Talk:Latgalian language

Untitled
'Latgalian' presumably refers ....
 * Should encyclopedias include presumptions? - Research the facts or delete.--Doc Glasgow 23:24, 1 May 2005 (UTC)

Dubious facts and controversional point of view!!!
Can you please give citations to this paragraph. On what grounds is made statement about tribal language preservation and notation of latgalian language, that clearly contradicts Official status paragraph: ''2. Nowadays it normally refers to a language spoken in Latgale, the eastern part of Latvia. Sometimes it is referred to as a distinct separate language, while others consider it to be a dialect of Latvian. This modern Latgalian developed as a result of two main factors: Latgalians having preserved more features of the archaic (tribal) Latgalian language than the other Latvians and Latgale being separated for several centuries from other parts of Latvia.''

First of all - Latvia in such small territory have many hundreds of small nuanced dialects. I haven't seen any maps of latvian dialect isoglos map on wiki, but it really should be added there, so latgalian wouldn't look like unique and different... Eastern Latvia have really many different dialects, but they all are heavily influenced by russian and polish languages that happened during separation from rest of Latvia - as an addition to the fact that this region has highest nonlatvian inhabitant proportion, where latvians were diminishing over time. Note the fact - historical area of historical letts/latvji was twice as large than modern Latgale and they spoke language, that was heavily influenced by finno-ugric and later german influenced language as rest of Livonian letts. For example - bērns/bārns both have the same germanic bairn origin and appears both in literal latvian and latgalian - vowel shift is nothing special in latvian - sudrabs/sidrabs are both same and understandable in latvian. The later differences of eastern letts happened after Livonian division, which was heavily subjected to polonization and russification and at the same time was accompanied by high influx of both Poland and Russian settlers.

I just noticed, that to latvians and latvian language erroneously is applied term: baltic(baļtīši/baltieši) in latgalian dictionary. Look, guys - you are going on narrow bridge here, because in Latvia already are some precendents in ligustics, like correct pronouncation of Īslande(Iceland) and ebrejs/žīds(hebrew/jewish) terms and you really need to grow up and research how this term was originated and respect latvians(also completelly dropping coarse term čiuļi that is widely applied to latvians), if you really are so serious about your own heritage. This term originated from Russian empire, when RUSSIANS applied term Baltic to Livonian guberniyas and named them as Baltic gubernyas and modern Latgale at that time was added to Vitebsk gubernya(up till that point it was called Inflantia - modified Livonia name in Polish language). Russians even nowadays call Baltic states Pribaltica and even today they call latvians pribaltijci(in 18th century russian writer works is preserved term baltijci) and applies the same term to ests and lithuanians. The term baļtīši is degraded over times and in Latgale it applies just to latvians - I see sense, that local russians were applying it to latvians, but this behaviour is not justified to people who associate themselves as indigenous inhabitants.

Ancient letts were taller than selonians or whatever who lived there before them and they differed from previous inhabitants, also because they had bigger cephalic index - in fact ALL latgalians(both Vidzeme and Latgale) who has not mixed with later incomers have this different archaical racial feature of ancient eastern balts - most of them nowadays inhabit Vidzeme and you can see similar traits both in Latgale and Vidzeme, but this doesn't applies to later russian or other nonlatvian inhabitants.

Separation of language and territory in these times should be seen as politics and manipulations of Russia and run-out by Soviet era immigrants as a legacy of russification politics, especially with territory that is overrun by big share of non-native inhabitants. This is not a new problem - I WOULD really like to see this mentioned, that LATGALIAN LANGUAGE and LATGALE SEPARATION quite often is supported by ethnic non-latvian deputats of Saeima - you can find links in internet russian newspapers, where sometimes there are mentioned treats to make Latgale as Pridnestrovia... and the only reason why it(Moldova and Transistria) is separated, because Russia didn't gave blessing for Moldova to join Romania(Moldova had to join СНГ instead). Also there is new latvian ethnicity creation trend in progress by russian inhabitants where parallely is created new terminology for all people(and legitimize Soviet era immigrants), like latvijci or brand new latgaļci, which seems to be evolution in name as latgalīši to differ from ancient? latgaļi(wiki description makes no sense, because ancient inhabitants were called lati by estonians or letts by germans) are created to blend in any nonhistorical ethnicities as indigenous inhabitants and support ambiguous claims.

