The Latvian Alphabet

Of the 35 Latvian letter pairs, 22 letter pairs are common with the english language alphabet set. The remaining 13 Latvian letter pairs are a subset of the original 22 Latvian letter pairs with the addition of a "diacritic mark".

By substituting a "backward slash" ("\") for the "diacritic mark" in the diacritical letter, it is possible to search for names within a databank and remain sensitive to diacritical nuances.

To visualize the latvian alphabet, individual graphical images were created to represent one of each of the letter pairs, for a total of 70 images. All images are 10-18 pixels wide and 23 pixels high. Individual image sizes range from 100-120 bytes.

The resultant latvian alphabet image catalog and related encoding is shown below.

     
L a t v i a n     L e t t e r     E n c o d i n g

A a   \A \a B b     C c   \C \c D d     E e   \E \e F f

G g   \G \g H h     I i   \I \i J j     K k   \K \k

L l   \L \l M m     N n   \N \n     O o   \O \o P p

R r   \R \r     S s   \S \s T t     U u   \U \u V v     Z z   \Z \z

Examples:

Al\girts       A\l\girts
Mar\ite       M\ar\ite

From ai1.mii.lu.lv ... "Writing in Latvian" began just over 400 years ago.   Since World War II, two distinct orthographic traditions have evolved which are in common use today.   1.   orthography used by Latvians in Latvia   2.   orthography used by Latvians abroad R E F E R E N C E S Latvian Words with the Letter "Long 0" Latvian Words with the Letter "Soft R" For more information about the Latvian alphabet and language, please read: Brief Introduction to the Latvian (or Lettish) Language from Latviešu valoda starptautiskajā datortīklā, The Latvian Language.   Also see Teaching Methodology   Latvian Grammar Sketch ... A. King   Special characters needed to write Latvian ... contains character sets, names, font codes, Unicode numbers, and more.   Part of the Letter Database for Languages;   hosted by the Institute of the Estonian Language.   Ethnologue - 14th edition, 2003 ... Countries ... Europe ... Latvia ... Language ... Indo-European ... Baltic   Indo-European Language Tree ... http://www.linguatics.com Indo-European Family Tree | Diffusion of Indo-European Dialects ... T. V. Gamkrelidze and V. V. Ivanov d e f i n i t i o n s ethnology   comparative and analytical study of culture morphology   a study of structure or form orthography   the art of representing language sound by written symbols phonology   a study of language speech sounds with relevance to history and theory of sound changes within and between languages f u n       s t u f f Letters in the Latvian Alphabet: Coloring Pages Latvian/English Animal Dictionary The Language Construction Kit e x t e n d e d       r e a d i n g s Comparative Phonology and Morphology of the Baltic Languages J. Endzelīns Detailed information about Latvian language history and baltic dialects. Included are specific comparisons of sound pronunciations within and between Baltic and Slavic languages.   Hosted on-line at ai1.mii.lu.lv ..... "The extant Prussian texts begin as early as 1545, Lithuanian texts in 1547 and Latvian in 1585. These were translations of the catechisms. Grammars: J. Endzelin, Lettische Grammatik (1922); J. Plāķis, Leišu valodas rokas grāmata (1926); J. Endzelīns, Senprūšu valoda (1943, with vocabulary) and J. Endzelin, Altpreussische Grammatik (1944, without vocabulary).   Baltic languages are divided into West Baltic (=Prussian) and East Baltic (Lithuanian, Curonian and Latvian) ... " About the Latvian Language ... Struggle for survival by A. Veisbergs.   1993.   Processes Determining the Future by J.Valdmanis.   Crossroads of History by J.Stradiņš.   1993.

Kalendars * Search Names * Alphabet * Data * Goals * Introduction * Links *

dailyTangents * MyStorePages.com ©1997-2008 g&l publishers PO Box 763, Schoolcraft, MI      all rights reserved.