Хочу написать заметку про одну из своих любимых...

I'd like to write a note about one of my favorite topics - languages.

First, a little about the Latvian language:

This language can be called exotic, firstly, because only about 2 million people speak it, and secondly, together with the Lithuanian language, it forms a separate language group - the group of Baltic languages.
The Latvian language is such a "linguistic salad" - there is a lot of Slavic in it:
dzīvot - to live, gatavot - to cook, domāt - to think, varīt - to cook, galva - head, nedeļa - week, ...
ziema bez sniega - winter without snow ????
strādāt - ... in Latvian - work, not suffer ????

Also, those who know German will see similarities in Latvian with German:
tante (lv), Tante (de) - aunt, bilde (lv), Bild (de) - picture, brilles (lv), Brille (de) - glasses
spelēt (lv), spielen (de) - to play, studēt (lv), studieren (de) - to learn something in the specialty
There are borrowings from the Finno-Ugric group of languages, I don't know here anymore.
The only example I can give:
māja - house. In Estonian, it seems that the house will also be - maja.

Some words in Latvian sound very funny for a Russian speaker:
gaļa [galya] - meat
sieva [sieva] - wife
Galya and Seva decided to move to Latvia, with steel there - meat and wife. And Seva became the "wife" ????
jūra [juura] - sea
zina [zina] - knows

suka - brush, minēt - guess, guess, kakls - neck, throat

flowers and cats - puķi un kaķi

also sounds very cute in Latvian rabbit: trusis

My friends told me a forgotten incident that happened at the airport:

The tourist girl was looking for her boarding gate, approached the information desk employee with this question.
The employee very politely began to explain to her how to get through: "Please go there and then, please turn there, then go to the corridor and pashagala."
The passenger wondered why it began so politely with her, but ended so rudely? Well, okay, she thinks and walked to the corridor. She did not find the right way out, returned to the information desk, and says
"I could not find, I, as you said, went there, but did not find." The employee has eyes on her forehead.
It turned out that the employee was Latvian and forgot how it would be in Russian "at the very end" and said it in Latvian - pašā galā, in the hope that the passenger from Riga would understand this phrase too ????

Also in the Latvian language there is a lot of borrowed from the already modern Russian language: karoče, ladno, pofig, besīt, davaj
I personally caught a snippet of dialogue between 2 guys on the bus:
One says to the other "Karoche", I think - "oh! Russians" - then there is a purely Latvian speech, for about 10 minutes, then the bus drives up to the stop, and one of the guys gets off. And they say goodbye - "Nu davaj" - "Nu davaj"

There was also a funny moment when trying to find an interlocutor on the language exchange network (and this was the crudest thing that I heard in my address from Latvians at the time of writing this note) -
"Tas ir protams zaebis kā tu macies valodu, bet man nav interesa sarunāt!" (It is of course f * cking that you are learning the language, but I have no interest in communicating!)
Latvians like to use Russian mat more than their own ????

It was funny to hear from Latvians, who, by the way, speak Russian very well, to hear such words and phrases as:
"wetness" (moisture), "digital fotik" (digital).
"The garden is covered with leaves, but nothing, now the workers will come and rob" (rob = they will rake the leaves with a rake)
It was funny at the holiday - my Latvian friend, apparently, was already tired and began to confuse verbs.
It was late, but he saw the children having fun and asked, "Children, why don't you drink?" - although he immediately realized that he was mistaken and corrected himself - "Children, why are you awake?"

The Latvian language has an impact on the Riga Russian ????
For example, if we did not hear something or did not understand something, we say "What, excuse me?" "Excuse me, how?"
The locals will say "What please?" "How please?"

If you were offered "white coffee" - do not think that this is some kind of special Latvian coffee, no, it's just coffee with milk, nothing interesting ????
In supermarkets, you will be asked to purchase a "bag" (not a bag) for goods. In other matters, the "bag" personally does not cut my ear, I myself can sometimes call the package a bag ????

There is an expression "2 weeks back" = 2 weeks ago, "I'll be back at 5" = I'll be back at five.

Even in the Latvian language, diminutive-affectionate suffixes are adopted, which also pass into Russian. This sounds especially creepy during official negotiations:
"contractor", "documentary", "consultation", "delivery", ...

Also, in the Latvian language, almost always the stress falls on the first syllable - as a result, this was reflected in Russian:
"took", "understood", "agreement", "chain", ...

Well, here are such funny moments to cheer up ???? - what else will I remember / meet - I will add ????