Latvian Language Research Articles

On the issue of the development of adjective degree forms in the Western Lithuanian and Latvian dialects

Abstract In the Lithuanian and Latvian languages, forms of adjective degrees do not have a common etymological basis. The New Curonian (Kuresnieku) language which is a relatively new Baltic geolect has preserved a fairly distinct archaic layer of phonetics and grammar, where one can look not only for the archaisms of the western dialects of the Latvian language but also for traces of the substrate of Old Curonian. Although synthetic forms of the degrees of adjectives with the suffix -āk- are used in the current Latvian language area they are almost unknown in New Curonian. The forms of the comparative degree are made with the particle juo and an adjective of the positive degree. Analytical forms with the pronoun visu and the pronominal form of an adjective express the superlative degree. In the western Latvian and Lithuanian dialects and the Livonian language in Latvia, the relics of the analytical forms of the comparative and superlative degree are recorded in written sources and rarely in modern spoken language. Since a large part of the western dialects of the Lithuanian and Latvian languages take up the former territory of the old tribe, it may be assumed that the analytical forms of adjective degrees are possibly a sign of the substrate of Old Curonian.

Preserving the Latvian Language Abroad: Personal Narratives and Institutional Support

Despite the widespread distribution of Latvians globally, the importance of heritage language for cultural connectivity remains underexplored. This study explores the preservation of the Latvian language among diaspora communities, employing linguistic autoethnography, participant observation, and communication analysis to examine the interplay between individual experiences and institutional support in maintaining cultural identity. Drawing from the author’s bilingual Latvian–Lithuanian background and based on the example of a mixed Latvian–Lithuanian family living in Finland, the study highlights the role of the family strategy in using languages at home, the role of grandparents, as well as heritage tourism, music, and arts in strengthening cultural ties. Through linguistic autoethnography, the article captures the essence of personal and collective efforts to sustain the Latvian language. Participant observation in diasporan activities and analysis of communicative practices reveal how diasporan Latvians actively engage in preserving their linguistic heritage. The Latvian Language Agency’s initiatives, including supporting language schools abroad, publishing educational resources, and organizing summer camps, are critically examined. The study advocates for a unified approach that combines personal commitment and structured support, emphasizing the crucial role of both in the vibrancy of the Latvian language abroad.

Translation and validation of the Myasthenia Gravis Activities of Daily Living Questionnaire: Latvian version.

Our aim was to translate, adapt and validate the Myasthenia Gravis Activities of Daily Living scale into the Latvian language and to evaluate this instrument (MG-ADL-L) in terms of construct validity and reliability. We enrolled patients with a confirmed MG diagnosis, who could speak Latvian fluently. We performed translation and adaptation according to the cross-cultural adaptation guidelines for self-reported measures. The patients were evaluated by a physician according to the Myasthenia Gravis Foundation of America classification (MGFA) and using the Myasthenia Gravis Composite Score (MGCS). Patients were asked to complete the MG-ADL-L and the 15-item Myasthenia Gravis Quality of Life (MGQOL15) Internal consistency was evaluated based on Cronbach's α, reproducibility-Cohen's weighted kappa and construct validity-Spearman's correlation between the MG-ADL-L and the MGQOL15 and MGCS. We used the Kruskal-Wallis H test to compare the MG-ADL-L score distribution between the MGFA groups. 38 enrolled patients in the study. There was an acceptable internal consistency (Cronbach's α = 0.76) and moderate to very good agreement between the test and retest scores (Cohen's weighted kappa = 0.54 and 0.81). The MG-ADL-L showed a moderate positive correlation with the MGQOL15 (r = 0.5, p = 0.001) and the MGCS (r = 0.62, p < 0.001). There was a significant difference in MG-ADL-L scores between the MGFA groups (p = 0.007). The MG-ADL-L is a valid and reliable self-reported scale to assess and evaluate symptom severity and the impact of the disease on the lives of patients with MG.

