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From November 3, the exhibition “Primers and ABC-books of the Peoples of the World” from the collection of Juris Cibuļs can be viewed in the Library for the Blind of Latvia. About 300 primers and ABC-books and posters with alphabets from different countries of the world can be seen in the exhibition.

The author of the exhibition “Primers and ABC-books of the Peoples of the World” Juris Cibuļs is a teacher, publicist, linguist who has been studying and collecting primers and ABC-books for more than 40 years. In his collection there are more than 10 thousand different primers and ABC-books from 226 countries of the world in 1,230 languages.

“By collecting primers and ABC-books, I collect languages, because no one knows exactly how many languages there are in the world. A primer or an ABC-book, like a drop of water, reflects both the requirements of the era and the level of the people's culture.” – Juris Cibuļs describes his collection of primers and ABC-books.

The author’s collection of primers and ABC-books travels continuously, it has been exhibited in museums, schools, libraries, cultural centres of Latvia, as well as abroad.

From November 3, visitors to the Latvian Library for the Blind have the opportunity to see a small part of collection of primers and ABC-books of Juris Cibuļs – about 300 primers and ABC-books and posters with alphabets from different countries of the world (Tanzania, Panama, Uganda, Zimbabwe, India, Sweden, etc.) in about 200 languages, as well as primers and ABC-books published for the deaf and the blind.

The exhibition will surprise everyone with the number of countries and languages, and with the creativity of the authors.

At the beginning of this year, it was the 175th anniversary of the outstanding Latvian linguist and teacher Kārlis Mīlenbahs.

During its centenary, the Talsu Regional Museum has repeatedly encouraged listening to the language of different time periods – through exhibitions, reminiscences, and events.

Currently, the exhibition of primers “Printed in Latvia” is on its way to visitors. It will exhibit 300 ABC-books and primers published in Latvia from the collection of the collector Juris Cibuļs and several copies from the collection of the Talsi Regional Museum. Different languages, primers in Braille, sound primers are not all that will surprise you at this exhibition. You will also see coins dedicated to primers, games, playing cards, posters, and magnetic letters.

The opening of the exhibition and the meeting with the collector Juris Cibuļs will take place at the Talsu Regional Museum on October 6, at 2.00 p.m.

The collection will be on display until November 20, 2023.

The book “Latgalian Primers” furnishes information on various types of the Latgalian primers by commenting on the principles of their compilation and illustrating as well as by mentioning their most typical features and peculiarities. All the examples have been given in the orthography used in the book in question, preserving the obvious spelling and punctuation mistakes; now and then they have been pointed out.

Almost 100 different primers have been written in the Latgalian language and for Latgalians. In this book they have been grouped as follows, namely, catechism primers, primers written by Latgalian authors, Latvian primers adapted for Latgalian schools, modern Latgalian primers, Latgalian primers published in Russia and primers for Russification and Letonisation of Latgalians.

In Latgalian a primer is called “lementars” (Polish – elementarz, Lithuanian – elementorius, Belorussian – лемантар). It is a shortened form of the word “elementārs” (Latin elementarius – initial, elementary).

The Latgalian primers have been written in different orthographies. The compilers of the Latgalian primers, published in the 18^th and 19^th centuries, have made use of the Polish orthography; however, already the very first Latgalian primers (the so-called catechism primers) demonstrate the typical features of the Latgalian language quite precisely.

The information is scarce as regards the very first authors, compilers of the Latgalian primers. The most popular authors of the Latgalian original primers are Francis Kemps, Francis Trasuns and Eduards Kozlovskis, but in Russia – Izidors Meikšāns.

At the end of the book a chronological list of Latgalian primers as well as a list of events (exhibitions, conferences, etc.) related to primers and author’s publications on Latgalian primers in English and French have been added.

The first part of the book acquaints with the history of the village Purlova and the Lazdulejas civil parish of the Balvu region. It provides texts on the provenance of Purlova and information on its inhabitants and their occupations including various documents from the archives and photos.

The second chapter provides a general outline of phonetics and grammar of the Purlovas subdialect of the Latgalian language. In the section of phonetics, the peculiarities of the orthography and pronunciation the Purlovas subdialect of the Latgalian language have been outlined and the main differences in comparison with the Latgalian and the Latvian languages have been explained. In the section of grammar all the parts of speech have been characterised in brief. A vocabulary of the words of the Purlovas subdialect of the Latgalian language with the translation into Latvian is found in the second chapter as well. The vocabulary “Words of the Purlovas Subdialect of the Latgalian Language in the data base Intercontinental Dictionary Series (IDS)” and a primer compiled according to the sound method have also been added.

The book of reference provides information on collecting of primers and ABC-books in Belarusian, Bulgarian, Chinese, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Finnish, French, Hebrew, Irish, Italian, Latgalian, Latvian, Lithuanian, Manchu, Norwegian, Polish, Portuguese, Romanian, Russian, Spanish, Swedish, Turkish and Ukrainian. Lists of the languages and countries represented in the collection as well as of publications, exhibitions and other activities related to primers and ABC-books and their collecting have been included in this book of reference.