Latvian, also known as Lettish, is an East Baltic language belonging to the Indo-European language family, spoken in the Baltic region as the language of the Latvians. It is the official language of Latvia and one of the official languages of the European Union.
Facts
ISO 639-3 Code Speaker Count2023 estimate, native speakers in Latvia and abroad. StatusWikipedia article on Latvian: a currently spoken living language with an active native-speaker population; checked 2026-09-27. Attested From (Year) Classification
Language Kind Official Status Connections
In Family
Source Wikipedia: Latvian Language
Source Wikipedia: Latvian Language
Written In
Latvian is standardly written in the Latin alphabet.
In the Other Atlases
Original Language Of
Also in Film and Media Atlas: a work originally in this language.
Found In
Also in Geography Atlas: where this subject is found.
Source Glottolog
Sources
1. Glottolog: Latvian (Glottolog languoid latv1249)
GlottologEndangerment, AES statusQuote, Endangerment, AES status
AES status: threatened
2. Wikipedia: Latvian Language
Wikimedia FoundationLead section
There are about 1.5 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and 100,000 abroad. Of those, around 1.16 million or 62% of Latvia's population used it as their primary language at home, though excluding the Latgale and Riga regions it is spoken as a native language in villages and towns by over 90% of the population.
Infobox, ISO 639-3
lav
Infobox: date
2023
Infobox, Region
Baltic
Lead section
It is the official language of Latvia as well as one of the official languages of the European Union.
In Family: Balto-Slavic, Infobox: fam2
Balto-Slavic
In Family: East Baltic, Infobox, Language family
East Baltic
View the Source 3. Omniglot: Latvian language, alphabet and pronunciation
OmniglotWritten LatvianQuote, Written Latvian
The first known example of written Latvian dates from 1530 and was a translation of a hymn by Nikolaus Ramm, a German pastor.
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