Latvian State Language Center
Latvian State Language Centre (VVC; ) is a direct administration institution subordinated to the Minister of Justice of the Republic of Latvia. The purpose of the State Language Centre is to implement the national policy on the use of the official language. The Centre supervises and controls the conformity with laws and regulations on the use of official language, provides the State administration institutions and the public with official translations of laws and regulations and other documents issued by the State or international organisations while concurrently ensuring use of consistent terminology. The State Language Centre protects rights  and interests of the official language users, promotes the regularisation of the cultural environment of language and promotes comprehensive functioning of Latvian language. Law on Languages – 1989. On 5 May 1989 Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic Law on Languages was adopted. This Law prescribes: Latvian Language as a State Language – 1998. On 6 January 1998 the Latvian language was prescribed as the official language in the Constitution of the Republic of Latvia – 10 years after it was declared the official language. Functions. Since 1993 State Language Centre supervises the conformity with the laws and regulations on the official language use, ensures  the maintenance, protection and development of the Latvian language. State Language Centre was assigned additional functions in 2009 after its merger with Translation and Terminology Centre. State Language Centre has the following functions: Structure. The work of the Centre is led by the director of the Centre. After the approval of the candidacy by the Cabinet, the director of the Centre is appointed by the Minister for Justice. The director of the State Language Centre is Dr. habil. med. Māris Baltiņš, and the deputy director – Inese Bursevica. The State Language Centre consists of three departments. Administrative Department. Administrative department is  responsible for the organization of the administrative matters (personnel, legal matters, record keeping, management of information systems) as well as prepares and executes necessary documentation. Language Control Department. Language Control Department consists of two branches – Riga Branch of the Language Control Department and Regional Branch of the Language Control Department. Language Control Department has the following functions: Terminology and Legal Translation Department. Terminology and Legal Translation Department (and Legal Translation Division), within the scope of their functions, participates in the translation process of the legal acts of the Republic of Latvia, documentation related to the NATO) and other international legal  acts. The department prepares and issues various methodological materials and other guidelines to ensure the quality of translations. Terminology and Legal Translation Department have the following functions: Latvian Language Expert Commission. The Latvian Language Expert Commission, on a regular basis, examines the compliance of norms provided for in laws and regulations to regularities of the Latvian language, codifies norms of the literary language, provides opinions on various language issues, for example, the use of capital letters in the names of establishments, the spelling of internationally recognised names of countries and territories, the spelling of house names and numbers, the spelling  of addresses, the spelling of languages and language groups in the Latvian language in compliance with the requirements of ISO 639-2 etc. The Commission has prepared several draft legal acts and has participated in the formation of the normative basis for the Official Language Law. The Latvian Language Expert Commission has two sub-commissions: Sub-commissions for Place- names and Latgalian Written Language. Calendar Names Expert Commission. The Calendar Names Expert Commission deals with the person names and their inclusion into the calendar.