Zane Daudziņa: Latgalian is its own sovereign value
Actress, speech coach and Latvian Public Media (LSM) language consultant Zane Daudziņa discusses in an interview the beauty of the Latgalian language, its pronunciation differences from standard Latvian, and her work with accents. The occasion for the conversation was her recent award of the Order of the Three Stars.
Actress, author of several books, speech coach and Latvian Public Media (LSM) language consultant Zane Daudziņa has shared her thoughts on the relationship between standard Latvian and the Latgalian language in a recent interview. Daudziņa, who was born in Riga, calls herself a true "Rīdziniece" (Riga native), yet as a child spending summers at her grandmother's in the Balvi region, she began understanding and even imitating the local speech within just a couple of days.
From confusion to respect
Daudziņa says her car's navigation system has for several years been set to a Latgalian voice, which she initially found amusing, almost like a distorted version of Latvian. Over time, however, she came to understand it as a fully separate, self-standing language rather than a flawed variant of the standard one. This shift in perception deepened after her work on the play "Mazpilsēta" (Small Town), which included sentences and phrases in Latgalian.
Working with speech differences
As a speech coach, Daudziņa works with actors, students and journalists, helping them adjust their pronunciation toward the standard language. She notes that one of the main differences between the two forms is the broad and narrow "e" sound, which is not as sharply distinguished in the Latgale region. Correcting pronunciation sometimes requires repeating a single word dozens of times. Daudziņa says she herself had to relearn how to pronounce the word "Ventspils," and drew on her experience voicing a Russian-accented character in the TV series "Ugunsgrēks" to master the softer sound typical of Latgalian.
Debate on media standards
Daudziņa believes that public media journalists and hosts who are not representing a specific region or topic should speak flawless standard Latvian, though she admits this view is not shared by everyone, including some of her friends. She also suggests that Latgalian itself might benefit from having its own speech coaches, drawing a comparison to Lithuania, where, according to her, only a small share of the population speaks precise literary Lithuanian.
