Editing Latvian language (section)

=== 16th–18th century ===

The oldest known examples of written Latvian are from a 1530 translation of a hymn made by {{ill|Nikolaus Ramm|lv|Nikolajs Ramms}}, a German pastor in [[Riga]].<ref>{{cite journal |last1=Vīksniņš |first1=Nicholas |year=1973 |title=The Early History of Latvian Books |url=http://www.lituanus.org/1973/73_3_02.htm#Ref |journal=[[Lituanus]] |volume=19 |issue=3 |access-date=3 September 2019 |archive-date=24 April 2012 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20120424153605/http://www.lituanus.org/1973/73_3_02.htm#Ref |url-status=dead }}</ref> The oldest preserved book in Latvian is a 1585 Catholic catechism of [[Petrus Canisius]] currently located at the [[Uppsala University Library]].<ref>{{cite news |url=https://eng.lsm.lv/article/society/society/national-treasure-the-oldest-latvian-language-book-in-riga.a197919/ |title=National treasure: The oldest Latvian-language book in Rīga |date=25 August 2016 |publisher=[[Public Broadcasting of Latvia]] |access-date=27 October 2017}}</ref>

The first person to [[Bible translations into Latvian|translate the Bible]] into Latvian was the German [[Lutheranism|Lutheran]] pastor [[Johann Ernst Glück]]<ref>{{cite news |last1=Rozenberga |first1=Māra |last2=Sprēde |first2=Antra |title=National treasure: The first Bible in Latvian |url=https://eng.lsm.lv/article/culture/culture/national-treasure-the-first-bible-in-latvian.a197713/ |access-date=27 October 2017 |publisher=[[Public Broadcasting of Latvia]] |date=24 August 2016}}</ref> ([[The New Testament]] in 1685 and [[The Old Testament]] in 1691). The Lutheran pastor [[Gotthard Friedrich Stender]] was a founder of Latvian secular literature. He wrote the first illustrated Latvian [[alphabet book]] (1787), the first encyclopedia "{{ill|The Book of High Wisdom of the World and Nature|lv|Augstas gudrības grāmata no pasaules un dabas}}" ({{lang|lv|Augstas gudrības grāmata no pasaules un dabas}}; 1774), grammar books and Latvian–German and German–Latvian dictionaries.