{| border="1" cellpadding="2" cellspacing="0" align="right" width="300" style="float:right; margin-left:1em; margin-bottom:1em;"
!colspan="2" bgcolor="grey"|<big>Lets (Latviešu valoda)</big>
|-
|Gesproken in:
|Letland 
|-
|Moedertaalsprekers:
|2 000 000
|-
|Totaal:
|2 000 000
|-
|Rang:
|?
|-
|valign="top"|Taalfamilie<br />
|Indo-Europees<br />
*Baltisch<br />
**Oost-Baltisch<br />
****''Lets''

|-
!colspan="2" bgcolor="lightgrey"|Officiële status 
|-
|Officieel in: 
|valign="top"|Letland en de Europese Unie
|-
|-
!colspan="2" bgcolor="lightgreen"|Taalcodes
|-
|ISO 639-1:
|lv
|-
|ISO 639-2(B):
|lav
|-
|}

Het '''Lets''' is een Indo-Europese taal, behorend tot de Baltische taalgroep binnen die grote familie. Het is de officiële taal van Letland.

Het Lets is nauw verwant met het Litouws, maar is in verschillende opzichten verder geëvolueerd. Onder invloed van naburige Finoegrische talen ligt in het Lets de klemtoon steeds op de eerste lettergreep. De dualis (tweevoud) is in het Lets verloren gegaan, evenals het onzijdige grammaticale geslacht (de taal maakt wel onderscheid tussen mannelijke en vrouwelijke woorden).

Behouden is het onderscheid tussen bepaalde en onbepaalde vormen van het bijvoeglijk naamwoord. Het Lets, dat geen lidwoorden heeft, maakt derhalve door middel van verschillende vormen van het woord voor 'groot' onderscheid tussen 'een grote stad' en 'de grote stad'.

De oudste Letse tekst is een katholieke lutherse catechismus gevolgd. 

Opvallende elementen in het Letse schrift zijn liggende streepjes boven de klinkers, die lengte aangeven.

Categorie:Natuurlijke taal
Categorie:Oost-Baltische taal
Categorie:Letland

ang:Lettisc sprǣc

{{Infobox Language
 |name          = Latvian
 |nativename    = Latviešu Valoda
 |states        = Ireland, Lithuania, New Zealand, Russia, Sweden, Ukraine, United Kingdom, USA, Venezuela, 
Finland
 |region        = Europe
 |speakers      = native 1.5 million (Latvia)<br />150,000 (Abroad)<br />1.6 million (Worldwide)<ref>[http://www.ethnologue.com/show_language.asp?code=lav Ethnologue report for language code:lav<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref> <br /> second language: 500, 000 
  |iso1          = lv
 |iso2          = lav
 |iso3          = lav
 |familycolor   = Indo-European
 |fam1          = Indo-European
 |fam2          = Baltic
 |fam3          = Eastern
 |script        = Roman script
 |rank          = 160th
 |nation        = Latvia, European Union
 |agency        = Latvian State Language Center
}}
'''Latvian language''' (), is the official state language of Latvia. Alternative names include '''Lettish''' and '''Lettisch'''. There are about 1.5 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language. Because of language policy in Latvia approximately 60% of the 900,000 ethnic-minority population of Latvia speak Latvian. The use of the Latvian language in various areas of the social life in Latvia is increasing.<ref>[http://www.delfi.lv/archive/article.php?id=20135719 DELFI - Rihards Svelpe: Trîs veidi kâ pârdot Latviju starptautiski<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>

Latvian is a Lithuanian; however, they are not mutually intelligible to each other.

Latvian first appeared in Western print in the mid-16th century with the reproduction of the Lord's Prayer in Latvian in Roman script.

== Classification ==
Latvian is one of two living Lithuanian), a group of its own within the Indo-European language family. The Latvian and Lithuanian languages have retained many features of the nominal morphology of the proto-language, though in matters of phonology and verbal morphology they show many innovations, with Latvian being considerably more innovative than Lithuanian.

== Dialects ==

There are three Latgalian and the Middle dialect. The Livonian dialect is divided into the variety and the Livonian, Curonian, Semigallian and Selonian languages.''
450 px|thumb|Map showing geographical distribution of the dialects in Latvia

=== Livonian dialect ===
The Livonian dialect of Latvian was more affected by the intonations in the Livonian dialect. In Courland short vowels in the endings of words are discarded, while long vowels are shortened. In all genders and numbers only one form of prefixes ''ie'' is changed to ''e''. Due to migration and the introduction of a standardised language this dialect has declined. It arose from assimilated Livonians, who started to speak in Latvian and assimilated Livonian grammar into Latvian.