THE THE WORD CHAIN TEST: THE NORMATIVE DATA FOR STUDENTS FROM GRADES 1 TO 9

The Word Chain Test (WCT) is a rapid screening procedure that appears to identify primary and secondary school students with poor silent word decoding abilities. The WCT was adapted to the Latvian language in 2003. However, norms for the test had yet to be established. The study is aimed to develop the WCT normative data set for students from grades 1 to 9. Students from grades 1 to 9 (N = 4476) representing all geographical regions of Latvia, urban and country territories completed the WCT that included two subtests – letter chains and word chains. The descriptive statistic parameters were estimated for each grade. The results demonstrated statistically significant correlations between scores of word and letter chains and the age of students. The statistically significant differences in the average scores of letter and word chains were found between boys and girls. The scores of letter and word chains were scaled separately for boys and girls by grade using a standard nine-point scale. The 5th, 7th, and 16th percentiles were estimated for diagnostic purposes. The developed WCT normative data set allows the examiner to assess students' visual-spatial and word-decoding skills. Future studies should continue the standardization procedures by determining the convergent and clinical validity of the WCT.

Jaunų latvių anglų kalbos vartojimas: daugiakalbės tapatybės ir kalbos dominavimo tyrimas

This paper examines the effects of virtual communication on language use among Latvian students aged 13-25, aiming to investigate whether language proficiency, language attitudes and identity construction are mediated by language dominance and global trends foregrounded by the dominant use of English on social media. The research material consists of 1) Bilingual Language Profile (Birdsong et al. 2012), a questionnaire that targets a variety of sociolinguistic factors and assesses language dominance; 2) a questionnaire on language use across various domains as well as language ideologies. The questionnaire results indicate Latvian language dominance in terms of language history and active use, but English is regarded as a beneficial language and used as a receptive language in entertainment and with peers. The findings of the study suggest English is associated with a multilingual identity, however, this does not seem to impact the expression of adolescents’ national identity.

The value of language skills in Latvia: From socio-economic inequality to multilingual awareness

Abstract This paper investigates the opposition between the realities and ideologies surrounding multilingualism in Latvia. Building mostly on Bourdieu’s theory of language in society, and multilingual awareness as a concept, we study the socio-economic value of multilingual repertoires in a multilingual setting (Latvia), and language users’ awareness of the link between their language competences (Latvian, Russian, English) and socio-economic status. By analysing sociolinguistic survey data, we demonstrate, firstly, that different multilingual repertoires are linked with differences in family income, level of education, and labour market position. Secondly, our data indicate that people generally do not acknowledge the link between their language skills and socio-economic status. To explore this further, we zoom in on language ideologies in formal education. We examine data on the multilingual awareness of Latvian language teachers from focus-group interviews and show that they tend to construe languages in competition, emphasise the symbolic value of Latvian, and ignore the multilingualism of their pupils and broader society. The study illuminates the dissonance between the multilingual realities of a post-Soviet EU country in which multilingual repertoires carry different values for individuals, and the Latvian-centred ideologies (disseminated by the teachers) that leave the presence of multilingualism and accompanying issues unacknowledged.

Using Large Language Models to Improve Sentiment Analysis in Latvian Language

Using Large Language Models to Improve Sentiment Analysis in Latvian Language

Christian Felix Weiße’s Poetry in Latvian and Estonian Literature

The article analyzes the translations of Christian Felix Weiße’s poems in Latvian and Estonian within the context of cultural transfer during the age of Enlightenment. Translations of Weiße’s poems were of great significance because they paved the way for the emergence of secular poetry in both languages. First translations appeared in the 1770s, and others followed in the next decades. While the first Latvian translations were connected to the popular enlightenment efforts of Baltic German pastor Gotthard Friedrich Stender and addressed to the peasant readers, the first Estonian translations were written in the context of experiments with the language and addressed to the Baltic German intellectual elite. First translations that were addressed to Estonian peasants appeared in the early 19th century. The frame of reference of the poems was transformed when they were addressed to peasant reading public: they acquired didactic meaning. At the same time, these translations demonstrated the poetic possibilities of Estonian and Latvian languages. The analysis as a case study reveals the multifaceted influence of German poetry on Estonian and Latvian literary cultures.

