Latgalian language can mean one of the following:
- It was a language spoken by Latgalians in a great part of the area which is now Latvia. Latgalian was a member of the Baltic group of the Indo-European language family. Historically the Latvian language is derived from Latgalian (with additions from a few other languages, e.g. Old Curonian, Semigallian and Livonian).
- Nowadays it normally refers to a language spoken in Latgale, the eastern part of Latvia. Sometimes it is referred to as a distinct separate language, while others consider it to be a dialect of Latvian. This modern Latgalian developed as a result of two main factors: Latgalians having preserved more features of the archaic (tribal) Latgalian language than the other Latvians and Latgale being separated for several centuries from other parts of Latvia.
Read more about Latgalian Language: History, Classification, Geographic Distribution, Official Status, Dialects, Alphabet, Language Examples, Comparison Between Latvian, Latgalian and Lithuanian
Famous quotes containing the word language:
“The reader uses his eyes as well as or instead of his ears and is in every way encouraged to take a more abstract view of the language he sees. The written or printed sentence lends itself to structural analysis as the spoken does not because the reader’s eye can play back and forth over the words, giving him time to divide the sentence into visually appreciated parts and to reflect on the grammatical function.”
—J. David Bolter (b. 1951)