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Latvian

Latvian

Summary

Latvian is natively spoken by about 1.1 million people, primarily in Latvia, where it is the official language. It is integral to Latvian cultural identity, known for its rich tradition of folklore, traditional music, and celebrations such as Midsummer's Eve. Written in the Latin alphabet, Latvian grammar features a subject-verb-object (SVO) word order, extensive use of cases for nouns, and a system of verb conjugations that indicate tense, aspect, and mood.

Stats

  • Language Family: Indo-European

  • Writing System: Latin

  • Writing System Type: Alphabet

  • Writing Direction: L to R

  • Tones / Pitch Accent: N

  • Morphology: Fusional

  • Cases: 7

  • Grammatical Gender / Noun Class: 2

  • Number of Verb Tenses: 3

  • Word Order: SVO

  • Number of Vowels (Monophthongs): 10

  • Number of Consonants: 24

Areas Where Spoken

  • Latvia (official) (56.3%) (1.06 mil)

Resources

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