Latgale today has ~300 000 inhabitants. There is big russian share of population, which is 39%. Note, that before Soviet occupation there were 60% latvians, but currently they are ~44%(and currently Latvia has approximatelly the same population as before WW2, but with smaller latvian count and percentage share and all this is thanks to WW2 and before and afterwards deportations by Soviet occupations - latvians after 80 years are still less than they were before losing independence. 72% of latvians in Latgale declared that they are using latgalian. Also 12% of Latgalian russians declared that they are using latgalian in everyday use - total that makes ~100 000 people(35,5%) in Latgale, who declared, that they are using latgalian. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 94.171.13.70 (talk) 05:04, 19 August 2012 (UTC)

Interesting fact
I found interesting story about Latgalians of Siberia - there is place called Timofejevka, were they are speaking in distinct dialect (they don`t understand latvian and latgalian of Latvia also is hard for them) presumably they are speaking as people in Latvia used to speak 100-150 years ago. So I thought that it is worth noticing. -- Xil - talk 03:10, 1 February 2006 (UTC) There are some people here, but it is said, that they language are no more distinctive, than latgalian in Latvia. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Edo 555 (talk • contribs) 16:44, 31 March 2008 (UTC)


 * Latgalians from Timofejevka, when visiting in Latvia, can easily communicate with older generations of Latgalians living in Latvia. However, many young people from Latgola (Eastern Latvia) tend to use Western Latvian vocabulary combined with Latgalian sound system in their everyday speech. This product of assimilation is basically a new mixed "language" and as such is difficult to understand for Latgalians coming from Timofejevka because the latter have never learned Western Latvian language in school or experienced any other contact with Western Latvian language (e. g., TV or newspapers). Obviously, Latgalians from Timofejevka are not able to communicate in Western Latvian language, i.e. standard Latvian. Stiernīts (talk) 16:37, 10 April 2011 (UTC)

Two meanings
If they are two different languages, we need two different articles and two different infoboxes. ---Alexander 007 06:11, 19 February 2006 (UTC)

Language or dialect
First I was uncertain, whether to revert the last politically motivated changes, as the topic seems to be discussable, but decided to do so, when I saw, that the law text had been tampered with as well.

"Valsts nodrošina latgaliešu rakstu valodas kā vēsturiska latviešu valodas paveida saglabāšanu, aizsardzību un attīstību". --Gf1961 16:53, 22 February 2006 (UTC)

Split
It is abnormal that this page covers two different languages, therefore I suggest to split all parts of the article related to modern Latgalian, which generaly is concidered a dialect of Latvian, into new article called Latgalian dialect Xil/talk 15:00, 11 April 2007 (UTC)


 * I disagree. Consider the articles on Languages of France, e.g. Burgundian language. One would just muddy the waters further by splitting ancient Latgalian from the modern regional language/dialect. --Pēteris Cedriņš 12:23, 12 April 2007 (UTC)
 * But one of these articles is about every language spoken in France (today and I don't see any dialects there) and the other one is disambiguation page. Consider that other extinct baltic languages have seperate articles. In my oppinion it is allready very muddy and spliting would work as seperating water and sand - it mixes together two languages, how can one, who isn't fammiliar with the matter, sort out which of the languages the is meant when ? (since I'm not sure if I'm explaining myself correctly in english - kā gan kāds ārzemnieks, nejauši uzdūries šim rakstam, lai saprot par ko ir raksts, ja vienā vietā runāts par letgaļu valodu, citā - par latgaliešu ?) Xil/talk 19:14, 16 April 2007 (UTC)


 * There are indeed separate concepts - Latgalian language usualy refers to a standardized version of written language of one region in Latvia (this concept is also called in Latvian "latgaliešu rakstu valoda" - i.e. "Latgalian written language"). Another thing is Latgalian dialect of Latvian language (a set of vernaculars spoken in this region; some of them have been the sources of the written standardized Latgalian language; this concept is called "augšemnieku/latgaliešu dialekti" - "dialects of upper-land Latvians, Latgalians"). And then there is the language presumably spoken by an ancient tribe of "Letgals", but very little is known about them.


