National programs and projects

Regionalism

The goal of the sub-project Regionalism is the advancement of research on the regional variants of the Latvian language, in dialectology and geolinguistics at large, and in language contact studies. It is also envisaged to promote the international recognition and circulation of these studies. Since nowadays there is an increasing interest in language typology, in regional and social variants of language and their interaction, and in language contact studies, it is necessary to provide an optimal access to the linguistic data of all the language variants, including the regional dialects, and the correlation of their dynamics and their written traditions.

The results of the sub-project Regionalism will be important in the context of Latvian as one of the core values of the national identity. Therefore, the analysis of regional language varieties and their dynamics is essential as part of the broader studies of cultural and linguistic history.

The final project results will be disseminated in the monograph Insight in the language of Lower Kurzeme by Ieva Ozola and Liene Markus-Narvila. The research findings will also be incorporated in the study courses of dialectology, Latvian lexicology and grammar. These results will contribute to future studies of Latvian historical linguistics, dialectology and other philological disciplines.