Латгальский язык: история и современное состояние

Eastern Baltic language
the language spoken by the ancient [[Latgalians

Latgalian (latgalīšu volūda, ) is an Eastern Baltic language, although it is sometimes considered a dialect of Latvian. The Latvian language law classifies it as a "historical form of Latvian". It is mostly spoken in Latgale, the eastern part of Latvia. The 2011 Latvian census established that 8.8% of Latvia's inhabitants, or 164,500 people, speak Latgalian daily. 97,600 of them live in Latgale, 29,400 in Riga and 14,400 in the Riga Planning Region.

Originally Latgalians were a tribe living in modern Vidzeme and Latgale. It is thought that they spoke the Latvian language, which later spread through the rest of modern Latvia, absorbing features of the Old Curonian, Semigallian, Selonian and Livonian languages. The Latgale area became politically separated during the Polish–Swedish wars, remaining part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as the Inflanty Voivodeship, while the rest of the Latvians lived in lands dominated by Baltic German nobility. Both centuries of separate development and the influence of different prestige languages likely contributed to the development of modern Latgalian as distinct from the language spoken in Vidzeme and other parts of Latvia.

The modern Latgalian literary tradition started to develop in the 18th century from vernaculars spoken by Latvians in the eastern part of Latvia. The first surviving book published in Latgalian is "Evangelia toto anno" (Gospels for the whole year) in 1753. The first systems of orthography were borrowed from Polish and used Antiqua letters. It was very different from the German influenced orthography, usually written in Blackletter or Gothic script, used for the Latvian language in the rest of Latvia. Many Latgalian books in the late 18th and early 19th century were authored by Jesuit priests, who came from various European countries to Latgale as the north eastern outpost of the Roman Catholic religion; their writings included religious literature, calendars, and poetry. Publishing books in the Latgalian language along with the Lithuanian was forbidden from 1865 to 1904. The ban on using Latin letters in this part of the Russian Empire followed immediately after the January Uprising, where insurgents in Poland, Lithuania, and Latgale had challenged the czarist rule. During the ban, only a limited number of smuggled Catholic religious texts and some hand written literature were available, e. g. calendars written by the self educated peasant
After the repeal of the ban in 1904, there was a quick rebirth of the Latgalian literary tradition; first newspapers, textbooks, and grammar appeared. In 1918 Latgale became part of the newly created Latvian state. From 1920 to 1934 the two literary traditions of Latvians developed in parallel. A notable achievement during this period was the original translation of the New Testament into Latgalian by the priest and scholar , published in Aglona in 1933. After the coup staged by Kārlis Ulmanis in 1934, the subject of the Latgalian dialect was removed from the school curriculum and was invalidated for use in state institutions; this was as part of an effort to standardize Latvian language usage. Latgalian survived as a spoken language in Soviet Latvia (1940–1991) while printed literature in Latgalian virtually ceased between 1959 and 1989. In emigration, some Latgalian intellectuals continued to publish books and studies of the Latgalian language, most notably
Since the restoration of Latvian independence, there has been a noticeable increase in interest in the Latgalian language and cultural heritage. It is taught as an optional subject in some universities; in Rēzekne the Publishing House of Latgalian Culture Centre led by Jānis Elksnis, prints both old and new books in Latgalian. In 1992, Juris Cibuļs together with published one of the first Latgalian alphabet books after the restoration of the language.

Latgalian is a member of the East Baltic branch of the Baltic group of languages, in the family of Indo European languages. The branch also includes the standard form of Latvian and other Baltic languages like Samogitian and Lithuanian. Latgalian is a moderately inflected language; the number of verb and noun forms is characteristic of many other Baltic and Slavic languages (see Inflection in Baltic Languages).

Latgalian is spoken by about 150,000 people, mainly in Latgale, Latvia; there are small Latgalian speaking communities in Siberia, Russia, created as a result of the emigration of Latgalians at the turn of the 19th and 20th centuries. and the Soviet deportations from Latvia.