=== Middle dialect ===
The Vidzeme variety  and the Semigallian variety are closer to each other than to the Curonian variety, which is more archaic than the other two. There are three intonations in the Middle dialect. In the Semigallian variety, ''ŗ'' is still used.

== Non-native speakers ==

The history of the Latvian language (cf. below) has placed it in a peculiar position whereby it is spoken by a large number of non-native speakers as compared to native speakers. The minority population in Latvia reaches 900 000 people. It comprises Russians, Belorussians, Ukrainians, Poles, and others. Most of them emigrated to Latvia when Latvia was occupied by the Soviet Union (1940 - 1991). In a recent survey, 60% of Latvia's ethnic minorities described their knowledge of Latvian as fluent<ref>[http://www.delfi.lv/archive/article.php?id=20135719 DELFI - Rihards Svelpe: Trîs veidi kâ pârdot Latviju starptautiski<!-- Bot generated title -->]</ref>. Fluency in Latvian is prevalent among the younger generations of the minorities. 

The adoption of Latvian by minorities was brought about by its status as the only official language of the country, its prominence in the education system, its sole use in the public sector and by changes in the society after the Russian. As an example, in 2007 universities and colleges for the first time received applications from prospective students who had a bilingual secondary education in schools for minorities. Fluency in Latvian is expected in a variety of professions and careers.

== Grammar ==

Latvian is an numbers, singular and plural. Nouns decline into seven cases: nominative, genitive, dative, accusative, instrumental, locative, and vocative.
Primary word stress, with a few exceptions, is on the first syllable. There are no articles in Latvian. Basic word order in Latvian is Subject Verb Object, however word order is relatively free.

== Orthography ==

Latvian in western orthography was first written using a system based upon German phonetic principles, while the Latgalian dialect was written using Polish orthographic principles. At the beginning of the 20th century, this was replaced by a more phonetically appropriate system, using a modified Latin alphabet.

=== Standard orthography ===
Today, the Latvian standard alphabet consists of 33 letters:

{| border=0 style="border-collapse:collapse; text-align:center"
| width=15|| width=15|[[Ā || width=15|| width=15|[[C || width=15|| width=15|[[D || width=15|| width=15|[[Ē
| width=15|| width=15|[[G || width=15|| width=15|[[H || width=15|| width=15|[[Ī || width=15|| width=15|[[K
| width=15|| width=15|[[L || width=15|| width=15|[[M || width=15|| width=15|[[Ņ || width=15|| width=15|[[P
| width=15|| width=15|[[S|| width=15|| width=15|[[T || width=15|| width=15|[[Ū|| width=15|| width=15|[[Z|| width=15|Ž
|-
||[[ā |||[[c |||[[d |||[[ē
||[[g |||[[h |||[[ī |||[[k
||[[l |||[[m |||[[ņ |||[[p
||[[s |||[[t |||[[ū|||[[z||ž
|}

The modern standard Latvian alphabet uses 22 unmodified letters of the Latin alphabet (all except ''palatalized) versions of ''G'', ''K'', ''L'' and ''N'' and represent the sounds , ,  and . Non-standard varieties of Latvian add extra letters to this standard set.

Latvian spelling has almost perfect correspondence between graphemes and phonemes. Every phoneme has its own letter so that a reader need not learn how a word is pronounced, but simply pronounce it. There are only three exceptions to this that could cause mispronunciation. The first is the letter ''E'' and its long variation ''Ē'', which are used to write two sounds that represent the short and long versions of either  or  respectively. The letter ''O'' indicates both the short and long , and the diphthong . These three sounds are written as ''O'', ''Ō'' and ''Uo'' in Latgalian, and some Latvians campaign for the adoption of this system in standard Latvian. However, the majority of Latvian linguists argue that ''o'' and ''ō'' are found only in loanwords, with the ''Uo'' sound being the only native Latvian phoneme. The digraph ''Uo'' was discarded in 1914, and the letter ''Ō'' has not been used in the official Latvian language since 1946. Likewise, the letters ''Ŗ'' and ''Ch'' were discarded in 1957, although they are still used in some varieties and by many Latvians living beyond the borders of Latvia. The letter ''Y'' is used only in the Latgalian language, where it is used to write a distinct phoneme that does not occur in other Latvian varieties. Latvian orthography allows nine digraphs, which are written ''Ai'', ''Au'', ''Ei'', ''Ie'', ''Iu'', ''Ui'', ''Oi'', ''Dz'' and ''Dž''.