Lexis of Latvian-speaking Communities at the Baltic Sea Coast in Latvia and Lithuania: Denominations of the Object kitchen

Until now, little attention has been paid to studies of Latvian language vocabulary on a thematic aspect related to the traditional homestead on the Baltic Sea coast once inhabited by the Curonians. This article presents names denominating the object of a kitchen in a traditionally built dwelling house, their diversity, origins, and prevalence in Latvian-speaking communities on the coast of the Baltic Sea in Latvia and Lithuania. The analysis is based on Latvian material from various written sources, using descriptive, partly historical and mapping methods. The vocabulary analysed in the sources of this article shows lexemes that denominate both the separate, enclosed room and the part of the room used for food preparation and cooking. The prevalence of analysed lexemes in the meaning of a ‘kitchen’ is not uniform. In the coastal areas of Kurzeme, the names ķēķis, kukņa, plītsistaba, virtuve and their variations were identified, but in the vocabulary of the Latvian dialect of Šventoji, the morphological variant ķēķe inherited from the dialectal vocabulary of Kurzeme has been recorded. In the vocabulary of Kurzeme, names denominating a kitchen are mainly of Germanic and Slavic origin. The emergence of Germanisms in the Latvian vocabulary related to the kitchen is directly related to the material cultural peculiarities, which were encouraged to Latvian peasants in Kurzeme by the German nobility, and to the Baltic German everyday speech. The impact of Lithuanian as an intermediary language has been recorded mainly in the Latvian dialect of the Curonian Spit. The borrowed names with the meaning of a ‘kitchen’, such as kukne || kukine, can be explained by the close contact of New Curonians with the Lithuanian-speaking community on the eastern coast of the Curonian Lagoon; New Curonians not only had economic ties with them, but also formed mixed families.

The Establishment of Latvian National Organizations in Krasnoyarsk, 1915-1916, as a Result of the Refugee Movement

The article delves into the impact of the refugee movement during the First World War produced on the self-identity of Latvians living in the Yenisei Province. This research aims to explore the formation and operation of social institutions that encapsulated Latvian self-awareness. These institutions include the Bureau of the Authorized Representative of the Latvian Central Committee for Refugee Assistance in the Yenisei Province, and the Krasnoyarsk Latvian Charitable Society. During this era, the growing national consciousness among the Yenisei Province’s Latvians was evident through an uptick in cultural events, frequently conducted in the Latvian language and organized by Latvians for their community. The author posits that the surge in Latvian self-awareness stemmed from the refugee movements of the First World War. The imperative to support Latvian refugees – offering housing, job opportunities, clothing, financial aid, and more – precipitated the designation of the Authorized Representative and the subsequent establishment of the Bureau under its directory in 1915. This concerted effort to assist the refugees catalyzed the unification of the Latvian intelligentsia, culminating in the foundation of the Latvian national organization, the charitable society, in 1916. The author underscores that the rise of Latvian civic organizations aligns with the broader Siberian trend of creating secular ethnocultural groups alongside the traditional confessional ones. This article caters to both specialists in the ethno-confessional history of pre-revolutionary Siberia and a more general readership.

Skolēnu rakstu valoda latviešu valodas un vēstures valsts pārbaudes darbos 2021. gadā Kurzemē

The research aims to examine pupils’ text creation skills in the Latvian language and history state examinations (SE). The source of the research is the examination papers of pupils in Kurzeme in the 2021 Latvian language SE (an opinion; 250 words) and history SE (task 3 of part 3 – an essay; 200 words). Examination of the evaluation criteria of both examinations shows that the evaluation criteria of the Latvian language examination pay more attention to the quality of spelling (10 points out of 34 (approx. 30%) can be obtained for orthography and punctuation). The article summarizes the main types of errors in morphology and syntax in both examinations. Several types of errors are distinguished in morphology: unjustified use of macrons or their absence, spelling of consonants, words written incorrectly together and separately, spelling of onyms, and errors in the spelling of verbs and foreign words. A number of syntactic constructions were studied in the pupils’ examination papers – coordinated parts of sentence, coordinated parts of sentence with a generalising word, participial clauses, insertions and explanatory word groups –, as wethe frequency of their use in the pupils’ examination papers and the most frequently detected cases of errors. The use of punctuation marks in the sentence, separating the subordinate clause, has also been studied. A comparison of the two examination papers leads to the conclusion that there are no statistically significant differences in the text creation task in Latvian or history SE in Kurzeme. Spelling and punctuation skills are solid, and the number of errors is equal. As pupils take the examinations, caution is observed in using more complex syntactic constructions. In the analysis, examples from pupils’ examination papers are presented in italics, preserving their style, spelling and punctuation errors.

