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Latvia - bilingual country? (s/w localiza | ||
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 Language Learning Forum : Specific Languages |  | |
| viedums Hexaglot Senior Member Thailand Joined 4667 days ago 327 posts - 528 votes  Speaks: Latvian, English*, German, Mandarin, Thai, French Studies: Vietnamese | Message 17 of 22 26 March 2012 at 4:43am | IP Logged | |||||
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I think it's very difficult to determine the degree to which Russians in Latvia have learned Latvian, or for that matter the degree to which Latvians have forgotten Russian. This is because the question has been politicized. So answering the original poster's question is not something we can do on this forum. I was curious about something Mapk has brought up, namely whether there is still Russian-language tertiary education in Latvia. When I lived there, the University of Latvia and other institutions had "Russian groups" and "Latvian groups" in different subjects (in Latvian "krievu plusma" and "latviesu plusma.") The website of the Baltic International Academy, which grants bachelor's degrees and has branches in different Latvian cities including Daugavpils, suggests that this system of separate Latvian and Russian study groups is still in place. On the Daugavpils branch site, there are news items for the different groups. The website itself is almost fully bilingual, and they apologize if it’s not, like this: Atvainojiet, šī informācija ir pieejama tikai krievu valodā (Русский) Извините, данная информация доступна только на латышском языке (Latviešu) Interestingly, the information “available only in Russian” is an agenda for a meeting of teaching staff and admin, which suggests that Russian is used for everyday business at this institution. This wouldn’t be surprising, given the ethnic makeup of Daugavpils. Chung mentioned the Russian-language newspaper “Telegraf”. I was following this online for a while, and I think reading it might be one way to try to get a handle on attitudes and concerns within the Russian-language community in Latvia. The current mayor of Riga, Nils Usakovs, got his start as a journalist there. 3 persons have voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 18 of 22 26 March 2012 at 10:26am | IP Logged | |||||
Latvians want to be proud but jobless. Edited by Марк on 26 March 2012 at 10:37am 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 19 of 22 26 March 2012 at 10:35am | IP Logged | |||||
I did not say that Russians in Latvia did not any Latvian. I said that their knowledge of Latvian is worse than knowledge of Finnish by Finnoswedes. Because teaching Latvian in Soviet Latvian was bad, many people came to Latvia as adults, and they have lived in a Russian speaking environment. While Finniswedes all studied finnish and have not been so isolated from the Finnish language. Older generation in Latvia is not probably very good in Latvia. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| arturs Triglot Senior Member Latvia Joined 5272 days ago 278 posts - 408 votes Speaks: Latvian*, Russian, English | Message 20 of 22 26 March 2012 at 5:53pm | IP Logged | |||||
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Majority of Russians of age under 30 in Latvia know quite good Latvian and speak it with certain amount of fluency. Sometimes you can't tell if a person is Russian or a Latvian who comes from Latgalia (a region which has been influenced more by Poland and it brings along a accent to the Latvian language). Less knowledge is for people in the age group 30-50, but some of them are very fluent, especially the ones that work as professors at universities or some politicians or any other middle to higher class people. People after 60 are quite bad due to their growing up in Soviet era when Latvian was considered "dog language". But some people in this age group hide the fact that they understand and know Latvian, because they fear of being ridiculed and be seen as traitors. To sum all up, the situation is not that bad.
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| Марк Senior Member Russian Federation Joined 5057 days ago 2096 posts - 2972 votes Speaks: Russian* | Message 21 of 22 26 March 2012 at 6:24pm | IP Logged | |||||
Any proof about considering Latvian "dog language"? Who will consider them traitors? Traitors of what? But Finnoswedes learned Finnish well all the time, so there is no such difference between generations. There are probably quite a lot of people with poor Latvian among older speakers. 1 person has voted this message useful | ||||||
| arturs Triglot Senior Member Latvia Joined 5272 days ago 278 posts - 408 votes Speaks: Latvian*, Russian, English | Message 22 of 22 27 March 2012 at 7:03am | IP Logged | |||||
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UcaGoHv1a6E 0:10-0:13 I once had a elderly Russian neighbor who wanted to show to his respect to an elderly Latvian woman saying to her Hello! How are you doing today? in Latvian. Well, not to mention he didn't speak Latvian again, because he got called by his so-called 'friends' fascist lover just because he was trying to be polite to a lady. Don't get me wrong here - I'm not one of those Latvian nationalist anti-Russian dudes, I come from a Rus-Lat mixed family so I have been torn between these marginal views of both sides all my life, so I can look at these issues from also both sides. 4 persons have voted this message useful |
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