Latvian language
Latvian ("Latviešu valoda" ) is a Baltic language spoken in the Baltic region. It is the language of Latvians and the official language of Latvia as well as one of the official languages of the European Union. It is sometimes known in English as Lettish, and cognates of the word remain the most commonly used name for the Latvian language in Germanic languages other than English. There are about 1.3 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and 100,000 abroad. Altogether, 2 million, or 80% of the population of Latvia, speak Latvian. Of those, 1.16 million or 56% use it as their primary language at home. The use of the Latvian language in various areas of social life in Latvia is increasing.
Latgalians (modern)
During the first independence of Latvia (1918–1940), Latgale was the only region of Latvia with strong regional political parties. Although Latvian governments mainly promoted a united Latvian culture, fostering assimilation of Latgalians, especially after the coup by Kārlis Ulmanis in 1934, the Latgalian language was also used. Books were published in Latgalian, it was taught in some schools, and people could choose to use Latgalian when communicating with the government. They were classified as a Narodnosti in the First All Union Census of the Soviet Union in 1926. In the Nazi German "Generalplan Ost", as far as can be told from the surviving documentation, the Latgalians were scheduled for deportation, while only half of the Latvian population was to be treated so. The reasons for this difference are unclear, but possibly based on racist linguistic arguments, considering that the Nazis planned to physically remove 85% of the Lithuanians (whose language – and by erroneous inference ethnicity – has similarities to Latgalian).