Latter was born in India in 1816, the son of Major Barré Latter, an officer who distinguished himself in the Anglo–Nepalese War. He obtained a commission in 1836 from the East India Company in the 67th Regiment of Bengal Native Infantry, then stationed in Arakan. There he devoted his leisuretime to the study of the Burmese language, and in 1845 he published a Burmese grammar. Although subsequent to the primers of Adoniram Judson, the American missionary, his work was the first scholarly treatise on the subject.
