Dialects of the Latvian language
There are three dialects in Latvian: the Livonian influenced dialect (blue in the map), Augšzemnieku (yellow) and the Middle dialect (green).
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The Livonian influenced dialect.
The Livonian dialect is divided into the Vidzeme variety and the Courland variety (also called tāmnieku or ventiņu). It was more affected by the Livonian language substratum than Latvian in other parts of Latvia. There are two intonations in the Livonian dialect. In Courland short vowels in the endings of words are discarded, while long vowels are shortened. In all genders and numbers only one form of the verb is used. Personal names in both genders are derived with endings – els, -ans. In prefixes i.e. is changed to e. Due to migration and the introduction of a standardised language this dialect has declined. It arose from assimilated Livonians, who started to speak in Latvian and assimilated Livonian grammar into Latvian.
Sample of the dialect (voice of the narrator)
[YOUTUBE]AXPduy28r6s[/YOUTUBE]
The Middle dialect
The Middle dialect is regarded as standard Latvian. It consists of three intonations: Vidzemes izloksne, Zemgaliskā izloksne and Kursiskā izloksne. It is much easier for a person who speaks standard Latvian to understand the Livonian dialect, than to understand the Augšzemnieku.
dialect
Sample of the dialect
[YOUTUBE]WrRh29_aYLo[/YOUTUBE]
The Augšzemnieku/Highlander dialect
This dialect is regarded as the oldest and archaic form of Latvian. It has much more phonetic similarities with Lithuanian than the other Latvian dialects. The dialect is divided into Sellonian and Latgallian. Latgallian is almost completely non-understandable by Latvians who speak other dialects and sometimes it is considered as a sovereign language itself, not just a dialect. Latgallian also has a considerable amount of Polish and Russian loanwords.
Sample
[YOUTUBE]kmvX3EpJRZM[/YOUTUBE]
