Thread: Языковая обстановка в Латвии и др.

It seems history has given you no choice! It's very obvious to anyone who visits this country that there are two language groups of near equal size.

If you don't want to do the politically correct option - accept reality and be a bilingual country - then you have two other options:

1) Throw out the Russian speakers.
2) Somehow force them to speak to Latvian.

Both are a historical reciept for trouble, complaints, unrest and worst case, war!

It COULD work with SMALL minorities (less than 10% perhaps, there are examples of that.) But with a large minority I doubt that it will. In Sweden, we forced the minorities to speak Swedish. But that was small minorities and this was 75-300 years ago. They are still very angry about it and there are lots of problems related to that.

And has it occurred to you that to most visitors, the situation is very interesting and your language skills are impressive? It will only enrich Latvia! What harm does it do? Your language is still there and developing.

Also, most Russians seem to have a very reasonable view of the situation. Most, including older people are trying to speak Latvian as far as I can tell. It's lucky these people are so pliable.... Look at Spain etc where they practically take to arms because someone forgot to put up a bilingual street sign somewhere...

Pissing off Russia doesn't seem like a good idea either. They are next door to you and getting back on their feet, while the USA is on the other side of the Atlantic and going broke as we speak.

It just seems to ME that you have everything to win by being a bit more accommodating to these people, but quite a lot to lose by taking a rigid position. Not to mention the fact that it's the decent thing to do.

What harm does it do

Everyone will be FORCED to learn Russian to a good level, but Latvian will be marginalized again - just like in Soviet times.
People remember this "enrichment" too well.

Pissing off Russia doesn't seem like a good idea either.

Russia (at least under Putin's reign) will only be satisfied when Baltic states are part of it again.

Originally Posted by nulle

Everyone will be FORCED to learn Russian to a good level, but Latvian will be marginalized again - just like in Soviet times.
People remember this "enrichment" too well.

Russia (at least under Putin's reign) will only be satisfied when Baltic states are part of it again.

I completely agree with you

Ok, maybe I was too harsh. I do not think that russians should be discriminated against - and maybe Russian language should have greater status.
But there should be a discussion about it - Russians should not simply demand "their rights" or threaten to "show Latvians their place" - Latvians are majority and should be respected (If someone does not want that , then maybe they should move to place where Russians are majority (Russia, for example)).
Osipov and Linderman are starting this referendum as a retaliation or revenge against "latvian nazis" - that is not a good approach at all.
(There was attempt to start a referendum to phase out Russian schools in 12 years - but it failed - did not get enough signatures).
Those who say that Russian should have greater status - OK - how much greater?
What should we do?
Divide this country like Belgium? (Bad idea)
Ask good knowledge of BOTH official languages from everyone? (a lot of young Latvians have poor Russian skills as it is not a mandatory subject in school anymore)
Make 100% of information available in both languages everywhere (double paperwork - more expensive + in service sector Russian already is de facto official language).
Majority of Latvians will not agree that Russian language should regain all the privileges it got in Soviet times unconditionally - so some compromise should be made.

Originally Posted by Hanna

Your language is still there and developing.

I again have to correct your mistakes Latvian belongs to the Baltic branch of the Indo-European language family the same way as Lithuanian language. Both these languages retains many features of Proto Indo-European now lost in other Indo-European languages. These languages are almost as old as Latin language and they are still used in everyday life how you know So, do you really think that it still needs improvements and that Latvian is still developing language?

Originally Posted by Hanna

Also, most Russians seem to have a very reasonable view of the situation. Most, including older people are trying to speak Latvian as far as I can tell. It's lucky these people are so pliable....

Look, I‘ll tell you one thing I guess as you don‘t know that in Poland is such a town, which is located not so far from Lithuanian border called Punskas and about 93 per sent of it‘s people are real ethnic Lithuanians. This spring I was there and guess if I saw in this town a sign where would be written in Lithuanian. Or do you think that Polish people are writting Vaistinė (the chemist‘s shop) instead of Apteka even though mass of people living there are Lithuanians? The answer is NO. But these Lithuanians somehow manage to talk fluently both in Lithuanian and Polish languages doesn‘t matter if they are old or young. And there is no ploblems between Lithuanians and Polish because Lithuanians simply respect the fact that official language of Poland is Polish. So, in my mind, it is Russians who, first of all, should start respecting laws and constitution of Latvia, and get used to the idea that Latvian is official language, but not intentionally refuse to speak in Latvian even though they are living there for decades. And if they still do not agree with that, then they just simply can leave this country, but as you see most of them are not thinking about doing it, so we can come to conclusion that it is much better for them to live in Latvia (because welfare there is much better than in beloved Russia). And, if the fact that some of them initially are refusing to speak Latvian, you call discrimination of Russian people, then maybe you should take a dictionary and find out what the word ‘‘discrimination‘‘ means.

Originally Posted by Hanna

Pissing off Russia doesn't seem like a good idea either. They are next door to you and getting back on their feet, while the USA is on the other side of the Atlantic and going broke as we speak.

So now Baltic states should became afraid of the fact that Russia is our neighbour while USA is on the other side of the ocean and we should start making all wishes of Russia as if we would be some kind of golden fish???

By the way, if you are so open minded person, and people from Latvia and other Baltic countries are so narrow minded then maybe you can explain why all these ex USSR countries have such a negative attitude towards Russia??? Oh I forgot maybe Belarus and North Korea really like this country So, really how it happened that all neighbours of Russia became so bad, but just only Russia is so innocent as an ‘‘Angel‘‘?

Please, next time try to think what are you writing because I don‘t want to keep on arguing all the time with you, I‘m already bored of it.
PS. I just can‘t stand when I have to read such nonsences about Baltic countries.