“Estonian – Latvian Dictionary” and “Latvian – Estonian Dictionary” Published

Latvian Language Agency is grateful for the genorus support from Estonian – Latvian Crossborder Cooperation Council for production and publication of a new Estonian – Latvian Dictionary, and for publication by Estonian Language Agency of a parallell Latvian – Estonian Dictionary, each comprising over 40 000 items.

In addition to these publications Estonian Language Agency has also created electronic version sof both these dictionaries, whilst Latvian Langage Agency has already published and made available the full electronic version of our dictionary, which will very soon be also made available in Apps for users of Apple iOS and Android platforms.

The Latvian – Estonian Dictionary created by the Estonian Language Agency is a bilingual corpus of parallell texts, worked out via third language, using an innovative method for producing general translation dictionaries in Estonia. The structure, methodic principles and automatic formatting of this dictionary was performed by the project manager Arvi Tavast, but a significant contribution to the creation of this dictionary was also provided by Translation and Language Technology company „Tilde”.

The creators of the Estonian – Latvian Dictionary, published by Latvian Language Agency, were Valts Ernštreits, Marika Muzikante and Maima Grīnberga, the Chief Editor– Valts Ernštreits, and reviewers – Guntars Godiņš un Lembits Vaba. This dictionary was created totally anew and today serves as an up-to-date and richly illustrated assistant to translators from the Estonian language and to learners of both the languages. Dictionary was created by using samples from contemporary language, as well as the corpus of Estonian language currently under construction by the Tartu University (Estonia), latest publications on Estonian language norms and other contemporary research material. Dictionary includes a rich collection of contemporary words and lexical units, that often come up in translation context. Also many new words from contemporary Latvian language have for the first time been included in this dictionary.

Whilst the dictionary of Estonian – Latvian language was being created, all interested parties were welcome to follow the process, because the electronic version of the draft dictionary was constantly made available online thanks to modern user technologies. In the same website www.ee-lv.lv  Latvian Language Agency has now published the new approved version of the expanded Estonian – Latvian Electronic Dictionary. The plan is to keep constantly updating and expanding the dictionary, as a result of the on-going cooperation of Latvian and Estonian translators. This will further promote higher quality of translations into both of these languages.

The electronic platform created during the production of the Estonian – Latvian Language Dictionary has been instrumental in the creation of special Applications for Apple iOs and Android smartphones and tablets. Apps will be available as soon as the service providers publish them on their respective sites.

Dictionaries in electronic format are available at: Estonian Language Institute   www.eki.ee/dict/lv-et/index.cgi and  www.eki.ee/dict/et-lv/ , whilst Latvian Language Agency has published the expanded Estonian – Latvian Dictionary at the site:  www.ee-lv.lv/lv/vardnica

Both of these new dictionaries are available for purchase from the Latvian Language agency directly or at all major bookstores.