Latgalian language
Originally Latgalians were a tribe living in modern Vidzeme and Latgale. It is thought that they spoke the Latvian language, which later spread through the rest of modern Latvia, absorbing features of the Old Curonian, Semigallian, Selonian and Livonian languages. The Latgale area became politically separated during the Polish–Swedish wars, remaining part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as the Inflanty Voivodeship, while the rest of Latvians lived in lands dominated by Baltic German nobility. Both centuries of separate development and the influence of different prestige languages likely contributed to the development of modern Latgalian as distinct from the language spoken in Vidzeme and other parts of Latvia.
Russian language in Latvia
In 2017 a total of 7% or 5,332 students studied in Russian in Latvia's state and private higher education institutions (around one third in private colleges and less than 1 percent in state higher institutions), the most being at the Transport and Telecommunication Institute, where the share of the students with Russian as the language of tuition reached 86% or 2,358. Other private higher education institutions with notable percentage of people studying in Russian included Information Systems Management Institute with 53% students, Riga International School of Economics and Business Administration with 34% students, Riga Aeronautical Institute with 18% students, Baltic International Academy with 17% students, and University of Economics and Culture with 6% of all its students studying in Russian.