Tag Archives: national languages

Latvija po mikroinfarkto – Latvia After Heart Failure

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In a referendum held on Saturday, 18 February the people of Latvia voted by a clear majority – 77.22 % – against Russian being made the country’s second official language. For this post, Vilma Bačkiūtė, our Language Rich Europe Project Manager in Lithuania, collected articles dealing with the referendum from Lithuanian press in Lithuanian. At the end of the blog post, you will find links to English and Latvian articles.

Latvijoje šeštadienį, vasario 18 d. įvykusiame referendume už antrosios valstybinės kalbos statuso suteikimą rusų kalbai balsavo 22,5 % piliečių, prieš – 77,22 %. Viso balsavo 70,37 % gyventojų.

Latvijos referendumas sulaukė ypatingo žiniasklaidos dėmesio ir Lietuvoje. Visi portalai ir dienraščiai akylai sekė nuotaikas kaimyninėje šalyje. Lietuvos apžvalgininkų, politologų, visuomenės veikėjų ir politikų pasisakymai aiškiai pritaria referendumo rezultatams, kurie labai svarbūs visoms trims Baltijos valstybėms.

Ar referendumas sudėjo taškus ant “i”?

Pasak užsienio reikalų ministro Audronio Ažubalio, “Tai yra Latvijos valstybingumo pasiekimas, kuriuo Latvija gali pagrįstai didžiuotis, o mes, lietuviai, ir visos kitos tautos privalome gerbti”.

Politologą, istoriką Antaną Kulakauską „nustebino tai, kad Latvijos gyventojai šį kartą buvo kaip niekad vieningi. Toks procentas balsavusių prieš rusų kalbos statuso pakeitimą gali reikšti tik tai, kad ne tik etniniai latviai, bet ir vietos rusai suprato, kad referendumas yra tik politikų siekis gauti populiarumą.”

Euro parlamentaro Vytauto Landsbergio nuomone, „To tikrai turbūt nesitikėjo iniciatoriai nei Maskvoje, nei Rygoje. Rezultatai, ko gero, yra priešingi, negu laukta. Matomas latvių ir lojalių Latvijai piliečių susivienijimas vietoje laukto suskaldymo į dvi dalis, kur būtų supriešinti latviai ir ne latviai…“

Rimvydas Valatka savo straipsnyje Latviją vadina “nerealiai tolerantiška tautinėms mažumoms valstybe”. Jo nuomone, tai patvirtina faktas, kad Latvijos rusai, nemokėdami latviškai, čia vis dėlto sugebėjo išgyventi pastaruosius 22 metus.

Latvijos Saeimos narys Romualdas Ražukas teigė, jog referendumas buvo nemalonus ir provokuojantis procesas, tačiau jo rezultatus – netikėtai pozityvus. Jo nuomone, iškalbingas faktas yra Rygos gyventojų balsų pasiskirstymas. Latvijos sostinėje gyvena 42 % latvių, tačiau prieš rusų kalbos antrąja valstybine kalba paskelbimą Rygoje pasisakė net 63 %.

Referendumas Latvijoje dar kartą primena, kad valstybių vykdoma kalbų politika gali tapti politiniu ginklu. Nežiūrint to, Baltijos valstybių piliečiai demonstruoja daug brandesnį požiūrį į kalbinius reikalus nei kai kurie politiniai veikėjai. Švedų režisieriaus, žurnalisto ir vertėjo Jono Öhman žodžiais, “Lietuviai, latviai ir estai, kitaip nei dauguma Europos tautų, mano, kad rusų kalba labai naudinga. Po anglų pusė Lietuvos gyventojų rusų kalbai duoda antrą vietą reikalingų užsienio kalbų sąraše. Tai galima paaiškinti netolima Baltijos šalių praeitimi ir, žinoma, dabartimi. Juk Rusija ­­– didelė Baltijos šalių kaimynė. Dabar net jaunimas, kuris nelabai moka rusiškai, nes rusų kalbos dėstymas mokyklose atgavus nepriklausomybę išblėso, dažnai pareiškia norįs mokytis būtent šios kalbos. Tad rusų kalba pamažu grįžta į užsienio kalbų mokymo programą.”

