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The charts below show the way in which the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) represents Latvian language pronunciations in Wikipedia articles.

See Latvian phonology for a more thorough look at the sounds of Latvian.

Lithuanian, Latvian and Livonian
Both Lithuanian and Latvian are considered to be pitch languages. Long segments in Lithuanian can take one of two pitches – either rising or falling pitch. "Long segments" are defined as either long vowels, diphthongs or a sequence of a vowel followed by a sonorant if they are in a stressed position. The pitch can serve as the only distinguishing characteristic for minimal pairs that are otherwise orthographically identical, e.g., kar̃tų 'time:gen.pl' vs. kártų 'hang:irr.3' (falling and rising pitch indicated by a tilde and an acute accent respectively.)

In Latvian long segments (the same criteria as in Lithuanian) can take on one of three pitches (intonācijas or more specifically zilbes intonācijas) either stiepta ("level"), lauzta ("broken") or krītoša ("falling") indicated by Latvian linguists with a tilde, circumflex or a grave accent respectively (in IPA, however, the tilde is replaced by a macron because the former is already reserved to denote nasalized vowels.) Arguably the only of the three Latvian pitches that corresponds to Lithuanian is the falling pitch. And, indeed, some authors note that the level pitch is realized simply as "ultra long" (or "overlong,") perhaps, without any pitch accent whatsoever, and that the "broken" pitch is, in fact, a falling pitch with supperadded glottalization. And, indeed, the similarity between the Latvian lauztā intonācija ("broken pitch") and Danish stød has been noted by several authors. It should be noted that, at least in Danish phonology, stød, (unlike Norwegian and Swedish pitch accents,) is not considered a pitch accent distinction but, rather, variously described as either glottalization, laryngealization, creaky voice or vocal fry. Some authors point out that the so called broken pitch is not a pitch accent but a pitch register similar to the ngã register of Northern Vietnamese. See Non-Asian in Register (phonology)

Outside of Central Vidzeme (Standard Latvian) the three-way system has been simplified, in Eastern Latvian (Latgale) only broken and falling pitches are distinguished. Speakers of Rīga Latvian and other more westward varieties differentiate only between level and broken pitches with the falling pitch being merged with the broken one. Thus the Standard Latvian "minimal triplet" or "minimal set" of (hall),  (grass) and  (medicine) in Rīga Latvian would be reduced to "hall" (level pitch) and "grass" (broken pitch) and "medicine" would be pronounced with a broken pitch just like "grass."

In late 19. century the Danish linguist Vilhelm Thomsen in the speech of a Livonian sailor identified a characteristic that for him seemed very similar to the Danish stød, this feature was later the subject of research by several Finno-Ugricists. Although the (Indo-European) Latvian and (Uralic) Livonian are phylogenetically unrelated (being from different language families) both have influenced each other heavily in terms of phonology. Whether Livonian acquired this feature from Latvian or vice versa is debated, however, owing to the fact that Livonian is the only Finno-Ugric language to have this feature, the majority of researchers believe it has been a product of Latvian influence on Livonian and not the other way around. It should be noted that "Livonian stød" would be classified as a pitch accent only by Latvian classification just like the identical Latvian lauztā intonācija, otherwise it would be considered a pitch register, glottalization or similar categories as discussed above.

Table

 * ⟨o⟩ in Latvian orthography is almost always read as a diphthong -, cf. Lithuanian nuoma and Latvian noma. and it's long counterpart, , are only encountered in loanwords.


 * Vowel length ratio is about 1/2.5. Vowel length is phonemic and plays an important role in the language. For example koka means 'made of wood', kokā  means 'on the tree'; pile  means 'a drop', and pīle  means 'a duck'.


 * Devoicing: voiced consonants are often proceeded by the masculine ending -s, in which case they are devoiced, e.g., smags →, voiced fricatives, e.g., or  would be devoiced to  or  and pronounced long, mazs →  and mežs → . Also, in compounds, labprātīgs →  or alternatively .  Also, vice-versa, an unvoiced consonant in a compound followed by a voiced consonant will become voiced, e.g., atdarīt →  or . While devoicing should be shown (as in ), gemination/lengthening of consonants (as in ) is usually foregone, transcribing Latvian in IPA (see below).


 * The sounds denoted by letters ⟨f⟩ and ⟨h⟩ do not occur natively in Latvian. Latvian value for the letter ⟨h⟩ is, however, according to some, it is the more "throaty" , as in Russian. Latvian speakers familiar with Russian pronunciation may realize, e.g., Russian colloquialisms with this sound but usually ⟨h⟩ is realized less "phlegmy," i.e., closer to in Latvian.

Geminate consonants
At the time of its inception, a conscious decision was made that Latvian orthography does not need to show gemination/lengthening of consonants because - there would be no practical benefit of doing so. Nevertheless single consonants (as opposed to consonant clusters) in an intervocalic position with the vowel of the stressed syllable being short are always long, e.g., Atis would be ⟨attis⟩ and aka would be ⟨akka⟩ or and. Transcribing Latvian in IPA, however, consonant length is usually not indicated.

Tone
Standard Latvian has three tones, by convention called, the level (stiepts), broken (lauzts) and falling (krītošs,) indicated by a tilde (~), circumflex (^) or grave (`) accents respectively. Different tones are distinguished if the stressed syllable (the first syllable, in most all cases) has either a long vowel or a diphthong, short vowels do not take on different tones, neither do unstressed syllables. In some cases the tone can be predicted, monosyllabic words with long consonant clusters, e.g., saukts, sīksts, etc., will have a broken tone: and. In other cases it's used to distinguish between (among) near-homographs or near-homophones, e.g., auksts having a level tone but augsts a broken tone, the falling tone is sometimes used to distinguish a third meaning of a homograph, see for example tā or zāle.

In Rīga Latvian the falling tone has been syncretized with the broken (meaning, its users distinguish only the level and broken and perceive the falling tone as broken.) In Eastern Latvian (Latgalian) dialects all tones may be realized as broken, in other words, an absence of tone.

Tone is usually omitted transcribing Latvian in IPA, English Wiktionary for its Latvian entries, however, uses the Latvian notation of tilde, circumflex or grave accent where necessary.