Latgalian language

Latgalian is spoken in Latgale, the eastern part of Latvia. It is debated whether it is a separate language or a dialect of Latvian. Its standardized form is recognized and protected as a variety of Latvian language by Latvian law.

History

Originally Latgalians were a tribe living in modern Vidzeme and Latgale. It is thought that they spoke the Latvian language, which later spread through the rest of the modern Latvia, absorbing features of Old Curonian, Semigallian, Selonian and Livonian languages. The modern Latgale became politically separated during the Polish–Swedish wars, remaining part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as Inflanty Voivodeship, while the rest of Latvians lived in lands dominated by Baltic German nobility. Both centuries of separate development and the influence of different prestige languages likely contributed to the development of modern Latgalian as distinct from the language spoken in Vidzeme and other parts of Latvia.

The modern Latgalian language literary tradition started to develop in the 18th century from vernaculars spoken by Latvians in the eastern part of Latvia. The first surviving book published in Latgalian is "Evangelia toto anno" (Gospels for the whole year) in 1753. The first systems of orthography were borrowed from Polish and used Antiqua letters. It was very different from the German-influenced orthography, usually written in Blackletter or Gothic script, used for the Latvian language in the rest of Latvia. Many Latgalian books in late 18th and early 19th century were authored by Jesuit priests, who came from various European countries to Latgale as the north-eastern outpost of the Roman Catholic religion; their writings included religious literature, calendars and poetry.