The official language of Latvia since 1918.
Latvian is one of the Baltic languages. It is closely related to the Lithuanian language, but is the less conservative of the two, showing numerous sound changes in its historical development.
Latvian has short, pure, vowels in the final syllables of words where Lithuanian has long vowels and diphthongs . Grammatically, both Latvian and Lithuanian, are highly inflected .
| Name | Where spoken | Language Family | How many (000s) |
| Latvian | Latvia | Indo-Eurpean (Balto-Slavic) | 1.5-2m |
Table source: The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language, David Ctystal, Cambridge University Press
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