| Latvian alphabet | |
| Native Name: | Latvian: Latviešu alfabēts |
| Type: | Alphabet |
| Languages: | Latvian |
| Time: | 1908 – present |
| Fam5: | Old Italic scripts |
| Children: | Latgalian alphabet |
| Unicode: | Subset of Latin |
The modern Latvian orthography is based on Latin script adapted to phonetic principles, following the pronunciation of the language. The standard alphabet consists of 33 letters – 22 unmodified Latin letters and 11 modified by diacritics. It was developed by the Knowledge Commission of the Riga Latvian Association in 1908, and was approved the same year by the orthography commission under the leadership of Kārlis Mīlenbahs and Jānis Endzelīns.[1] It was introduced by law from 1920 to 1922 in the Republic of Latvia.
Latvian orthography historically used a system based upon German phonetic principles, while the Latgalian dialect was written using Polish orthographic principles.
The modern Latvian standard alphabet consists of 33 letters, 22 unmodified letters of the Latin alphabet and additional 11 modified by diacritics.
| Majuscule forms (also called uppercase or capital letters) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| width=15 | A | Ā | B | C | Č | D | E | Ē | width=15 | F | G | Ģ | H | I | Ī | J | K | width=15 | Ķ | L | Ļ | M | N | Ņ | O | P | width=15 | R | S | Š | T | U | Ū | V | Z | Ž |
| Minuscule forms (also called lowercase or small letters) | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| a | ā | b | c | č | d | e | ē | f | g | ģ | h | i | ī | j | k | ķ | l | ļ | m | n | ņ | o | p | r | s | š | t | u | ū | v | z | ž | ||||
| Names of Letters | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| a | garais ā | bē | cē | čē | dē | e | garais ē | ef | gā | ģē | hā | i | garais ī | jē | kā | ķē | el | eļ | em | en | eņ | o | pē | er | es | eš | tē | u | garais ū | vē | zē | žē | ||||
The letters C, S and Z, which in unmodified form are pronounced pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/ respectively, can be marked with a caron. These marked letters, Č, Š and Ž are pronounced pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/ respectively.
The letters Ģ, Ķ, Ļ and Ņ are written with a cedilla or a small comma placed below (or, in the case of the lowercase g, above). They are modified (palatalized) versions of G, K, L and N and represent the sounds pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ and pronounced as /link/ respectively.
In alphabetical sorting, the letters Č, Š, Ž, Ģ, Ķ, Ļ and Ņ are collated separately from their unmodified counterparts, but Ā, Ē, Ī, and Ū are usually collated as plain A, E, I, U.
The letters F and H appear only in loanwords.[2] However, they are common enough in modern Latvian, more common than Ž, Ģ, Ķ, or Č.[3]
Historically the letters CH, Ō and Ŗ were also used in the Latvian alphabet. The last of these stood for the palatalized dental trill pronounced as //rʲ// which is still used in some dialects (mainly outside Latvia) but not in the standard language, and hence the letter Ŗ was finally removed from the alphabet on 5 June 1946, when the Latvian SSR legislature passed a regulation that officially replaced it with R in print.[4] A spelling reform replacing Ŗ with R, CH with H, and Ō with O, was enacted in 1938,[5] but then Ŗ and CH were reinstated in 1939,[6] Ō was reinstated in 1940,[7] Ŗ and Ō were finally removed in 1946[8] and CH was finally removed in 1957.[9]
The letters CH, Ō and Ŗ continue to be used in print throughout most of the Latvian diaspora communities, whose founding members left their homeland before the post-World War II Soviet-era language reforms. An example of a publication in Latvia today, albeit one aimed at the Latvian diaspora, that uses the older orthography—including the letters CH, Ō and Ŗ—is the weekly newspaper Brīvā Latvija.
The Latgalian language (variously considered a separate language or a dialect of Latvian) adds two extra letters to this standard set: Ō and Y.
The Latvian alphabet lacks Q (kū), W (dubultvē), X (iks) and Y (igrek). These letters are not used in Latvian for writing foreign personal and geographical names; instead they are adapted to Latvian phonology, orthography, and morphology, e. g. Džordžs Volkers Bušs (George Walker Bush). However, these four letters can be used in mathematics and sometimes in brand names.
