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Wiktionary:About Latvian

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The aim of this page is to explain the norms used in Latvian language entries. It is intended to complement, not supersede, WT:CFI and WT:ELE.

Taxonomy

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Latvian, together with Lithuanian and several extinct languages (Old Prussian, Curonian, etc.), forms the Baltic subgroup of the Balto-Slavic sub-branch of the Indo-European language family. (There is still some debate about whether the Baltic languages form a proper subgroup of the Balto-Slavic languages. Also, a minority view according to which Baltic and Slavic are separate groups within Indo-European still has some support.)

Orthography

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The current orthography of Latvian words follows the Latvian standard alphabet (adopted in its present form after World War II), which consists of 33 letters:

A Ā B C Č D E Ē F G Ģ H I Ī J K Ķ L Ļ M N Ņ O P R S Š T U Ū V Z Ž
a ā b c č d e ē f g ģ h i ī j k ķ l ļ m n ņ o p r s š t u ū v z ž

Before World War II, there were two extra letters, Ŗ/ŗ and Ch/ch, no longer in use, but still found in older books and in books published by the Latvian diaspora after World War II and before the fall of the Soviet Union. These older forms can be entered as alternative forms of Latvian words (see, e.g., kaŗš).

Main outline

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A Latvian entry should follow a structure compatible with WT:ELE. The following are some considerations specific to Latvian entries.

Alternative forms section

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In Latvian, it is fairly frequent to find genitive phrases that can also be spelled together as one word (e.g. kaklarota ~ kakla rota "necklace", or bērnunams ~ bērnu nams "orphanage"; such orthographic variations should also be indicated here. To determine which is the basic form and which is the alternative form, one should first use dictionary or encyclopedic sources (including, for instance, the preferred form given in the Latvian Wikipedia, when available); if those are not available, one can do a quick Google search and adopt as basic spelling the form with the highest number of hits. As an example, consider ledusskapis (“refrigerator”): 

==Latvian==

===Alternative forms===
* {{l|lv|ledus skapis}}

And here is the entry for its alternative form ledus skapis: 

==Latvian==

===Noun===
{{lv-noun|m|2nd}}

# {{alternative form of|ledusskapis|lang=lv|nocap=1|nodot=1}}

If the alternative form is written as one word, it should be identified as a compound in its Etymology section, as e.g. bērnunams: 

===Etymology===
From {{compound|bērnu|nams|gloss1=children|gloss2=house|lang=lv}}.

===Noun===
{{lv-noun|m|1st}}

# {{alternative form of|bērnu nams|lang=lv|nocap=1|nodot=1}}

Part-of-speech and definition section

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The title of this section should be the part of speech (noun, verb, adjective, adverb, etc.) of the word in question. (Suffixes and prefixes have a ===Suffix=== or ===Prefix section; see, e.g., -nieks or ie-).

The first line in this section is the headword line, and should contain a template that identifies the word in its basic form (for Latvian nouns, the nominative singular, or nominative plural for pluralia tantum; for Latvian verbs, the infinitive; in both cases, it should also be the page name) and gives further succinct grammatical information. Latvian inflection-line templates all start with "lv-"; currently available ones include {{lv-noun}}, {{lv-adj}}, {{lv-verb}}, {{lv-prefix}}, {{lv-suffix}} (see Category:Latvian headword-line templates). The necessary grammatical information should be provided with the template, not written in independently (see each template for individual documentation). Nouns, for instance, should have their gender and declension class indicated, as well as any irregularities (plural or singular only, irregular plural or case, etc.). Nouns that have a corresponding feminine and/or masculine form should also have this form indicated. As an example, here is the part-of-speech section with headword line for latvietis (“Latvian (man)”) and puika (“boy”): 

===Noun===
{{lv-noun|m|2nd|fem=latviete}}

===Noun===
{{lv-noun|m|4th|irr=gender, dative singular}}

Declension/Conjugation section

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Under the main part-of-speech heading, the declension (for nouns and adjectives) or conjugation (for verbs) section is given with its own (level-4) heading. The full declension/conjugation of the entry is given with a template ({{lv-decl-noun}} for nouns, {{lv-decl-adj}} for adjectives, {{lv-decl-AdjN}} for adjective-noun phrases, {{lv-conj}} for verbs; see Category:Latvian inflection-table templates). Here are a few examples:

kaķis (“cat”) 

===Noun===
{{lv-noun|m|2nd}}

# [[domestic cat]]
#: {{usex|lv|melns '''kaķis'''|black '''cat'''}}
#: {{usex|lv|'''kaķis''' murrā|the '''cat''' purrs}}
#: {{usex|lv|'''kaķis''' noķēris peli|the '''cat''' caught a mouse}}
#: {{usex|lv|veikls kā '''kaķis'''|neat as a '''cat'''}}
#: {{usex|lv|acis kā '''kaķim'''|eyes like a '''cat''''s}}

====Declension====
{{lv-decl-noun|ka|is|2nd||ķ|ķ}}

labs (“good”) 

===Adjective===
{{lv-adj|lab}}

# [[good]]

====Declension====
{{lv-decl-adj|lab}}

celt (“to build”) 

===Verb===
{{lv-verb|ceļ|cēla}}

# to [[lift]]
# to [[build]]
# to [[construct]]; to carry out construction works

====Conjugation====
{{lv-conj-1|ceļ|cēl|cel|2s=cel}}

Lemma vs. form-of entries

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Since Latvian is a highly inflected language, Latvian words often have a large number of different forms. The main entry structure above should be used for the basic form (or lemma) of a word: for nouns and adjectives, the nominative singular; for verbs, the infinitive. Other forms should of course also be listed as entries in Wiktionary, but with a much simpler structure. Here is an example of such a "form-of" entry, for galdam, the dative singular form of galds (“table”): 

==Latvian==

===Noun===
{{head|lv|noun form}}

# {{lv-inflection of|galds|dat|s}}

Form-of entries don't have a specific headword-line template; the {{head|lv}} template is used, with an appropriate identification of the entry ('noun form') (which automatically places it in the [[Category:Latvian noun forms]]) and with an indication of gender (g=m or g=f)). The following line, starting with a '#', has the template {{lv-inflection of}} instead of a definition. If a given word (or more than one word) has homophonous forms which are grammatically different, they should be listed as independent '#' lines, as in the following example (for mēnesi, from either mēness (“moon”) or mēnesis (“month”)): 

==Latvian==

===Noun===
{{head|lv|noun form}}

# {{lv-inflection of|mēness|voc|s}}
# {{lv-inflection of|mēness|acc|s}}
# {{lv-inflection of|mēness|ins|s}}

===Noun===
{{head|lv|noun form}}

# {{lv-inflection of|mēnesis|voc|s}}
# {{lv-inflection of|mēnesis|acc|s}}
# {{lv-inflection of|mēnesis|ins|s}}

Alternative form entries also have a similarly simple structure (see Alternative forms section above).

Available online resources

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Here are some useful free online dictionaries and similar resources about Latvian. (All sites are in Latvian.)

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