|
 |
Latvian stands firm against Russian. | ||
Tags: Latvian | ||
Share with:
| ||
 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages | ( Topic Closed) |  |
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes  Speaks: Russian* | Message 41 of 91 20 February 2012 at 3:35pm | IP Logged | |||||
So, when Russian was exiled from all the spheres, it was time to think of language issues; and when Russians start to say something about their language, they are just nationalists and it's not time to think of it? Very fair! 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chronos Bilingual Diglot Newbie United States Joined 4663 days ago 9 posts - 24 votes Speaks: English*, Latvian* | Message 42 of 91 20 February 2012 at 4:18pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
The Soviets had no place to be in those spheres of Latvian/Baltic life in the first place.
It is an issue that must be thought about and discussed. There are obviously strong opinions on both sides. But perhaps the focus of the government and country should be on economic growth and not on the desire to exercise nationalistic sentiment. There will be time for that later (at least, they always seem to find time....). 4 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 43 of 91 20 February 2012 at 4:42pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
It's not a nationalistic sentiment, it's a fight for the rights of Russians speakers in
Latvia. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Merv Bilingual Diglot Senior Member United States Joined 5274 days ago 414 posts - 749 votes Speaks: English*, Serbo-Croatian* Studies: Spanish, French | Message 44 of 91 20 February 2012 at 5:56pm | IP Logged | |||||
The consistent attempt of Latvian nationalists to portray this as a freedom vs. oppression story doesn't wash with me. I mentioned the Baltic Germans for a reasons. It was they who ruled in Latvia's cities for centuries as traders and noblemen, while the Latvians remained peasants. And the Baltic Germans liked it this way. You can imagine how developed the Latvian language and culture was in the cities! But Latvians don't seem to have the same sort of grudge against Germans as against Russians. (Which reminds me of the parallel phenomenon amongst Finns, for whom Russians are awful and nasty and Swedes are nice. Which I find rather funny, since Russians never imposed their religion or language in Finland as did the Swedes.) Not to mention that Jews were not exactly welcome in Latvia and they came to that country way before the Soviets. 2 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 45 of 91 20 February 2012 at 6:16pm | IP Logged | |||||
That's not really the tack you want to take. All the referendum did was provide to interested groups a chance to be self-righteous and elevate their sense of moral superiority over each other (again). Latvian nationalists can point out the hypocrisy of the Russians talking about being "culturally threatened" when the roles were reversed in the USSR because of Russification. Russian nationalists can point out the hypocrisy of the Latvians who pride themselves on their sense of "Westerness" or adherence to concepts of free speech. Mарк, even you would know that a referendum like this was overloaded with historical baggage and the question of Russian's status being hijacked for political aims (but my cynicism suggests that the repolarization between self-declared Latvians and Russians may have been the referendum's plan all along. Maybe this is how revolution starts as kerateo posted). The more that I think about this, the more idiotic this situation is to me. No good can come of it. The Latvian government didn't seem to account for what to do if that many Russians refused to take the exams but it can't just deport them for failure to comply since that'd be rich for the Latvians to deport people just like the Kremlin did in the USSR. On the other hand the Latvian Russian side (especially one of the Latvian Russians' mouthpieces, Vladimir Linderman) gives the sense that it'd somehow feel "less" Russian (whatever that entails) if it'd take Latvian exams and so making Russian official would be a way out of avoiding those exams and salvaging some notion of pride. For crying out loud! My Belorussian, Latvian, Lithuanian and Estonian friends today don't feel less Belorussian, Latvian, Lithuanian or Estonian respective even after having grown up in their respective SSRs and being tested in Russian willy-nilly while still being able to use their ancestral tongues outside class/work. At this point the most vocal sides (i.e. those who get the attention in the press) are still too mired in the recent past and rather than swallow their respective senses of pride and find something better to do, they're acting like kids in a sandbox who are obsessed with embarrassing each other and crying to any adult within earshot "Hey! No fair!". Is there anyone in Latvia who hates this kind of chicanery and is indifferent or refuses to get swept up in the rhetoric? Edited by Chung on 20 February 2012 at 9:05pm 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Chung Diglot Senior Member Joined 7157 days ago 4228 posts - 8259 votes 20 sounds Speaks: English*, French Studies: Polish, Slovak, Uzbek, Turkish, Korean, Finnish | Message 46 of 91 20 February 2012 at 6:57pm | IP Logged | |||||
