Loanwords, lexicon

[Didriksson]

Latvian language is full with unwanted Russian barbarisms, but they are in no way used in any kind of official level.
Some examples- apbižot (apcelt), davaj (aiziet), pufaika (jaka), maika, kurtka (jaka)...

Russian VOT irritates me so much, when it's used by Latvians speaking Latvians, because we have such a nice sounding equivalent LŪK.

[Didriksson]

About loanwords- it's funny how Latvians have these identical synonyms, where one word is an German/Finnic/Slavic loan while the other is a Baltic word. These can occur in all kind of combinations.

Bura (Finnic)= Zēģele (German)
Māja (Finnic)= Nams (Baltic)
Būvēt (German)= Celt (probably Baltic)

I can't think of any other examples, but there are more.

Bura (Finnic)= Zēģele (German)

Jūriņ' prasa smalku tīklu laiviņ' baltu žēģelīt...

I think, these days we don't use such word zēģelēt, though we use burāt.

Māja (Finnic)= Nams (Baltic)

What about ēka? I'm not sure, but as a Latvian speaker nams and ēka look like synonyms, while māja (mājas) is a building where people live in. Correct me if I'm wrong.

Būvēt (German)= Celt (probably Baltic)

I think both words are equally common, but celt we can use when we speak about abstract things too, like celt pašapziņu, celt prasības, ect.

Also when it comes to some compounds. I've never heard of such words as celtatļauja or celšanas atļauja, instead we use - būvatļauja.

[lI]

Kartupelis and gurkis obviously are German loanwords.

An assumption based on nothing linguistically - that's what it is. Trading with Russians always played a very important role in Latvia and it was only during the Tsarist occupation that the potatoes were pushing out a more traditional wheat & rye farming and started to be produced massively. Peasants in the whole region were very unwilling to make the switch - in 1770 Prussian king managed to force peasants to start growing potatoes only with the help of an army lol

And potatoes were introduced in Russia via Germany, so they use a German loan too.
http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/Kartoffel

If we are counting Latin loanwords in Polish that Lithuanians subsequently borrowed as "Slavic loanwords" I don't see why German loanwords that have been borrowed into Latvian through the mediation of Russians should not be counted as such.

No, you have more slavicisms that we don't have, than vice versa, because we have many loanwords from German in places you have a loanword from Slavic people.

How about we make a little experiment? I'll take two samples from Latvian wikipedia.

Lietuviešu valoda:Slāvismi

Mūsdienu lietuviešu literārā valodā, piemēram, lieto tādus slāvismus: bažnyčia "baznīca" (salīdz. ar veckrievu божница), agurkas "gurķis" (salīdz. ar baltkrievu aгypoк, poļu agorek, krievu oгypeц),blynas "pankūka" (salīdz. ar baltkrievu блiн), bulvė „kartupelis, buļba (Latgalē sastopams apvidvārds)“ (salīdz. ar poļu bulwa, bulba), botagas "pātaga" (salīdz. ar baltkrievu 6aтаг), grybas "sēne" (salīdz. ar baltkrievu грыб), košė "biezputra" (salīdz. ar baltkrievu каша, poļu kasza), krienas "mārrutks" (salīdz. ar baltkrievu xpeн), katilas "katls" (salīdz. veckrievu котьлъ), knyga "grāmata" (salīdz. ar baltkrievu кнiгa), miestas "pilsēta" (salīdz. ar baltkrievu места), pipiras "pipars" (salīdz. ar veckrievu пьпьръ), pyragas "pīrāgs" (salīdz. ar baltkrievu nipoг), ponas "kungs" (salīdz. ar poļu pan, baltkrievu naн), sakalas "piekūns, vanags" (salīdz. ar baltkrievu cokoл, poļu. sokol) u.c.

Results:
7 Slavic loanwords that Lithuanian language has also happen to exist in Standard Latvian - 47%
8 Slavic loanwords that Lithuanian language do not exist in Standard Latvian - 53%


Latviešu_valoda#Rusicismi

Latviešu valodā ir aizgūti tādi vārdi kā bagāts (богатый), baranka (баранка), baznīca (божница), bronza (бронза), dārgs (орогой), cena (цена), čemodāns (чемодан), gads (год), grēks (грех), kapeika (копейка), kažoks, kāposti (капустa), kodaļa, krusts (крест), ķīselis, nedēļa (неделя), pagasts (погост), pagrabs (погреб), pīrāgs (пирог), pulks (полк) [similar word exists in Lithuanian but it's not a loanword], robeža (рубежа), rublis (рубль), svēts (святой), sods, solīt, soģis, šinelis (шинель), soma (сумка), svētki (святки), zābaks(сапог), zvanīt (звонить), zvans (звон) utt.

Results:
8 Slavic loanwords that Latvian language has also happen to exist i n Standard Lithuanian - 26%
23 Slavic loanwords that Latvian language do not exist in Standard Lithuanian - 74%

That doesn't change the fact your relation was far more intense and longer.

It's not a fact but only your opinion. On top of ancient intense contacts between Latvians & Kriviches, Tsarist occupation left a far greater cultural impact on Latvia than it has on Lithuania.
For example, serfdom was abolished in Latvia much earlier because Tsar was "experimenting" but peasants were not given any land, so in the beginning of the 20th century more than a half of Latvian land belonged to the nobility while a lot of Latvian peasants were free but landless. Many were flooding cities in search of work (cities were largely multicultural back then and administration was mostly Russian, there was also a policy of promoting Russian immigration to Latvia to intensify the industrialization much like during the Soviet era). That's how a prominent working class was formed, at that time Latvia was much more industrialized than Lithuania and in Latvia, unlike in Lithuania, many natives were sympathetic to Bolshevik revolution in both 1905 and 1917, even going as far as this:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Latvian...tvian_Riflemen

What was happening in Lithuania at that time? Serfdom was abolished more than half a century later and the peasants were given land immediately (which they had to buy out), so the number of landless peasants flooding cities was nowhere near to that in Latvia and so the cultural contacts between Lithuanians Russians were lesser.

To sum up, not only the early Slavic loanwords are not as numerous in LT as they are in LV (I'll list all Slavic loanwords in Latvian from here) but the second wave loanwords are more numerous there as well. Having more words inherited from proto-Baltic does increase the similarity of Lithuanian and Slavic languages somewhat but it doesn't make up for most of loanwords in Latvian:

Archaic Slavic loanwords in Latvian
LATV - LITH
blēdis ‘sukčius’, 
būda ‘būda 
cilvēks ‘žmogus’, 
dabūt ‘gauti’, 
grēks ‘nuodėmë’, 
istaba ‘troba’, 
kalps ‘tarnas’,
klanīt ‘kinkuoti’, 
krāsa ‘spalva’, 
kristît ‘krikštyti’, 
Pleskava ‘Pskovas’,
pulks ‘pulkas’, (similar word but not a loanword in Lithuanian)
stikls ‘stiklas’, 
svētki ‘šventė’,  (similar word but not a loanword in Lithuanian)
tirgus ‘turgus’,
tulks ‘vertėjas’, 
ūsa ‘ūsas’
 
Slavic loanwords in Latvian that got in during Tsarist occupation
cena ‘kaina’, 
kaza ‘ožka’, 
kazarma ‘kareivinės’, 
pagrabs ‘rūsys’, 
pastala ‘naginė’, 
pavārs ‘virėjas’, 
strādāt ‘dirbti’, 
zvanīt ‘skambinti’, 
zvans ‘varpas’