The Polish Livonian legacy in Latgalia : the confluence of Slavic ethnolects in the Baltic-Slavic borderland

Abstract

The region of Latgalia in present-day eastern Latvia is situated at the confluence between the Baltic and Slavic dialectal continuums, as well as the eastern and western extremes of the northern Slavic dialectal continuum (Russian, Belarusian, and Polish). This area was ruled by Poland-Lithuania from 1569–1772 as Polish Livonia (Inflanty), and speech communities of two of the Commonwealth’s languages – Polish and Ruthenian (later known as Belarusian) – have survived to this day, despite the spread of the Russian language in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. This chapter presents an historical account of language mixing and the mutual penetration of Slavic ethnolects in Latgalia, and Balto-Slavic language contacts with regard to the Latgalian language/Latvian dialect.