Latvian phonology

This article is about the phonology of the Latvian language. It deals with synchronic phonology as well as phonetics.

Consonants
Table adopted from

/n t d s z t͡s d͡z/ are denti-alveolar, while /l r/ are alveolar. The consonant sounds are only found in loanwords. is only an allophone of nasals before velars /k/ and /g/. Latvian plosives are not aspirated (unlike in English).

Voiced and unvoiced consonants assimilate to the next-standing consonant, e.g. apgabals or labs. Voiced consonants don't get devoiced word-finally. At the same time single voiced consonants (d, t, z, g, dz etc.) don't get devoiced word-finally: dzied, dedz.

Doubled consonants are pronounced longer: mamma. Same with plosives and fricatives located between two short vowels: upe. Same with 'zs' that is pronounced as, šs and žs as.

Palatalized dental trill is still used in some dialects (mainly outside Latvia) but quite rarely, and hence the corresponding letter "Ŗ ŗ" was excluded from alphabet.

Vowels
Latvian has six vowels, with length as distinctive feature: , and the diphthongs involving it other than, are confined to loanwords.

Vowel length ratio is about 1/2.5. Vowel length is phonemic and plays an important role in the language. For example koka means 'made of wood', kokā  means 'on the tree'; pile  means 'a drop', and pīle  means 'a duck'.

Latvian also has 10 diphthongs, although some diphthongs are mostly limited to proper names and interjections.

Pitch accent
Standard Latvian and, with a few minor exceptions, all of the Latvian dialects have fixed initial stress. Long vowels and diphthongs have a tone, regardless of their position in the word. This includes the so-called "mixed diphthongs", composed of a short vowel followed by a sonorant. There are three types of tones:
 * level (also drawling, sustained) tone (stieptā intonācija)
 * high throughout the syllable
 * e.g., loks "spring onion" (pronunciation represented as "luõks" in Latvian phonetics)


 * falling tone (krītošā intonācija)
 * brief rise followed by a long fall
 * e.g., loks "arch, bow" (pronounced "lùoks")


 * broken tone (lauztā intonācija)
 * rising tone followed by falling tone with interruption in the middle or some creakiness in the voice
 * e.g., logs "window" (pronounced "luôgs")

Besides the three-tone system of the standard variety, there are also Latvian dialects with only two tones: in western parts of Latvia, the falling tone merged with the broken tone, while in eastern parts of Latvia the level tone merged with the falling tone. Hence, the Central Latvian traũks, dràugs, raûgs corresponds to Western Latvian traũks, draûgs, raûgs, and to Eastern Latvian tràuks, dràugs, raûgs.

This system is similar to the ones found in Lithuanian, Swedish, Norwegian and Serbo-Croatian. The broken tone is similar to the Danish stød.

Alternations
Latvian roots may alternate between and  depending on whether the following segment is a vowel or a consonant. For example, the root Daugav- 'Daugava River' in the nominative case is, but is pronounced in the city name Daugavpils. In this example, the vocalic alternant is realized as the off-glide of the diphthong. However, when following a vowel that does not form an attested Latvian diphthong (e.g. ), is pronounced as a monophthong, as in  'fish- NOM.SG. ' (cf. 'fish- NOM.PL. ').