The Enterprise Register and the Courts Don't Understand Latgalian :)

An article appeared on Delfi in which the association "Latgalīšu volūdys centris" received a rejection both from the Enterprise Register (UR) and the Administrative District Court (interesting - which one? Surely not the one based in Latgale), because the documents were composed and submitted in the Latgalian language. With that, of course, things did not stop, and an appeal was submitted to the Supreme Court. I cannot say in which language the application was submitted, but the Supreme Court examined it and issued an opinion in which it explained that the Latgalian language (dialect, variety, or whatever mutual communication standard it is labelled as) is neither a language nor a non-language. In short - a foreign language.

Other dialects or languages within the meaning of Article 110, second paragraph, of the Administrative Procedure Law are foreign languages, and a document composed in the Latgalian written language is to be recognised as a document written in a foreign language, the Senate concluded.

http://www.delfi.lv/news/national/politics/article.php?id=26322155

In the State Language Law we find:

Article 3. (1) The state language of the Republic of Latvia is the Latvian language.
...
(4) The state shall ensure the preservation, protection and development of the Latgalian written language as a historical variety of the Latvian language.

Here it would seem to be clearly stated that the Latgalian language is not an independent language, but a variety of the Latvian language, and therefore the provision of the State Language Law on foreign languages cannot apply to Latgalian. The Supreme Court is of a different opinion. :)

Article 110, first paragraph, of the Administrative Procedure Law stipulates that judicial proceedings take place in the state language. In Article 4, first sentence, of the Constitution it is designated as the Latvian literary language. So - a virtual construct: the literary language.

The literary language arises in certain historical circumstances most often on the basis of some territorial dialect (which one do you think?).

http://www.liis.lv/latval/literval/lit1.htm

So there it is, brothers and sisters - Latvians and Latgalians. If anyone hears the left-leaning "non-Russian" laments about the Russian language being ignored in local governments, they can confidently point to the Supreme Court Senate Department of Administrative Cases' decision (on classifying the Latgalian language as a foreign language) and put it on the table that the Latgalian language too (as a foreign language), which is as widely used as Russian, deserves no fewer rights than the Russian language.

Reference to the Supreme Court decision: 18.08.2009, case No. SKA-596/2009