-={ 2021-03-08 04:03:32.724791328+00:00 }=-

Hey August!

 AA> It seems to have absolutely no trouble with utf-8.

No surprise here.  I've had this working with fidonet for at least 8 years now.  Now with the vim commandline and trans as you've have helped to confirm.

  :read !trans -b -no-ansi -s latvian -t english "Daudz baltu dienišu, Laimiša dodi, Dišeni rašeni, Dzšvojoti\!"
   Lots of white days, Happy Happiness, Great Fruit, Lived!

I had to escape the exclaimation mark at the end.  How accurate was this result?

Life is good,
Maurice

... Sceal ‘ghwylc mon al‘tan l‘ndagas.
    Every man will have to relinquish the days loaned to him.
--- GNU bash, version 5.1.4(1)-release (x86_64-motorshed-linux-gnu)