Finns actually have a less negative view toward Russians than you think. The Russians are not uniformally disliked by outsiders as your examples suggest. The Grand Duchy of Finland was formed under the auspisces of Czar Alexander I and as a way to curry favour with the Finns and sever their ties with the preceding Swedish rulers, the Czar and his successors allotted some autonomy to the Finns in addition to supporting Finnish nationalists who wanted to elevate the status of Finnish relative to Swedish. This state of affairs only changed in the last 20 years of the Grand Duchy as Russification efforts grew and St. Petersburg tightened controls on semi-autonomous regions. Of course, the mood of the Finns soured decisively when the Red Army invaded Finland in 1939 while the effective annexation of part of Karelia (including Finland's then-industrial powerhouse at Viipuri/Vyborg) and some territory further north wasn't a show of Moscow's magnanimity. Nevertheless, it's not as if the Finns are so bitter so as to erase all traces of Russian influence by renaming the streets in downtown Helsinki or tear down the statues of Czar Alexander I in Helsinki and Porvoo. When it comes to the Latvians and Germans, my understanding is that up until the USSR's annexation of the Baltic states in 1940, Latvian nationlists actually saw the longstanding population of Baltic Germans as the greatest threat to Latvian independence. The most effective fighting force for the Latvians against the Germans were those divisions of communist Latvian nationalists, the Latvian Riflemen. Naturally they started to gravitate even closer to the Bolsheviks as it became clear that the Czar was on the decline. Yet the goodwill evaporated when the USSR annexed Latvia in 1940 and Moscow set up the deportation/murder of Latvians of undesirable loyalty ("counterrevolutionaries") or class distinction ("Kulaks") and the gradual Russification of Latvian SSR by bringing in workers whose common language was Russian. With the passage of time, it's understandable that Latvians today have come to be more amicable about the Germans given how extreme things got during Soviet rule and the physical reminder of those rough days in the form of the Russians who are still walking around in Riga, Daugavpils and other places. 5 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 47 of 91 20 February 2012 at 7:32pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
The question is discussed on the International Lingvoforum
http://int.lingvoforum.net/thread- 2955.html 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Medulin Tetraglot Senior Member Croatia Joined 4669 days ago 1199 posts - 2192 votes Speaks: Croatian*, English, Spanish, Portuguese Studies: Norwegian, Hindi, Nepali | Message 48 of 91 20 February 2012 at 10:07pm | IP Logged | |||||
|
There are many speakers of Croatian/Serbian/Bosnian in Slovenia (I believe around 10%) yet we don't expect Slovenia to make SerboCroat cofficial language.
When Slovenia was in Yugoslavia, the official language was Slovenian, just like in the case of Catalonia, there the official language is Catalan, so all public schools use Catalan only, and from January 1st this year all public hospitals as well. Russians are not a historical minority in Latvia, just like Castillian speakers are not historical minority in Catalonia, but economic immigrants from Andalucia. Do you want Germany to make Turkish cooficial with German in many cities with a large Turkish minority? Of course not. Italian is coofficial in Istria because Italians are a historical minority, they have been living here in Istria for centuries, just like Swedish people in northern parts of Finland. If you can't trance a minority back to 400-500 years back, it's not a historical minority, but immigrants. Tamil is not official in Malaysia because they're considered children of immigrants (immigration in the last 150 years). On the other hand, Tamil is cooficial with Sinhala in Sri Lanka since Tamils have been living on the island of Sri Lanka since 500 A.D. Spanish is not an official language of California even though 30% of population is Spanish-speaking. Edited by Medulin on 20 February 2012 at 10:14pm 7 persons have voted this message useful |
|  | 
Printable version
|
| Copyright 2024 FX Micheloud - All rights reserved No part of this website may be copied by any means without my written authorization. |