Par dažu bezpriedēkļa un priedēkļa verbu lietojumu ar adverbiem un prievārdu pār

In Latvian language, prefix and prefix-free verb constructions with prepositions and adverbs are used in parallel, where the prefix, adverb and preposition are close in terms of the meaning. The aim of the research is to study the connection of prefix-free and prefix verbs with prepositions and adverbs, to study the use of these constructions, reciprocal attitudes and semantics. The novelty of the research is indicated by the fact that extensive systematic studies have not been conducted on the connection between prefixed and prefix-free verb and preposition and/or adverb, their semantics, as well as the possible motivation for doubling the preposition and adverb. The article examines constructions with prepositions uz, no, caur, pār, expressing spatial direction attitudes and which, in modern Latvian, have prefixes corresponding in the meaning – uz-, no-, pār-, as well as adverbs: virsū, ārā, cauri, pāri, nost. The source of the examples analysed in the study is written language on the Internet – chatting, i.e. microblogging site „Twitter”, news publications, comments on the Internet, „Web Corpus of Latvian Language” (Tīmeklis2020) and other sources where coverage of spoken language is available. It has been observed that in cases when a prefix, adverb and preposition of close meaning are used in the same sentence, it is easier to visualize what is being said as if it is being „drawn” before the eyes, and such structures make the text more imaginative. The meaning of a verb plays an important role in what adverb or preposition it binds to itself. In the research, a tendency was observed that most of the time, in constructions of prefixed verb and prefix-free verb, preposition and adverb with verbs of motion of close meaning and of literal sense, are used.

Karš Ukrainā: migrācijas ietekme uz Latvijas valodas politiku

Until March 2022, the Republic of Latvia belonged to the countries with rather low migration. Because of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, the situation changed unexpectedly. There was a Ukrainian minority in Latvia (42,300 people or 3.5% of the total population). During the first months of the war, appr. 10,000 refugees, mostly women and children, arrived in Latvia, and numbers may exceed 30,000 at present. A special law has already been adopted, including language and education rights articles. The Ukrainian language has become a more visible participant in the Latvian language market and will probably keep these positions after the Ukrainian victory. At the same time, the Latvian state has to ensure the successful integration of newcomers into Latvian society against the background of Latvian language skills. This aspect may be challenging because a part of Ukrainian refugees use Russian as their family language or have Russian language skills. Ukrainian nationals whose family language is Russian belong to the same linguistic community as members of the Russian minority in Latvia, but their political and ideological views can be completely different, raising the issue of linguistic and national identity. Latvia still has not overcome the consequences of Russification during the Soviet period, and the increase of Russian language use in public space is not in line with the goals of the Latvian language policy.

Par dažām vakcīnas pret Covid-19 apzīmēšanai lietotajām metaforām

The article deals with metaphors that have positive emotional connotations and those that are connotationally negative, as were used during the COVID-19 pandemic to label the vaccine against this disease and helped officials, journalists, social media users and commentators of articles on internet portals to create a positive or a negative attitude of the society towards the vaccine. The study contrasts metaphors that characterize the vaccine as something desirable, expected (saved lives, a ray of hope, etc.) or a means (tool) to achieve something desired (magic wand, magic ticket) vs. dysphemistic metaphors that describe the vaccine as a low-quality, unnecessary, dangerous thing, including gastronomic ones (instant soup, kefir, porridge, foul drink, etc.) and names of deadly things (poison, death, cancer dose, euthanasia load; poisoner, killer, etc.). The article does not discuss vaccine designations, in which the author of the article does not see any figurative, metaphorical meaning (for example, a chip, a trigger for a lurking disease) or where the meaning is not readily understood (for example, the biblical mark of the beast), although such designations with negative connotations have been used to form a negative attitude towards the vaccine. Connotationally positive metaphors describing the vaccine as something desirable that were used in an official communication to generate positive opinions have been found to have hallmarks of the solemn emotional expressive style, but metaphors that define the vaccine as a means for achieving something desirable and used in informal communication have been used with ironic emotional expression, thereby contributing to a negative treatment of the vaccine. Dysphemistic metaphors show only a negative attitude towards the vaccine, a delicately hidden or incisive jab, a typical attribute of the ironic or satirical emotionally expressive style. Such metaphors also contain informal vocabulary (colloquialisms, slang and jargon words, vulgarisms) and dialectal words with a negative connotation. This is also a feature of both the ironic and the satirical emotionally expressive styles. The Lithuanian and German examples for the groups of metaphors discussed in the article show that such metaphors are not exclusive to the Latvian language alone.

