Latvian orthography

Latvian Alpha bet Latviešu alfabēts
Script type	Alphabet
Time period	1908 – present
Languages	Latvian
Related scripts
Parent systems	Egyptian hieroglyphs Proto-Sinaitic Alpha bet Phoenician Alpha bet Greek Alpha bet Old Italic scripts Latin Alpha bet Czech Alpha bet Latvian Alpha bet
Child systems	Latgalian Alpha bet
Unicode
Unicode range	Subset ofLatin

The modernLatvianorthographyis based onLatin scriptadapted to phonetic principles, following thepronunciation of the language.The standard Alpha bet consists of 33 letters – 22 unmodified Latin letters and 11 modified bydiacritics.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 ofKārlis MīlenbahsandJānis Endzelīns.It was introduced by law from 1920 to 1922 in the Republic of Latvia.

Latvian orthography historically used a system based uponGermanphoneticprinciples, while the Latgalian dialect was written usingPolish orthographicprinciples.

Alphabet

The modern Latvian standard Alpha bet consists of 33 letters, 22 unmodified letters of the Latin Alpha bet and additional 11 modified by diacritics.

Majuscule forms(also calleduppercaseorcapital 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

Minuscule forms(also calledlowercaseorsmall 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 vowel lettersA,E,IandUcan take amacronto show length, unmodified letters being short.

The lettersC,SandZ,which in unmodified form are pronounced[ts],[s]and[z]respectively, can be marked with acaron.These marked letters,Č,ŠandŽare pronounced[tʃ],[ʃ]and[ʒ]respectively.

The lettersĢ,Ķ,ĻandŅare written with acedillaor a smallcomma placed below(or, in the case of the lowercaseg,above). They are modified (palatalized) versions ofG,K,LandNand represent the sounds[ɟ],[c],[ʎ]and[ɲ]respectively.

In Alpha betical sorting, the lettersČ,Š,Ž,Ģ,Ķ,ĻandŅarecollatedseparately from their unmodified counterparts, butĀ,Ē,Ī,andŪare usually collated as plainA,E,I,U.

The lettersFandHappear only inloanwords.However, they are common enough in modern Latvian, more common thanŽ,Ģ,Ķ,orČ.

Obsolete letters

Historically the lettersCH,ŌandŖwere also used in the Latvian Alpha bet. The last of these stood for the palatalized dental trill/rʲ/which is still used in some dialects (mainly outside Latvia) but not in the standard language, and hence the letterŖwas finally removed from the Alpha bet on 5 June 1946, when theLatvian SSRlegislature passed a regulation that officially replaced it withRin print.A spelling reform replacingŖwithR,CHwithH,andŌwithO,was enacted in 1938,but thenŖandCHwere reinstated in 1939,Ōwas reinstated in 1940,ŖandŌwere finally removed in 1946andCHwas finally removed in 1957.

The lettersCH,ŌandŖcontinue 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 lettersCH,ŌandŖ—is the weekly newspaperBrīvā Latvija.

Latgalian Alpha bet

Further information:Latgalian language § Alphabet

TheLatgalian language(variously considered a separate language or a dialect of Latvian) adds two extra letters to this standard set:ŌandY.

Spelling of foreign names

Further information:Latvian name § Spelling

The Latvian Alpha bet lacksQ(kū),W(dubultvē),X(iks) andY(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.

Sound–spelling correspondences

Latvian has a phonetic spelling. There are only a few exceptions to this:

• The letterEand its long variationĒ,which are used to write two sounds that represent the short and long versions of either[ɛ]or[æ]respectively:ēdu(/ɛː/,I ate) vs.ēdu(/æː/,I eat) anddzer(/ɛ/,2sg, you drink) vs.dzer(/æ/,3sg, s/he drinks)
• The letterOindicates both the short and long[ɔ],and thediphthong[uɔ̯].These three sounds are written asO,ŌandUoinLatgalian,and some Latvians campaign for the adoption of this system in standard Latvian.However, the majority of Latvian linguists argue thatoandōare found only in loanwords, with theUosound being the only native Latvian phoneme. The digraphUowas discarded in 1914,and the letterŌhas not been used in the standard orthography since 1946.Example:robots[o] (a robot, noun) vs.robots[uo] (toothed; adjective);tols[o] (tolite; noun) vstols[uo] (hornless; adjective).
• Also, Latvian orthography does not distinguish intonation homographs:sējums[ē] (crops) vssējums[è] (book edition), tā (that, feminine) vs tā (this way, adverb).
• Positional sound changes are not indicated in writing. These include: consonant assimilation (bs>ps, cd>dzd, sč>šč,etc.), simplifying word-final consonant clusters (ts>c, šs>š), pronouncing word-final or pre-consonantal combinations "vowel+'j'" and "vowel+'v'" as diphthongs (aj>ai, av>au), prolonging voiceless obstruents between vowels (apa>appa). In these cases, the spelling of morphemes remains the same as in other environments:labs'good',piecdesmit'fifty',pusčetri'half past three',svešs'strange',tavs'your',lapa'leaf'.

