
But learning a language from textbooks and dictionaries is not very effective, especially when it comes to pronunciation, and someone needs to explain the rules. In our city, no one had ever heard of courses, either paid or free. But we live not far from Jelgava, so we continued our search for courses there. Alas, Jelgava is not Riga, where they say you can learn Latvian even for free.
The only place where the Latvian language is taught in Jelgava is the specialized training center Zemgales Reģiona Kompetenču Attīstības Centrs, located at Svētes iela 33. They teach everything from cross-stitching to advanced training for accountants.
There are two approaches to learning the Latvian language at the training center. One of them is intensive, when the language is taught five days a week for many hours. This course is suitable for unemployed people who have a lot of free time and a chance to get a job after studying the Latvian language. Another standard is two times a week for three study hours. In both cases, listeners receive 120 hours of Latvian language, only with different intensities. We chose the second option.
Courses begin as potential students become available, so we had to wait for them to start. The training started in mid-October 2013, with completion in the second half of March 2014. The group turned out to be small: two Russian couples doing business in Latvia, a young man originally from Belarus who also works, and three girls, all Ukrainians, married to Latvians. Everyone had the same goal - to learn the language and pass the exam to the highest possible level, which gives the right to obtain permanent residence in Latvia.
We were very lucky with the teacher, but I realized this closer to the end of the course, when the results began to appear. At first it seemed that the training was not going too intensively or something. But it turned out that the main thing when learning the Latvian language is not the number of exercises performed in class or the words memorized. The main merit of the teacher was the ability to overcome the student’s fear of the Latvian language, shyness, initial tongue-tiedness and other complexes associated with learning new things. The student will do the rest himself. Now I know for sure that the Latvian language is not terrible.
As part of the training, we were given a textbook (+ CD) and “Palīga” notebooks, which are considered a very good course for replenishing vocabulary and developing correct speaking skills. The textbook was published with the assistance of the European Union. The course scenario is somewhat playful: “Russian guy Andrei Popov, originally from Daugavpils, works as a taxi driver in Riga and slowly steals the girl Ilze from her old friend Rudis.
In general, based on the textbooks that I managed to hold in my hands, I can say the following - there are no textbooks that are ideal for everyone. Some parts of the material are presented better by one author, others by another. During the course, I had to refer to all available textbooks. Thank God the materials in them did not contradict each other; typos and inattentive proofreading do not count.
Features of the Latvian language.
The Latvian language belongs to the Baltic group of languages belonging to the Indo-European language family. The closest and only existing related language is Lithuanian. The Latvian language became an independent language in the 6th and 7th centuries AD. The formation of the commonly used Latvian language began in the 10th-12th centuries. The Latvian alphabet consists of 33 letters:
It is much easier for a Russian to learn the Latvian language than, for example, for an Englishman. There are a lot of words in the Latvian language that are similar or similar to Russian. Nouns in the Latvian language have 7 cases, verbs have categories of tense, mood, voice and person, which is quite understandable to a Russian person. There are not many letters in the Latvian language that are pronounced differently from Russian ones. The order of words in a sentence is relatively free.
In addition, the grammatical rules of the Latvian language are quite strict here and practically do not allow exceptions. For example, stress in Latvian words almost always falls on the first syllable.
Perhaps the only thing that causes difficulties when learning the Latvian language is the presence of two types of vowels - short and long. Many words, often meaning completely different things, differ only in the length of the vowel. The most typical examples are the words “goats” (kazas) and “wedding” (kāzas). And if the appearance of longitude in case endings of nouns or tenses of verbs obeys the rules, then for the root of a word there is no even approximate algorithm for its appearance. All that remains is to remember.
Exam in Latvian language.
And in conclusion, a little about the exam, as the most exciting and important stage of learning the Latvian language. In total, knowledge of the Latvian language is divided into three levels - basic (A), intermediate (B) and higher (C). Each of them is divided into sublevels (1) and (2).
Thus, our goal after completing the course in the first 120 hours is level A2 - the highest level of the basic level. To pass level A2, you need to be able to conduct a dialogue on simple everyday and work topics, expressing yourself in short sentences, understand simple everyday speech and texts, and also be able to draw up template documents (for example, statements, acts, etc.). Vocabulary of about 1000 commonly used words.