 * The bulk of the current article is about the standard "Latgalian (written) language". Whenever there are other uses, it is clearly indicated. Splitting away the dialect and ancient language at this point would only cause the confusion. 81.198.191.244 19:10, 19 June 2007 (UTC)


 * Given that "Latgalian written language" is mentioned in (official translation of) Latvian language law I decided that this is better idea than dialect and changed suggested title in tag. I think Selonian subdialect of Highlander dialect are not concidered Latgalian, thus Latgalian maybe only one vernacular, which is simmilar to this written Language,l but I don't know for sure. I still don't see how split might be more confusing then current situation - this article doesn't state anywhere that most of it concerns modern Language, It has no proper introduction section, which would summ up the article, but an disambiguation page styled announcment that Latgalian language can refer to several things, thus it even isn't clearly stated what the scope of article is. Xil/talk 09:31, 25 June 2007 (UTC)


 * I think it would be more informative to keep all "senses" of Latgalian together. The discussion here is probably not a bad start for a more complete introduction. Unfortunately, my copy of "Baltiešu valodas" (translated from a work in Italian as I recall) is packed away at the moment, so I can't offer a lot in terms of reference. I probably don't have the title quite right, but it's a current publication and should be available at Jāņa Rozes grāmatnīca or Valters un Rapa&mdash;I'm pretty sure I picked it up at the former. &mdash; Pēters J. Vecrumba 21:09, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * Fine, I removed proposal, though I still think it ain't good for the article. It's Baltu valodas, Pēter, author is Pjerto Umberto Dini (I'm not quite sure though, if I got his first name right), but as far I remember it din't say much about Latgalian -- Xil/talk 21:48, 27 August 2007 (UTC)
 * About that book (FYI) - I looked trough it, there is not much, I made some notes, but anyway - you won't learn more about Latgalian from this book, don't look for it, if it's all you need. Besides I think it might not be in shops anymore - it was published in 2000, I bought it two or three years ago and I haven't seen it recently Xil/talk 19:02, 31 August 2007 (UTC)

ltg not a valid three-letter identifier
Hallo! See http://www.sil.org/iso639-3/documentation.asp?id=ltg
 * The supplied value for the code parameter is not a valid three-letter identifier. It must be a three character sequence including only the letters a through z.

Best regards

‫·‏לערי ריינהארט‏·‏T‏·‏m‏:‏Th‏·‏T‏·‏email me‏·‏‬ 04:50, 4 March 2008 (UTC)

ltg is now a valid three letter identifier
SIL as the maintainer of the ISO-639-3 has published ltg as a valid code for Latgalian.. Thanks, GerardM (talk) 21:44, 22 January 2010 (UTC)

todo
There must be writen, that latgalian have one more wovel sound - y, and something about grammar differences, not only differences in vocabulary. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.190.44.4 (talk) 17:24, 15 April 2008 (UTC)

Question
I seen examples of basic latgalian words. I think that most of them are more similar to lithuanian, than latvian... I am rigft? User:PostFactum/talk 2008-12-10 14.53(UTC)


 * Personally, once you dig under the covers, Latvian, Latgalian, and Lithuanian are all quite closely related although the WP article states "while related," Lativan and Lithuanian (and ancient Prussian) are "not mutually intelligible." With practice, when it's been needed, I've done better with Latgalian than Lithuanian, though I've managed to read both (picking up vocabulary, at least temporarily!). Latgalian and Lithuanian--as well as other regional Latvian dialects--have more archaic word endings and have picked up fewer loan words than Latvian (primarily the result of the influence of Riga being a centuries-old hub for Baltic trade). Latvian also underwent standardization in the 1930's which would have institutionalized more "modern" syntax. Where Latvian words differ from similar ones in Latgalian and Lithuanian (i.e., the original root word), that root word usually still exists in Latvian, but in secondary use or ancillary meaning.
 * As for a more scholarly answer, unfortunately, the best modern text on the Baltic languages is a work in Italian. Go figure! PētersV (talk) 20:21, 10 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Still, choice of words used for examples may give someone a wrong idea, as it did already. It would be nice if someone will find and add less misleading examples, that do not sway towards Latvian or Lithuanian, because now it just seems that the author tries to show how Latgalian is different from Latvian, and is a separate language instead of being a dialect. Seraphiel Darkstar (talk) 13:07, 29 November 2010 (UTC)
 * I did update the table, mainly it was missing alternate valid Latvian vocabulary which matched the Latgalian and Lithuanian, or did not indicate where Latvian had taken on German loan words. So, yes, there did appear to be some impetus to make out Latgalian to be a different language, as Lithuanian is considered a different language from Latvian. P ЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 19:11, 22 April 2011 (UTC)

Latgalian in Latgalian
"latgaliešu valoda" (Latvian) = Latgalian language = "latgalīšu volūda" (Latgalian). It would have been easier if the editor inserting/reverting had indicated the same, I went off to do my own digging. P ЄTЄRS J V ►TALK 23:36, 20 April 2011 (UTC)

External links modified
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 * Added archive https://web.archive.org/20050307003315/http://isec.gov.lv:80/normdok/vvallik.htm to http://isec.gov.lv/normdok/vvallik.htm

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