Latvian orthography also uses digraphsDz,DžandIe.

Vowels

Grapheme	IPA	English approximation
a	ɑ	like father, butshorter
ā	ɑː	car
e	e	elephant
	æ	map
ē	eː	similar to play
	æː	like bad, butlonger
i	i	Betweenit andeat
ī	iː	each
o	[uɔ̯̯]	tour (some dialects)
	o	not (some dialects)
	oː	though;boat
u	u	between look and Luke
ū	uː	you

Consonants

Grapheme	IPA	English approximation
b	b	brother
c	t̪͡s̪	like cats,with the tongue touching the teeth
č	t͡ʃ	chair
d	d̪	likedoor, with the tongue touching the teeth
dz	d̪͡z̪	like lids,with the tongue touching the teeth
dž	d͡ʒ	jog
f	f	finger
g	ɡ	gap
ģ	ɟ	betweenduty (withoutyod-dropping) and argue
h	x	loch(Scottish English)
j	j	yawn
k	k	cat
ķ	c	between stupid (withoutyod-dropping) and skew
l	l	lamp
ļ	ʎ	similar to William
m	m	male
n	n̪,ŋ	likenail, with the tongue touching the teeth, or sing
ņ	ɲ	jalapeño
p	p	peace
r	r,[rʲ]	rolled r, likeSpanishperroor Scottish English curd
s	s̪	likesock, with the tongue touching the teeth
š	ʃ	shadow
t	t̪	liketable, with the tongue touching the teeth
v	v	vacuum
z	z̪	likezebra, with the tongue touching the teeth
ž	ʒ	vision

Old orthography

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 writingŠ.In 1631 the German priestGeorg Manceliustried to systematize the writing. He wrote long vowels according to their position in the word — a short vowel followed byhfor 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.

• 
  Newspaper advertisement, ca. late 19th or early 20th c., showing the use ofGerman scriptand German-influenced orthography
• 
  19th-century Latvian Alpha bet (upper)
• 
  Rules of the spelling reform of 1921

Computer encoding

Lack of software support of diacritics has caused an unofficial style of orthography, often calledtranslit,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 theISO basic Latin Alpha bet,and letters not used in standard orthography are usually omitted. In this style, diacritics are replaced by digraphs:

• ā,ē,ī,ū—aa,ee,ii,uu
• ļ,ņ,ģ,ķ—lj,nj,gj,kj
• š—sh(as well asss,sj,etc.)

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 asemanticdifference.There is yet another style, sometimes called "Pokémonism"(In LatvianInternet slang"Pokémon" is derogatory foradolescent), characterised by use of some elements ofleet,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 ofmixed case.

TheIETF language tagshave registered a subtag for the old orthography (lv-vecdruka,lv-Latf-vecdrukaforFraktur)

Keyboard

The rarely used Latvian ergonomic keyboard layout

StandardQWERTYcomputer keyboardsare used for writing in Latvian; diacritics are entered by using adead key(usually'or`). Somekeyboard layoutsuse theAltGrmodifier key,usually placed immediately to the right of thespace bar(most notable of such is the Windows 2000 and XP built-in Latvian QWERTY layout).

OnmacOS,diacritics can be entered by holding down the⌥ Optionkey followed by the respective letters from their unaccented counterparts (including the obsolete letters):

• ⌥ Option+A→ ā
• ⌥ Option+C→ č
• ⌥ Option+E→ ē
• ⌥ Option+G→ ģ
• ⌥ Option+I→ ī
• ⌥ Option+K→ ķ
• ⌥ Option+L→ ļ
• ⌥ Option+N→ ņ
• ⌥ Option+O→ ō
• ⌥ Option+R→ ŗ
• ⌥ Option+S→ š
• ⌥ Option+U→ ū
• ⌥ Option+Z→ ž

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.