Latgalian language is considered a Latvian language dialect by the Latvian government, others argue that it is an independent language.
Vowels
+ Vowel phonemes of Latgalian Front Central Back short long short long short long Close () Mid () () Open Diphthongs
occurs in complementary distribution with , so that they can be regarded as allophones of a single phoneme. Long are rare and occur only in interjections. The phonological long counterparts of the short are the diphthongs . There are very few minimal pairs for the opposition. In some dialects, is simply an allophone of . are phonetically central . Apart from and , there are also vowel+glide sequences , which are very common. Rarer sequences include , and , with the last one occurring only in onomatopoeias and loanwords. Phonemically, they are all sequences of two phonemes, rather than proper diphthongs. In some dialects, and fall together as . can also merge with as .
Consonants + Consonant phonemes of Latgalian Labial Dental/Alveolar Postalveolar/Palatal Velar hard soft hard soft hard soft hard soft Nasal Stop Affricate () () Fricative () () () () Approximant () () Trill ()
Accent
Stress The stress is most often on the first syllable.
Tonal accents There are two phonemic tonal accents in Latgalian, which appear only on long syllables, i.e. those with a long vowel, a diphthong, or a sequence of a short vowel and a sonorant. These are falling (also called level) and broken (also called sharp). However, there are only a handful of minimal (or near-minimal) pairs, such as 'swallow' and 'tomorrow', both written reit.
Phonetically, both of the tonal accents are falling; the falling accent is realized as an even decrease in intensity and pitch, whereas the broken accent is realized as a sudden decrease in intensity and pitch.
References
Bibliography