Vienojuma, pretstata un šķīruma saikļi Lejaskurzemes izloksnēs

The article analyses the use dynamic of cumulative, adversative, and disjunctive conjunctions in sub-dialects of Lower Kurzeme in the 20th – 21st centuries, based on the survey data of the Atlas of Latvian Dialects (ALD) in comparison with the texts in the collections of Kurzeme Institute of Humanities at Liepāja University and Latvian Language Institute at the University of Latvia, and published texts. The texts of the latest sources are written down by hand or recorded in the speaker’s conversation with the interviewer, which allows us to determine the use of connecting words in live speech. It is concluded that in the second half of the 20th century and the 21st century, the coordinating conjunctions characteristic of Latvian literary language dominated the sub-dialects of Lower Kurzeme (an observation made in the ALD survey already in the middle of the 20th century). The conjunction i &lt; ir in the second half of the 20th century and the 21st century is much rarer than un but has not disappeared entirely from everyday speech and is usually used to connect several equal components, e.g. in Rucava, a riteni braûcu uz dârbu: piêci kilometri i rîtâ, vakarâ, i pusdiênâ. In the ALD survey, the conjunction bet dominates in the expression of the contrary, although in some sub-dialects, dialectal conjunctions have been recorded (abar in Rucava, aba in Grobiņa). In the second half of the 20th century and the 21st century in Lower Kurzeme, the colloquial adversative conjunction a is also in use, e.g. in Bārta, cic izvãra un sastampâ tuõs kartfeļus, a mana mamma vis:us kuõpîgi vãrija. In the ALD survey, as well as in the second half of the 20th century and the 21st century in Lower Kurzeme, mostly the conjunctions vai // va and jeb are used to express disjunction; jeb is more uncommon, it has both an explanative meaning, e.g. in Gramzda, ķeblis jeb kraģîtis – tas tâc krêsliņš mas:, kur pasēdēt, and a disjunctional meaning, e.g. in Rucava, gã a kũrpemis jeb pastalamis. The amount of available texts yet does not allow for quantitative research on the choice of coordinating conjunctions and the use of coordinating conjunctions not mentioned in the ALD.

Literārās valodas un sarunvalodas attiecības: sociālo mediju piemērs

The case of social media demonstrates the growing relevance of the relationship between literary language and colloquial speech in today’s society. The article encourages us to think: is it really no longer important to switch linguistic codes based on the nature of the speech situation when the choice of language means is applied, and one or the other type of language existence is used; is communication more and more dominated by colloquial speech? The study aims to characterise the interaction and competition between literary and colloquial language in the use of the Latvian language by analysing examples of social media and their use. The research material is Twitter posts on the social networking site, texts published on various Internet portals and recorded on television and radio, and an express survey in which 425 respondents took part. Descriptive method, content analysis and survey were used. The article analyses the understanding of literary language and colloquial language. For many years, Jānis Rozenbergs’s definition of the literary language has been valid in Latvian linguistics. However, the definition was created when social media did not have the same influence as today and when the words of writers, poets and other cultural figures still had great power. The opinion that literary language and colloquial speech are two separate types of language existence is supported. Journalists’ communicative competence plays an important role in observing the conditional distinction between public and private communication in language practice. The results of the express survey confirm that the majority of respondents (44%) attach the main importance to the genre of the programme and not to the fact that a journalist should choose a literary language when speaking in public. Posts on social networking sites are widely quoted and retold on other social media, radio and television, and even relatively official news programmes. It can be concluded that the use of colloquial speech continues to expand under the influence of social media.

