- 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:
“Denotation by means of sounds and markings is a remarkable abstraction. Three letters designate God for me; several lines a million things. How easy becomes the manipulation of the universe here, how evident the concentration of the intellectual world! Language is the dynamics of the spiritual realm. One word of command moves armies; the word liberty entire nations.”
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“Because language is the carrier of ideas, it is easy to believe that it should be very little else than such a carrier.”
—Louise Bogan (1897–1970)
“The writer’s language is to some degree the product of his own action; he is both the historian and the agent of his own language.”
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