We took the exam in Jelgava, in the premises of the training center of the visiting commission. But I think that this is not important, since the delivery procedure is the same. The exam is divided into four blocks according to the type of skill being tested. Listening, Reading, Writing and Speaking. Examples of tasks can be viewed on this page of the site, but I will tell you about the procedure for passing the exam.
One hour is allotted for passing the first three parts of the exam. The exam takes place in a group. Everyone is located in the same room. Before the exam, everyone is given forms with tasks and a little time to get acquainted with them. The whole group listens to the same text, but the tasks on the forms are different. Our group had three options for eight people.
It is very important for Listening to have time to read and comprehend the task beforehand. This helps you better hear what the speaker is saying. A level A examinee usually does not have enough vocabulary and has to guess the meaning of many words from the context. If when reading you have time to think about each written phrase, then when listening to a recording, alas, you don’t. And this seems like a small thing, but the best results were for those who sat closer to the sound source.
Reading and Writing exam at level A is not very difficult; training during the learning process allows you to develop algorithms for describing pictures, writing a letter to a friend and filling out questionnaires. Level A is especially easy if you first complete several tasks intended for the exam at level B. And 45 minutes is enough time for these two parts of the exam.
But this conversation is serious. It takes place individually, the examinee against two examiners. One is talking, the second is recording the process, including on a voice recorder. This is where you had to work hard, all your vocabulary immediately disappeared somewhere and you have difficulty retrieving standard phrases from your memory. The thing is that they ask about a variety of topics, just have time to adapt. And after only 120 hours of courses, it’s a long way from being fluent in Latvian. It’s a little easier for those who can speak Latvian at work or in the family. But the peculiarity of living in the central part of Latvia near Riga for students of the Latvian language is precisely that there is simply no place to practice speaking. However, why complain, the exam was passed on the first try.
The exam results must be presented within 2 weeks, plus time for sending documents. As a result, after passing the exam on March 25, 2014, we received the card by mail on April 22, 2014.
I liked everything so much that next year I am planning to continue my studies to take the B level exam.
about 1.7 million people
Official language in
Latvian Republic, EU
Language of diaspora
USA (100,000), Ireland (50,000), Great Britain (40,000), Canada (28,000), Brazil (25,000), Russia (20,000), Australia (20,000), New Zealand (20,000), Lithuania, Estonia, Ukraine, Belgium
Alphabet
33 letters
Grammatical cases
7
Language code
lv, lav
Linguistic typology
inflectional, SVO
Language family
Indo-European, Balto-Slavic branch, Baltic group, Eastern Baltic subdivision
Number of dialects
three dialects: Livonian, Middle (the basis of the literary language) and Upper
Longest word
pretpulksteņrādītājvirziens
counterclockwise direction of movement
Curious word or sentence
trīsšķautņains
it is very difficult to pronounce it
in a way it has no consonants
History
The Latvian language is one of the two surviving Eastern Baltic languages of the Indo-European family. Unlike Lithuanian, Latvian did not retain many archaic forms.
Research shows that the Baltic languages formed a separate branch from other Indo-European languages by the 10th century BC. The Eastern Baltic languages split from the Western Baltic (or simply from Baltic) languages around the 5th century AD. The difference between Lithuanian and Latvian began to appear after the 9th century, although they still remained dialects of the same language for a long time.
Grammar
The word order in sentences is free, it depends on the word which has the most significant meaning in the sentence. For example the phrase “There’s water in the glass” is constructed like that: Glāzē ir ūdens , and “The water is in the glass” – like that: Ūdens ir glāzē . Latvian language does not possess articles but adjectives have a quality of definiteness/indefiniteness.
Nouns in Latvian express the categories of gender, number and case. There are seven cases:
| Male | Female | ||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Singular | |||||
| Nominative | Draug's | Vēj-š | Kuģ-is | Liep-a | Pas-e |
| Genitive | Draug | Vēj-a | Kuģ-a | Liep-as | Pas-es |
| Dative | Draug-am | Vēj-am | Kuģ-im | Liep-ai | Pas-ei |
| Accusative | Draug-u | Vēj-u | Kuģ-i | Liep-u | Pas-i |
| Instrumental | Draug-u | Vēj-u | Kuģ-i | Liep-u | Pas-i |
| Locative | Draug-ā | Vēj-ā | Kuģ-ī | Liep-ā | Pas-ē |
| Vocative | Draug-s! | Vēj-š! | Kuģ-i! | Liep-a! | |
| Plural | |||||
| Nominative | Draug-i | Vēj-i | Kuģ-i | Liep-as | Pas-es |
| Genitive | Draug-u | Vēj-u | Kuģ-u | Liep-u | Pas-u |
| Dative | Draug-iem | Vēj-iem | Kuģ-iem | Liep-ām | Pas-ēm |
| Accusative | Draug-us | Vēj-us | Kuģ-us | Liep-as | Pas-es |
| Instrumental | Draug-iem | Vēj-iem | Kuģ-iem | Liep-ām | Pas-ēm |
| Locative | Draug-os | Vēj-os | Kuģ-os | Liep-ās | Pas-ēs |
Adjectives are inflected for gender, number and case; therefore they agree with the nouns that govern them.