Contribution of Latvian Technical Intelligentsia to Development of Terminology Until the Establishment of the Republic of Latvia

The article considers the development of technical terminology in the Latvian language until the proclamation of the independent state of Latvia in 1918. The activists of the National Awakening became the first creators of technical terminology, describing current technical innovations as, for example, Juris Alunāns (1832–1864) did in 1860 for the telegraph. The need for technical terms became apparent after the Second Baltic Agricultural Exhibition when difficulties arose in describing the showcased exhibits in Latvian. Significant steps in the development of terminology were made on the initiative of student Mikus Skruzītis (also Skruzīšu Mikus; 1861–1905), who suggested collecting frequently used names of parts of various simple devices, and the initiative of Nikolajs Puriņš (also Puriņu Klāvs; 1858–1935) to publish self-education materials in construction («Būvskola» or Building School) and mechanical engineering («Mašīnu būvskola» or Machine Building School). As the proportion of Latvians employed in the industry and the number of persons who received technical education increased, the need to establish organizations that would take care of both technical education in Latvian and the coinage of the necessary terms became more apparent. The Baltic Technical Society (1906) and the Latvian Educational Society (1908), which established their own terminology committees, deserve special recognition. Encyclopaedic dictionaries were also important for the systematization of terminology, especially the conversational dictionary published by the Knowledge Committee of Riga Latvian Society (1903–1921). The research was carried out within the project «Mūsdienu latviešu valodas lietojums un attīstība» (Research on Modern Latvian Language and Development) of the National Research Program of the Latvian Council of Science (No. VPP-LETONIKA-2022/1-0001).

Three Milestones of Latvian Translation Criticism

The article provides insight into the development of translation criticism from 1920s to 1980s in Latvia by offering translations of excerpts from theoretical texts that map important events in translation history. We start with the book, published in 1924, which evaluated the 1689 translation of the Bible into Latvian, then concentrate on a polemical article by Rainis (1925) on his innovative 1897 rendition of Goethe’s Faust and finish the analysis with a discussion of a work written in 1984. The latter stood out during the Soviet era by drawing attention to the aesthetic values of translation, contrasting with the prevailing focus on linguistic aspects, specifically the quality of the Latvian language. Each of these three works, in its own manner, exerted influence both on the historico-philosophical ideas of its era and on the evolution of translation in Latvia. The review and translations of these three excerpts are contextualized through an analysis of Latvian translation history. It is stressed that despite censorship, the Soviet-time translations spread the ideas that often contradicted the Soviet ideology as well as opened new broader vistas for language use.

TRANSLATION INCONSISTENCIES OF EDUCATIONAL TERMS

The article by means of extended literature review draws attention to the most common translation inconsistencies that arise in the rendering of word combinations with the concepts education and learning from English into Latvian and vice versa. The novelty and topicality of the article is related to the need to highlight the transformation of the understanding of concepts in connection with the modernization and changes in the field of education. The study was implemented as an interdisciplinary research analysing Latvia’s education policy documents, dissertations, monographs, encyclopaedias, dictionaries and glossaries using induction, deduction and comparison methods. The research findings allow to emphasize the following major translation inconsistencies: superficiality in distinguishing the substantive meaning of the concepts “education” and “learning”, incorporation of the substantive meaning of two terms into one term, direct adoption of Anglicisms into Latvian, lack of equivalents in Latvian language, use of several similar concepts to render one English term into Latvian that embarrasses the perception of the terms’ meaning.

ADAPTATION OF THE ADDICTION TEST ON SOCIAL MEDIA

The issue of addiction to social networks is relevant for our time. The studies carried out in different cultural contexts indicate that addicted people are anxious, less satisfied with life, they may have problems with academic performance and with the achievement of their life and professional goals. Addicted people are more common among younger generation. For the diagnostic and corrective work with people who have addiction problems, require appropriate tools. One of these tools is described in our work. This is a test of dependence by Sheinov in addiction on social networks. The purpose of this study was to translate this test into the Latvian language, to check its reliability and validity. The relevant procedures described in the text of the article indicate to a high degree of reliability and validity of this test. It can also be used for the scientific purposes.