Latvian has a phonetic spelling. There are only a few exceptions to this:
Latvian orthography also uses digraphs Dz, Dž and Ie.
| a | pronounced as /link/ | like father, but shorter | |
| ā | pronounced as /link/ | car | |
| e | pronounced as /link/ | elephant | |
| pronounced as /link/ | map | ||
| ē | pronounced as /link/ | similar to play | |
| pronounced as /link/ | like bad, but longer | ||
| i | pronounced as /link/ | Between it and eat | |
| ī | pronounced as /link/ | each | |
| o | pronounced as /[u[[Slack voice|ɔ̯̯]]]/ | tour (some dialects) | |
| pronounced as /link/ | not (some dialects) | ||
| pronounced as /link/ | though; boat | ||
| u | pronounced as /link/ | between look and Luke | |
| ū | pronounced as /link/ | you |
| b | pronounced as /link/ | brother | |
| c | pronounced as /link/ | like cats, with the tongue touching the teeth | |
| č | pronounced as /link/ | chair | |
| d | pronounced as /link/ | like door, with the tongue touching the teeth | |
| dz | pronounced as /link/ | like lids, with the tongue touching the teeth | |
| dž | pronounced as /link/ | jog | |
| f | pronounced as /link/ | finger | |
| g | pronounced as /link/ | gap | |
| ģ | pronounced as /link/ | between duty (without yod-dropping) and argue | |
| h | pronounced as /link/ | loch (Scottish English) | |
| j | pronounced as /link/ | yawn | |
| k | pronounced as /link/ | cat | |
| ķ | pronounced as /link/ | between stupid (without yod-dropping) and skew | |
| l | pronounced as /link/ | lamp | |
| ļ | pronounced as /link/ | similar to William | |
| m | pronounced as /link/ | male | |
| n | pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /link/ | like nail, with the tongue touching the teeth, or sing | |
| ņ | pronounced as /link/ | jalapeño | |
| p | pronounced as /link/ | peace | |
| r | pronounced as /link/, pronounced as /[rʲ]/ | rolled r, like Spanish perro or Scottish English curd | |
| s | pronounced as /link/ | like sock, with the tongue touching the teeth | |
| š | pronounced as /link/ | shadow | |
| t | pronounced as /link/ | like table, with the tongue touching the teeth | |
| v | pronounced as /link/ | vacuum | |
| z | pronounced as /link/ | like zebra, with the tongue touching the teeth | |
| ž | pronounced as /link/ | vision |
The old orthography was based on that of German and did not represent the Latvian language phonemically. At the beginning it was used to write religious texts for German priests to help them in their work with Latvians. The first writings in Latvian were chaotic: there were as many as twelve variations of writing Š. In 1631 the German priest Georg Mancelius tried to systematize the writing. He wrote long vowels according to their position in the word — a short vowel followed by h for a radical vowel, a short vowel in the suffix and vowel with a diacritic mark in the ending indicating two different accents. Consonants were written following the example of German with multiple letters. The old orthography was used until the 20th century when it was slowly replaced by the modern orthography.
Lack of software support of diacritics has caused an unofficial style of orthography, often called translit, to emerge for use in situations when the user is unable to access Latvian diacritic marks on the computer or using cell phone. It uses only letters of the ISO basic Latin alphabet, and letters not used in standard orthography are usually omitted. In this style, diacritics are replaced by digraphs:
Some people may find it difficult to use such methods and either write without any indication of missing diacritic marks or use digraphs only if the diacritic mark in question would make a semantic difference.[11] There is yet another style, sometimes called "Pokémonism" (In Latvian Internet slang "Pokémon" is derogatory for adolescent), characterised by use of some elements of leet, use of non-Latvian letters (particularly w and x instead of v and ks), use of c instead of ts, use of z in endings, and use of mixed case.
The IETF language tags have registered a subtag for the old orthography ([12] for Fraktur)
Standard QWERTY computer keyboards are used for writing in Latvian; diacritics are entered by using a dead key (usually or). Some keyboard layouts use the modifier key, usually placed immediately to the right of the (most notable of such is the Windows 2000 and XP built-in Latvian QWERTY layout).
On macOS, diacritics can be entered by holding down the key followed by the respective letters from their unaccented counterparts (including the obsolete letters):
In the early 1990s, the Latvian ergonomic keyboard layout was developed. Although this layout may be available with language support software, it has not become popular due to lack of keyboards with such a configuration.