ABSTRACT
This article gives an overview of the sociolinguistic history of Latgalian in the last century, focusing on the language policy issues addressed by the First Congress of Latgale’s Latvians in 1917, and the developments brought about by the Latgale Centenary Congress in 2017. Latgalian is a regional language of eastern Latvia, with a collateral history of development and a literary standard. On the contrary, spoken Latgalian has been considered a dialect of Latvian, as a glottopolitical result of Latgale’s peripheral location in Latvia’s geographical and cultural space. Latgale’s own sociocultural, religious, and linguistic profile was also ignored after Latvia proclaimed its independence in 1918, resulting in a gradual marginalization of Latgalian in most of the language use spheres, both in Soviet Latvia and in the independent state of Latvia after the 1990s. The centenary of the Republic of Latvia created new circumstances for the hitherto minorized Latgalian language. During the 2017 Latgale Centenary Congress, Latgalian perspectives were summarized and articulated to form a new language policy strategy.