A peculiar feature of Latvian adjectives is that they have full and short forms.
Verbs in Latvian express voice, tense (past, present and future), mood and can be inflected by person and number. Verbs also have lots of partial forms.
Particular examples:
- ziedošs koks
- noziedējis koks
a tree that has shed its flowers
- lasāma grāmata
the book that is being read
- Izcepta maize
- viņš iet housedams
he is walking while thinking
Writing system and pronunciation
The modern Latvian alphabet has 33 letters.
Vowels in Latvian may be long or short. Both short and long sounds are independent and can distinguish between words and word forms, for example: kazas – goats, kāzas – wedding, kase – till, kasē – in the till. Both stressed and non-stressed vowels are pronounced the same way. The length of vowels in modern Latvian is denoted by a macron above the letter: ā, ē, ī, ū.
Diphthongs: ai, ei, ui, o, au, ie. The semi-consonant j after vowels can create diphthongs, for example: klajš “flat-out”, zvejnieks “fisherman”, šuj [ʃui] “sew”. The consonant v also can create diphthongs, for example: tev “for you”.
In Latvian the letters Ļ ļ, Ņ ņ, Ķ ķ, Ģ ģ denote 4 soft consonants. Voiced consonants when occurring directly before voiceless ones are pronounced as voiceless. The consonant words endings: -ds (gads = year) and -ts (lakats = handkerchief) usually are pronounced like , -žs (spožs = bright), -šs (svešs = alien) like “sh”. Voiced consonants at the end of words are always pronounced as voiced.
Latvian, with a few exceptions, has fixed initial stress. There are three types of tones: level (stieptā), falling (krītošā) and broken (lauztā intonācija). For example, loks (, spring onion), loks (, shaft bow), logs (, window).
Latvian consonants can be voiced or voiceless, hard or soft, and also have different characteristics according to the place and manner of articulation.
Speech etiquette
The polite way of addressing a person is by using plural 2nd person pronoun and verb forms Jūs (“You”).
An official polite form of address is the use of a person's family name in the genitive case and the words kungs (mister) or kundze (mrs), for example: Kļaviņa kungs, Liepas kundze. The same construction is used addressing people in senior positions, for example: president kungs, ministres kundze.
Singular “you” is usually used when addressing parents. Plural “you” sometimes is still used in villages. Personal names are used in more informal situations while family names are used in more formal ones.
Interestingly, Latvian doesn’t have strong swear words. Those who feel like swearing have to use Latvian pejoratives, like īkstoņa (“grumbler”) or the vast resources of Russian or English.
Thematic words
ņau-ņau
Linguistic and cultural diversity is the world's greatest strength and wealth. Along with more than 6,700 languages of the world, there is a language spoken by people living along the coast of the Baltic Sea. This is the Latvian language - the official language of the Republic of Latvia.
Currently, Latvian is a modern European language used by Latvians from all walks of life; it is the official language of the Republic of Latvia and fully performs the most important sociolinguistic functions in the multi-ethnic community of Latvia.
There are 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia; and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language can even be considered a widely spoken language - there are only about 250 languages in the world, spoken by more than one million people, and among them is the Latvian language. However, the Latvian language has always existed in conditions of heavy competition. Until recently, the main contact languages were German and Russian, which have the status of international languages, and besides, the speakers of these languages dominated the Latvians politically. The fact that it was possible to preserve the Latvian language and culture is in itself a real miracle.
