used as an official language anywhere in Latvia. It is formally protected by the Latvian Language Law stating that "The Latvian State ensures the preservation, protection, and development of the Latgalian literary language as a historical variant of the Latvian language" (§3.4). The law regards Latgalian and Standard Literary Latvian as two equal variants of the same Latvian language. Even though such legal status allows usage of Latgalian in state affairs and education spheres, it still happens quite rarely. There is a state-supported orthography commission of the Latgalian language. Whether the Latgalian language is a separate language or a dialect of Latvian has been a matter of heated debate throughout the 20th century. Proponents of Latgalian such as linguists Antons Breidaks and Lidija Leikuma have suggested Latgalian has the characteristics of an independent language. Dialects Latgalian speakers can be classified into three main groups – Northern, Central, and Southern. These three groups of local accents are entirely mutually intelligible and characterized only by minor changes in vowels, diphthongs, and some inflexion endings. The regional accents of central Latgale (such as those spoken in the towns and rural municipalities of Juosmuiža, Vuorkova, Vydsmuiža, Viļāni, Sakstygols, Ūzulaine, Makašāni, Drycāni, Gaigalova, Bierži, Tiļža, and Nautrāni) form the phonetical basis of the modern standard Latgalian language. The literature of the 18th century was more influenced by the Southern accents of Latgalian. Alphabet The Latgalian language uses an alphabet with 35 letters. Its orthography is similar to Latvian orthography, but has two additional letters: represents ), an allophone of which is absent in standard Latvian. The letter survives from the pre-1957 Latvian orthography, but is being used less during modern times in Latgalian and is being replaced by two letters that represent the same sound. The IETF language tags have registered subtags for the 1929 orthography () and the 2007 orthography (). Language examples Poem of Armands Kūceņš Tik skrytuļam ruodīs: iz vītys jis grīžās, A brauciejam breinums, kai tuoli ceļš aizvess, Tai vuorpsteite cīši pret sprāduoju paušās, Jei naatteik – vacei gi dzejis gols zvaigznēs. Pruots naguorbej ramu, juos lepneibu grūžoj, Vys jamās pa sovam ļauds pasauli puormeit, Bet nak jau sevkuram vīns kuorsynoj myužu I ramaņu jumtus līk īguodu kuormim. Na vysim tai sadar kai kuošam ar speini, Sirds narymst i nabeidz par sātmalim tēmēt, A pruots rauga skaitejs pa rokstaudža zeimem, Kai riedeits, kod saulei vēļ vaiņuku jēme. Lord's Prayer Tāvs myusu,