Abstract

Nicole Nau, A Short Grammar of Latgalian. (Languages of the World/Materials, 482.) München: LINCOM Europa, 2011. ISBN: 978-3-86288-055-3.

Nicole Nau’s descriptive grammar of Latgalian is a valuable addition to the catalogue of sources from which typologists can draw information
for cross-linguistic studies. In previous samples—even in the most sizable ones—Latgalian was hardly ever represented, because
the necessary information about its structural properties was available almost exclusively in articles and monographs written in languages
other than English. There are publications in Latgalian, Latvian, Russian and German on Latgalian matters. However, publishing in these
and other languages has proved to be an obstacle to the diffusion of knowledge about Latgalian beyond the limits of Baltic philology. I do
not deny the existence of a variety of scholarly articles in English which treat Latgalian (mostly in the wider context of Latvian dialectology
or Circum-Baltic areal linguistics). However, there had been no fullblown synchronic grammatical description of Latgalian accessible to
the worldwide linguistic community until the book under review saw the light of day in 2011.