Latvian Language and its origin

[luap]

Hi

I don't want or mean to offend anyone here but to me Latvian looks like a combination of Estonian and Lithuanian - Some words are finnic and others look very Lithuanian

Is this true?

Cheers

[Mantaz]

Hi

I don't want or mean to offend anyone here but to me Latvian looks like a combination of Estonian and Lithuanian - Some words are finnic and others look very Lithuanian

Is this true?

Cheers

It sure has influence of finnic language, but it't not any kind of combination

[Loiks]

Hi

I don't want or mean to offend anyone here but to me Latvian looks like a combination of Estonian and Lithuanian - Some words are finnic and others look very Lithuanian

Is this true?

Cheers

As an Estonian I can assure you that Estonians don't find any familiar words in Latvian and vice versa. There's only a widespread "common knowledge" here that all the Latvian words end with s.

[Taarup]

Well, there are many similar words, it's just that Latvian is nearly not known at all among Estonians.

Actually these languages (or their ancestors) have influensed each other with giving vocabulary.

[ltd]

Estonian and Latvian aren´t similar. Latvian is an Indo-European language, Estonian is Finno-Ugric. For example, Estonians and Finns understand each other quite a lot, Latvians and Estonians don´t understand eachother at all. Am I right to say that it´s similar to Lithuanian? Lithuanian is another Indo-European Baltic sub-group language, but I guess Latvian and Lithuanian vocabularies vary greatly from each other and are not mutually intelligible.

[Mantaz]

Estonian and Latvian aren´t similar. Latvian is an Indo-European language, Estonian is Finno-Ugric. For example, Estonians and Finns understand each other quite a lot, Latvians and Estonians don´t understand eachother at all. Am I right to say that it´s similar to Lithuanian? Lithuanian is another Indo-European Baltic sub-group language, but I guess Latvian and Lithuanian vocabularies vary greatly from each other and are not mutually intelligible.

They possess very similar grammar, but they are not mutually intelligible mainly because of phonetic and grammar changes.

[Taarup]

I'll just give a few examples of similarities among basic vocabulary (borrowed from each other long ago):

burkāns/porgand - carrot
māja/maja - house
skurstenis/korsten - chimney
naba/naba - navel
debesis/taevas - sky
zirnis/hernes - pea

Note the -ja ending of someone doing something (I don't know the correct grammatical terms):

pārdot/müüma (to sell) - pārdevēja/müüja (shop assistant)