Latvian is one of the two surviving members of the
Baltic branch of the
Indo-European language family, the other being
Lithuanian. Like the
Estonians, the
Latvians regard their language as an endangered species,
which is understandable as only just over half of the population in the
country-side, and only a third in
Riga speak it as their first language. The
language has few similarities with other european languages on
first
glance.
Latvian makes use of a number of special characters (most of them
unrenderable here), viz.:
- c, s, and z (with reversed
circumflexes);
- g (with an acute accent);
- a,e,i and u (with a breve
accent -- long bar over top); &
- k and n (with a hook)