=== Old orthography ===
right|thumb|250px|Latvian bible written in 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 writing ''Š''. In 1631 the German priest Georgs (Juris) Mancelis tried to systematize the writing. He wrote long vowels according to their position in the word — a short vowel followed by ''h'' for 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.

=== Latvian on computers ===
400 px|thumb|The rarely used Latvian ergonomic keyboard layout
Lack of software support of diacritics has caused an unofficial style of orthography, often called ''basic Modern Latin alphabet only, and letters that aren't used in standard orthography are usually omitted. In this style, diacritics are replaced by digraphs - a doubled letter indicates a long vowel; ''j'' indicates palatalisation of consonants, except for ''Š'', ''Č'' and ''Ž'' that are indicated by using ''h''. Sometimes the second letter, the one used instead of a diacritic, is changed to one of two other diacritic letters (e.g. š is written as ss or sj, not sh), and since many people may find it difficult to use these unusual methods, they write without any indication of missing diacritic marks, or they use digraphing only if the diacritic mark in question would make a semantic difference.<ref></ref> Sometimes an apostrophe is used before or after the character that would properly need to be diacriticised.  Also, digraph diacritics are often used and sometimes even mixed with diacritical letters of standard orthography. Although today there is software support available, diacritic-less writing is still widespread for financial and social reasons. 

Standard AltGr (most notably the Windows 2000 and XP built-in layout (Latvian QWERTY)). 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 because of a lack of keyboards with this layout.

=== Comparative orthography ===

For example, the Lord's Prayer in Latvian written in different styles:

{| border="0" cellpadding="5" cellspacing="0"  style="font-family: Lucida Sans Unicode"
|-
!bgcolor=#e0e0e0|First orthography<br>(Cosmographia Universalis)
!bgcolor=#e0e0e0|Old orthography<ref><u>BIBLIA</u>, published Riga, 1848 (reprint), original edition 1739; "modern" old orthographies published into the 20th century do not double consonants</ref>
!bgcolor=#e0e0e0|Modern orthography
!bgcolor=#e0e0e0|Internet style
!bgcolor=#e0e0e0|
|-
|Muuſze Thews exkan tho Debbes
|Muhſu Tehvs debbeſîs
|Mūsu tēvs debesīs
|Muusu teevs debesiis 
|-
|Sweetyttz thope totws waerdtcz
|Swehtits lai top taws wahrds
|Svētīts lai top tavs vārds
|Sveetiits lai top tavs vaards
|- 
|Enaka mums touwe walſtibe.
|Lai nahk tawa walſtiba
|Lai nāk tava valstība
|Lai naak tava valstiiba
|- 
|Tows praetcz noteſe
|Taws prahts kai noteek
|Tavs prāts lai notiek
|Tavs praats lai notiek 
|- 
|ka exkan Debbes tha arridtczan wuerſſon ſemmes
|kà debbeſîs tà arirdſan zemes wirsû
|kā debesīs, tā arī virs zemes 
|kaa debesiis taa arii virs zemes 
|- 
|Muſze beniſke mayſe bobe mums ſdjoben. 
|Muhsu deeniſchtu maizi dod mums ſchodeen
|Mūsu dienišķo maizi dod mums šodien 
|Muusu dienishkjo maizi dod mums shodien 
|- 
|Vnbe pammet mums muſſe parrabe
|Un pametti mums muhſu parradus <small>[later parahdus]</small>
|Un piedod mums mūsu parādus 
|Un piedod mums muusu paraadus 
|- 
|ka mehs pammettam muſſims parabenekims
|kà arri mehs pamettam ſaweem parrahdneekeem
|kā arī mēs piedodam saviem parādniekiem 
|kaa arii mees piedodam saviem paraadniekiem
|- 
|Vnbe nhe wedde mums exkan kaerbenaſchenne
|Un ne eeweddi muhs eekſch kahrdinaſchanas
|Un neieved mūs kārdināšanā 
|Un neieved muus kaardinaashanaa 
|- 
|Seth atpeſthmums no to loune 
|bet atpeſti muhs no ta launa <small>[later łauna]</small>
|bet atpestī mūs no ļauna 
|bet atpestii muus no ljauna 
|- 
|Aefto thouwa gir ta walſtibe
|Jo tew peederr ta walſtiba
|Jo tev pieder valstība 
|Jo tev pieder valstiiba. 
|- 
|vnbe tas ſpeez vnb tas Goobtcz tur muſſige
|un tas ſpehks un tas gods muhſchigi <small>[later muhzigi]</small>
|spēks un gods mūžīgi 
|speeks un gods muuzhiigi 
|- 
|Amen 
|Amen
|Āmen 
|Aamen 
|}

