Bahasa Latvia

(latviešu valoda), merupakan bahasa rasmi Republik Latvia. Terdapat kira-kira 1.7 juta orang penutur bahasa ibunda di Latvia dan kira-kira 200,000 orang di luar negara.

Bahasa Latvia adalah dalam subkumpulan Baltik Timur dalam kumpulan bahasa-bahasa Baltik dalam keluarga bahasa Indo-Eropah. Di kalangan bahasa-bahasa Baltik, hanya Bahasa Latvia dan saudara yang terdekatnya Bahasa Lithuania kekal hingga kini. Namun kedua-dua bahasa ini tidak difahami antara satu sama lain.

Loghat 

Terdapat 3 loghat dalam Bahasa Latvia: loghat Livonia, Bahasa Latgalia, dan loghat Tengah. Loghat Livonia terpisah kepada jenis Vidzeme dan jenis Courland (juga dikenali sebagai tāmnieku atau ventiņu). Loghat Tengah, asas Bahasa Latvia piawai, terbahagi kepada jenis Vidzeme, jenis Curonia, dan jenis Semigallia. Catatan: Loghat-loghat Bahasa Latvia tidak harus dikelirukan dengan Bahasa Livonia, Bahasa Curonia, Bahasa Semigallia, dan Bahasa Selonia.

Loghat Livonia 
Loghat Livonia lebih dipengaruhi oleh substratum Bahasa Livonia berbanding dengan Bahasa Latvia di kawasan lain di Latvia. Terdapat 2 intonasi dalam loghat Livonia. Di Courland vokal pendek pada akhir perkataan dimansuhkan, sedangkan vokal panjang telah dipendekkan. Dalam semua jantina dan nombor hanya satu bentuk kata kerja digunakan. Personal names in both genders are derived with endings - els, -ans. In prefixes ie is changed to e. Due to migration and the introduction of a standardised language this dialect has declined. It arose from assimilated Livonians, who started to speak in Latvian and assimilated Livonian grammar into Latvian.

Loghat Tengah 
Jenis Vidzeme dan jenis Semigallia adalah lebih rapat berbanding dengan jenis Curonia, yang adalah lebih kuno daripada 2 yang lain. Terdapat 3 intonasi dalam loghat Tengah. Dalam jenis Semigallia, ŗ masih digunakan.

Ortografi 
Dalam sejarah, Bahasa Latvia sendiri ditulis dengan satu sistem berdasarkan prinsip fonetik Bahasa Jerman manakala loghat Latgalia ditulis dengan prinsip ortografi Bahasa Poland. Pada awal abad ke-20, ini digantikan dengan satu sistem yang lebih sesuai dari segi fonetik, menggunakan huruf Latin yang diubahsuai.

Ortografi piawai 
Kini, huruf piawai Bahasa Latvia terdiri daripada 33 huruf:

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 Georgs (Juris) Mancelis 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.

Latvian on computers 

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 in today's computerised media (e-mail, newsgroups, web user forums, chat, SMS etc.). It uses basic Modern Latin alphabet only, and letters that aren't used in standard orthography are usually omitted. In this style, diacritics are replaced by digraphs - a doubled letter indicates a long vowel; j indicates palatalisation of consonants, except for Š, Č and Ž that are indicated by using h. Sometimes the second letter, the one used instead of a diactric, is changed to one of two other diacritic letters (e.g. š is written as ss or sj, not sh), and since many people may find it difficult to use these unusual methods, they write without any indication of missing diacritic marks, or they use digraphing only if the diacritic mark in question would make a semantic difference. Sometimes an apostrophe is used before or after the character that would properly need to be diacriticised. Also, digraph diacritics are often used and sometimes even mixed with diacritical letters of standard orthography. Although today there is software support available, diacritic-less writing is still widespread because of financial and social reasons.

Standard QWERTY keyboards are used for writing in Latvian; diacritics are entered by using dead key (usually ", occasionally ~). Some keyboard layouts use modifier key AltGr (most notable of such is windows 2000 and XP builtin layout (Latvian QWETRTY)). In the early 1990s, the Latvian ergonomic keyboard layout was developed. Although this layout may be available with language support software, it hasn't become popular because of a lack of keyboards with such layout.

For example, the Lord's Prayer in Latvian written in different styles:

Bibliografi 
 Bielenstein, Die lettische Sprache (Berlin, 1863-64)
 Bielenstein, Lettische Grammatik (Mitau, 1863)
 Bielenstein, Die Elemente der lettischen Sprache (Mitau, 1866), popular in treatment
 Ulmann and Brasche, Lettisches Wörterbuch (Riga, 1872-80)
 Bielenstein, Tausend lettische Räthsel, übersetzt und erklärt (Mitau, 1881)
 Bezzenberger, Lettische Dialekt-Studien (Göttingen, 1885)
 Bezzenberger, Ueber die Sprache der preussischen Letten;; (Göttingen, 1888)
 Thomsen, Beröringer melem de Finske og de Baltiske Sprog (Copenhagen, 1890)
 Bielenstein, Grenzen des lettischen Volksstammes und der lettischen Sprache (St. Petersburg, 1892)
 Baron and Wissendorff, Latwju dainas (Lettic Folksongs, Mitau, 1894)
 Andreianov, Lettische Volkslieder und Mythen (Halle, 1896 )
 Bielenstein, Ein glückliches Leben (Riga, 1904)
 Brentano, Lehrbuch der lettischen Sprache;; (Vienna, c. 1907)
 Wolter, "Die lettische Literatur," in Die ost-europäische Literaturen (Berlin, 1908)
 Kalning, Kurzer Lettischer Sprachführer (Riga, 1910)
 Klaushush, Latweeschu rakstneezibas wehsture (Riga, 1907)
 Pludons, Latwiju literaturas vēsture (Jelgava, 1908-09)
 Lehgolnis, Latweeschu literaturas wehsture (Riga, 1908)

Rujukan

Pautan luar 

 Latvian Language Law in English 
 Letonika
 Overview of the Latvian Language (en)
 State (Official) Language Commission (linguistic articles, applicable laws, etc.)
 English-Latvian/Latvian-English dictionary 
 Latvian English Dictionary from Webster's Online Dictionary - the Rosetta Edition
 National Agency for Latvian Language Training
 The Latvian Alphabet 
 Examples of Latvian words and phrases (with sound)
 Latvian for beginners
 Latvian and Croatian with Japanese translation
 Languages of the World:Latvian
 Latvian bilingual dictionaries

Bahasa di Latvia
Bahasa Latvia