- By the Imperial census of 1897. In bold are languages spoken by more people than the state language.
| Language | Number | percentage (%) | males | females |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Latvian | 507 511 | 75.29 | 240 672 | 266 839 |
| German | 51 017 | 7.56 | 23 372 | 27 645 |
| Yiddish | 37 689 | 5.59 | 18 137 | 19 552 |
| Russian | 25 630 | 3.8 | 16 319 | 9 311 |
| Polish | 19 688 | 2.92 | 9 985 | 9 703 |
| Lithuanian | 16 531 | 2.45 | 8 833 | 7 698 |
| Belarusian | 12 283 | 1.82 | 6 356 | 5 927 |
| Romani | 1 202 | 0.17 | 581 | 621 |
| Persons that didn't name their native language |
5 | >0.01 | 4 | 1 |
| Other | 2 478 | 0.36 | 1 993 | 485 |
| Total | 674 034 | 100 | 326 252 | 347 782 |
Read more about this topic: Courland Governorate
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“An art whose medium is language will always show a high degree of critical creativeness, for speech is itself a critique of life: it names, it characterizes, it passes judgment, in that it creates.”
—Thomas Mann (1875–1955)
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“Syntax and vocabulary are overwhelming constraints—the rules that run us. Language is using us to talk—we think we’re using the language, but language is doing the thinking, we’re its slavish agents.”
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