The Latgale area became politically separated during the Polish–Swedish wars, remaining part of the Polish–Lithuanian Commonwealth as the Inflanty Voivodeship, while the rest of the Latvians lived in lands dominated by Baltic German nobility.

The modern Latgalian literary tradition started to develop in the 18th century from vernaculars spoken by Latvians in the eastern part of Latvia.

Many Latgalian books in the late 18th and early 19th century were authored by Jesuit priests, who came from various European countries to Latgale as the north-eastern outpost of the Roman Catholic religion; their writings included religious literature, calendars, and poetry.

The ban on using Latin letters in this part of the Russian Empire followed immediately after the January Uprising, where insurgents in Poland, Lithuania, and Latgale had challenged the czarist rule.

During the ban, only a limited number of smuggled Catholic religious texts and some hand-written literature were available, e.g. calendars written by the self-educated peasant Andryvs Jūrdžs [ltg; lv; ru].

After the repeal of the ban in 1904, there was a quick rebirth of the Latgalian literary tradition; first newspapers, textbooks, and grammar appeared.

A notable achievement during this period was the original translation of the New Testament into Latgalian by the priest and scholar Aloizijs Broks [ltg], published in Aglona in 1933.

In 1992, Juris Cibuļs together with Lidija Leikuma [ltg; lv] published one of the first Latgalian alphabet books after the restoration of the language.

There are modern rock groups such as Borowa MC [lv] and Dabasu Durovys singing in Latgalian who have had moderate success also throughout the country.

[12] In 2014, 105 bilingual street signs in Latvian and Latgalian were installed in Kārsava Municipality as part of a youth initiative enabled by the Latgale Culture Program.

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.