Translation from Latvian into Russian
ALBA Translation Agency does translation from Latvian into Russian and from Russian into Latvian of texts on any themes. After Latvia had declared its independence from the USSR, the demand for translations from Latvian rose sharply. The most popular is translation from Latvian into Russian of private papers with notarisation, including birth/marriage/divorce certificates, work record books, passports and export declarations. Translation from Russian into Latvian, as well as Latvian interpreting, is less popular, but we are also ready to render you this service.
Latvian is the official language of Latvia and it is spoken by about 1.4 million people in Latvia and about 150,000 in other countries. Through the Latvian language policy, the role and popularity of Latvian are constantly growing. 60% of the population of this Baltic country speak Latvian today. Latvian is a Baltic language which most of all resembles Lithuanian, although these are two different languages.
History of Latvian
The Baltic languages, among which only two are official languages (Latvian and Lithuanian), have retained many features of the ancient Proto-Indo-European language. According to some sources, the split of the Proto-Indo-European language into Slavic languages and Baltic languages took place at the beginning of the first millennium before Christ and the differentiation between Latvian and Lithuanian started after AD 800s. Before that, these two languages had been dialects of the Common Proto-Baltic language. The most ancient written source of Latvian is the translation of liturgical texts into Latvian by the German pastor Nikolaus Ramm in 1530.
Until the 19th century, Latvian had been heavily influenced by German, because the upper class of that time was formed by Baltic Germans. In the middle of the 19th century, in 1850-1880, the First Latvian National Awakening was started, led by “Young Latvians”, who popularised the use of Latvian. The participants of that movement laid the foundations for Standard Latvian and popularised the Latvianisation of loan words. However, in the 1880s, when tsar Alexander III came into power, the process of Russification, opposite to the Latvianisation, started. During this period, there even were attempts of adopting the Cyrillic alphabet for use in some Latvian schools. After the tsar’s death, the nationalist movements reemerged. In 1908, the Latvian linguists Karlis Milenbahs and Janis Endzelins worked out the modern Latvian alphabet, which slowly replaced the old orthographic rules. After the breakup of the USSR, Latvia began to take active measures in support of Latvian. The Law on State Language was adopted on 9 December 1999.