Linguistic characteristics
The Latvian language belongs to the Baltic group of languages belonging to the Indo-European language family. The closest and only existing related language is Lithuanian (Latvian is a non-Slavic and non-German language). The Latvian language has inherited much from the Indo-European proto-dialects and, like the Lithuanian language, has retained many archaic distinctive features of the phonetic system and grammar.
| |
||||
| Latvian | Lithuanian | Russian language | German | English language |
| bārda | barzda | beard | der Bart | beard |
| cirvis | kirvis | axe | das Beil | ax |
| dārzs | daržas | garden | der Garten | garden |
| dzeltens | geltonas | yellow | gelb | yellow |
| dzintars | gintaras | amber | der Bernstein | amber |
| mugura | nugara | back | der Ruecken | back |
| piens | pienas | milk | die Milch | milk |
| slota | šluota | broom | der Besen | broom |
| zirnis | žirnis | peas | die Erbse | pea |
The Baltic tribes appeared in the present territory in the third millennium BC. The separation of Latvian and Lithuanian proto-dialects occurred in the sixth and seventh centuries AD. The formation of the commonly used Latvian language began in the 10th-12th centuries. In modern times, traces of tribal dialects can be found in the three main dialects and over 500 spoken forms of the Latvian language, which exist alongside a highly standardized form of the Latvian language.
From a typological point of view, the Latvian language is a fusional, inflectional language. Nouns in the Latvian language have 7 cases, verbs have categories of tense, mood, voice and person. There is also an extensive system of word-forming affixes. The order of words in a sentence is relatively free. Most speakers distinguish between two tones or two types of intonation in long syllables. In Latvian, words are pronounced with the stress on the first syllable, and a long vowel sound may appear on an unstressed syllable.
Latvian writing
The Latvian alphabet consists of 33 letters:
a, ā, b, c, č, d, e, ē, f, g, ğ, h, i, ī, j, k, ķ, l, ļ, m, n, ņ, o, p, r, s, š, t, u, ū, v, z, ž.
The first written texts in the Latvian language appeared more than 400 years ago, and since then the Latvian spelling has become one of the most correct among the Latin writing systems in the world: while respecting the morphemic structure of words, the graphemes of the Latvian language almost exactly correspond to phonemes. The so-called phonomorphological principle still exists in Latvian writing.
In the first printed books of the second half of the 16th century, the writing was based on the principles of Middle Low German writing using Gothic script.
The Gothic font was used until the beginning of the 20th century, with the exception of books that were printed in the eastern part of Latvia. In 1908, a new orthography was approved, according to which Gothic letters were replaced by Latin ones, and groups of three or four consonants were replaced by a single letter or digraphs, using a system of diacritics. In the Latvian language, longitude is indicated by a longitude sign above vowel letters, thus a short vowel is not indicated, and a dash is placed above a long vowel.
Contact languages
Since the consolidation of the Latvian people, Latvians have always been in contact with other languages: Livonian, Estonian, Lithuanian, Belarusian, Russian as neighboring languages, with Russian, Polish, Swedish and German as languages of cultural exchange and state languages, with Latin as the language of religious services among Catholics. Language contact was an important factor in the development of the Latvian vocabulary and grammar. The Latvian language was also influenced by the languages of the Finno-Ugric group of neighboring peoples - Livonian and Estonian, as well as Lithuanian and Russian. From the Middle Ages until the beginning of the 20th century, German was the dominant language in the fields of education, science and government; the Latvian language dictionary includes about 3,000 borrowings from the German language. Over the past decades, many borrowings have been made from the English language. However, the influence of other languages is not as strong as it could be. This is mainly due to the activities of Latvian linguists regarding language standardization.Standardization of the Latvian language
The standardization of the Latvian language occurred spontaneously during the period of pre-literate language, i.e. until the 16th century. When the first Latvian regulations appeared in the 17th century, it became possible to talk about more or less conscious standardization.The authors of the first Latvian books were representatives of the Baltic German clergy, who devoted themselves to the methodical work of creating a written language, writing books, compiling grammar and dictionaries of the Latvian language. The first printed text in Latvian appeared in 1525. The first books that have survived to this day are the Catholic Catechism (1585) and the Evangelical Lutheran Catechism (1586). The first dictionary of the Latvian language was published in 1638, the first grammar textbook was published in 1644 by the German clergy G. Manzelius and I. G. Rehehusen.