== Phonology ==
=== Consonants ===
{| border="2" cellpadding="5" style="margin: 1em 1em 1em 0; border-collapse: collapse; text-align: center; background: #f9f9f9; border: 1px #aaa solid;"
| &nbsp;
!Bilabial
!Labiodental
!Alveolar
!Postalveolar
!Palatal
!Velar
|-
|'''Plosives'''
| &nbsp;&nbsp;
| &nbsp;
| &nbsp;&nbsp;
| &nbsp;
| &nbsp;&nbsp;
| &nbsp;&nbsp;
|-
|'''Affricates'''
| &nbsp;
| &nbsp;
| &nbsp;&nbsp;
| &nbsp;&nbsp;
|
| &nbsp;
|-
|'''Nasal'''
| 
| &nbsp;
| 
|
| 
| 
|-
|'''Trill'''
| &nbsp;
| &nbsp;
| 
| &nbsp;
| &nbsp;
| &nbsp;
|-
|'''Fricative'''
| &nbsp;
| &nbsp;&nbsp;
| &nbsp;&nbsp;
| &nbsp;&nbsp;
|
| 
|-
|'''Central approximant'''
| &nbsp;
| &nbsp;
| 
|
| 
| &nbsp;
|-
|'''Lateral Approximant'''
| &nbsp;
| &nbsp;
| 
|
| 
| &nbsp;
|}

The consonant sounds  are only found in loanwords. Latvian plosives are not aspirated (unlike in English and other Germanic languages).

===Vowels and diphthongs===
Latvian has six vowels, with length as distinctive feature:
{| class="wikitable" border="1" style="text-align:center"
|+ Latin vowels
! rowspan="2" | &nbsp;
! colspan="2" | Front
! colspan="2" | Central
! colspan="2" | Back
|-
! short !! long
! short !! long
! short !! long

|-
! Close
|  || 
| colspan="2" | &nbsp;
|  || 
|-
! Mid-open
|  || 
| colspan="2"|&nbsp;
|  || 
|-
! Near-open
|  || 
| colspan="2"|&nbsp;
| &nbsp; || &nbsp;
|-
! Open
| colspan="2" | &nbsp;
|  || 
| colspan="2" | &nbsp;
|} 
Vowel length ratio is about 1/2.5. Vowel length is phonemic and plays an important role in the language. For example ‘koka’ [`kuɔka] means 'made of wood', ‘kokā’ [`kuɔkaː] means 'on the tree'; ‘pile’ [`pilɛ] means 'a drop', ‘pīle’ [`piːlɛ] means 'a duck'.

Latvian also has 10 diphthongs  ([ai], [ui], [ɛi], [aŭ], [iɛ], [uɔ], [iu], [ɔi], [ɛu], [ɔu]), although some diphthongs are mostly limited to proper names and interjections.

=== Pitch accent ===
In Latvian, long syllables—i.e. those containing a long vowel, a diphthong, or a so-called "mixed diphthong" (a short vowel followed by a sonorant consonant)—can take one of three tones:
;level (also drawling) tone (''stieptā intonācija'')
:high throughout the syllable
:e.g., ''loks'' "spring onion" (pronunciation represented as "''luõks''" in Latvian phonetics)
;falling tone (''krītošā intonācija'')
:brief rise followed by a long fall
:e.g., ''loks'' "arch, bow" (pronounced "''lùoks''")
;broken tone (''lauztā intonācija'')
:rising tone followed by falling tone with interruption in the middle or some creakiness in the voice
:e.g., ''logs'' "window" (pronounced "''luôks''")