The mid-19th century saw the rise of the National Revival, along with an awakening of interest in their language on the part of the Latvians themselves. At the same time, the status of the Baltic languages changed. Until now, the Latvian language was considered by the Baltic German aristocracy as the “language of the village”, in which it was impossible to express high thoughts.
At the end of the 19th century, Latvians began researching and standardizing the Latvian language. By the end of the 19th century, Latvian had become a highly standardized language, in which many press publications and fiction were published. With the creation of linguistic theory developing the typology of the Indo-European group of languages, it gradually became clear that the Baltic languages provide some of the missing connections with which to explain the relationship between Sanskrit and the classical languages (Greek and Latin) and modern languages.
Thus, the Baltic languages (Lithuanian, Latvian and the obsolete Prussian language) became the object of study by the international community of professional linguists. As a result, the research of the first serious Latvian linguists, Kārlis Mīlenbahs (1853-1916) and Jānis Endzelins (1873-1961), began to be considered with interest in international forums.
From 1918, when the independence of the sovereign Latvian state was proclaimed, until the beginning of the Soviet occupation in 1940, the Latvian language developed into a well-developed multifunctional language with an established system of styles and developed terminology.
During the period of Soviet rule, for political reasons, Latvian linguists could not influence the process of reducing the sociolinguistic functions of the Latvian language, so the main tasks became preserving the quality of the language and even improving it. The Terminology Commission of the Latvian Academy of Sciences began active work in 1946. By 1990, it had published 15 terminological dictionaries and more than 50 bulletins in various fields of science and technology. Research into the Latvian language was carried out, a two-volume grammar of the modern Latvian language and a dictionary of the standard Latvian language in eight volumes were compiled. Since 1965, a yearbook dedicated to the correct use of the Latvian language and a newsletter for journalists, as well as a number of monographic studies, have been published.
After the restoration of Latvian independence, research into the Latvian language is carried out by the Institute of the Latvian Language and departments of the University of Latvia, the Pedagogical Academy in Liepaja and the Pedagogical University in Daugavpils. The main areas of study are: lexicography and dictionary compilation, grammar, dialectology and area linguistics, sociolinguistics and terminology. The Latvian language is taught and studied in various universities around the world. Standardization and systematization of the normative Latvian language is carried out by the Latvian language expert commission at the State Language Center.
Sociolinguistic linguistic situation and language legislation after the Second World War
During the period of Soviet occupation (1940-1941; 1945-1991), the Latvian language functioned in the context of Latvian-Russian social bilingualism - the language of state authorities and bodies was Russian. The Latvian language was gradually squeezed out of some areas, such as transport, banking, police, and industry. Due to mass immigration, the percentage of people speaking Latvian began to decline. In 1989, only 21% of representatives of other nationalities declared that they knew the Latvian language, while the majority of Latvians spoke Russian. Despite the fact that the number of people speaking the Latvian language and the reduction in the sociolinguistic functions of the Latvian language never reached a critical level for the inevitable change of language in Latvia, all the prerequisites for this already existed.In 1988, the Latvian language again received the status of the state language in Latvia. The Language Law of 1989 (as amended in 1992) restored the position of the Latvian language in the national economy and public life. After the restoration of independence in 1991, changes occurred in the linguistic situation of Latvia. The main goal of the language policy was the integration of all residents in terms of the official state language while preserving and developing the languages of the national minorities of Latvia. Recognizing the existing problems in society, the Latvian government began implementing programs to teach the Latvian language. In 2000, it was recognized that 75% of residents who speak national minority languages have some knowledge of the Latvian language.
A number of representatives of national minorities in Latvia receive bilingual education at state expense. These include those who study in Russian, Jewish, Polish, Lithuanian, Ukrainian, Belarusian, Estonian and Roma schools, where the basics of Latvian are taught as a second language. This allows us to stimulate further learning of the Latvian language and facilitate the integration of each resident into society so that in the future they do not experience difficulties due to insufficient knowledge of the Latvian language.
The Law on the State Language was adopted on December 9, 1999. Several regulations related to this Law have been adopted. Monitoring compliance with the Law is carried out by the State Language Center under the Ministry of Justice.
Thanks to modern political and demographic processes in the region, Latvia and other Baltic countries can be counted among the countries where the consistent implementation of appropriate language policy principles is decisive for the maintenance of the language. The purpose of this Law is: preservation, protection and development of the Latvian language, integration of national minorities into Latvian society while respecting their rights to use their native language and any other language.