Ko gero situaciją po referendumo Latvijoje tiksliausiai apibūdina Arvydas Juozaitis: “Latvija – po mikroinfarkto. Reikia jai padėti.”

For more information in English, go to:

Latvia’s failed referendum

Lithuanian and Estonian officials issue statement on Latvian language

Kremlin manipulates Russians in Latvia

Lithuanian politicians rejoice in Latvia’s referendum results

Latvians voted “No” on making Russian second state language

Latvians celebrate referendum results and claim they voted against foreign language, not against nation

Rimvydas Valatka: Latvian referendum is not the last echo of Soviet occupation

For more information in Latvian, go to:

Latvijas krieviete: Varu apzvērēt – nekādas etniskās diskriminācijas Latvijā nav


Hyvää itsenäisyyspäivää!

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Finland celebrates its independence (from Russia) on 6 December. As a Finn living in Belgium, I will celebrate it today by reflecting for a moment on the language situation in Finland and what it has meant to me.

I grew up in Finland, a Nordic country with nearly 5.4 million inhabitants. Our national languages are Finnish and Swedish. Other language groups recognised in the constitution are three Sami languages, Finnish Romani and the Finnish sign language. At the end of 2010, 4 857 903 (90.4%) people had Finnish as mother tongue, 291 153 (5.4 %) Swedish and 1 832 (0.03 %) Sami (there are three Sami languages spoken in Finland) (Statistics Finland, 18.3.2011). In addition to these, there are of course other foreign language groups, out of which Russian is the largest. In Finnish comprehensive school, pupils learn at least Finnish, Swedish and English. Därför pratar ja också svenska. I don’t, however, get to practise my Swedish very much in Finland because the Swedish speaking Finns, finlandssvenskorna, are a small minority and as a rule speak very good Finnish. In spite of the fact that Swedish is an official language in Finland, most people speak much better English than Swedish. My first foreign language was English, too, which I started learning at the age of nine. Swedish and German came only later.

While Swedish language is only spoken by a small minority, it has retained its historically strong position. In comparison, the situation of the Sami has been far from ideal. As the coordinator of pre-school education of Sami language in Utsjoki community in Northern Finland puts it: “In the past it was forbidden to speak Sami at school. To make up for past suppression, the authorities of Norway, Sweden and Finland now make an effort to build up Sami cultural institutions and promote Sami culture and language. Still, the work has only just started.” (The Network to Promote Linguistic Diversity website). Luckily, several projects, such as the one in Utsjoki, are now running to enhance the language learning of the Sami such as this minority language pre-school education project.

I feel that as a Finn, I’ve been privileged with regard to access to education. The quality of the Finnish education has also been noted abroad, even more so after the good results in the PISA research. I will not analyse the reasons behind this in depth, but I think that at least the small group sizes, individual coaching and a freedom of choice, even at reasonably young age must all contribute to a good quality of education. At university level, if you want to, you can even choose minor subjects that have nothing or very little to do with your main subject (at least at first glance). That gives a very broad look on things.

Now, living in Belgium, I have also learned Dutch (or Flemish, as some might say). Here the language question is still very actual and even problematic. Belgium has now finally, after 541 days of negotiations, appointed the next Prime Minister, the French-speaking Elio Di Rupo, who will take the oath of office today (that’s the latest news anyway!). And, to end on a lighter note, today we also celebrate Sinterklaas in Belgium. Multiple languages, multiple reasons to celebrate!

Reindeer racing in Sápmi

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I’ve just been reading about the upcoming Sami Easterfestival in Kautokeino / Guovdageaidnu (Norway) where there will be ice fishing competitions, snowmobile racing and the world lasso throwing and reindeer racing championships. It sounds wonderful, like that song by The Beatles about Mr. Kite’s circus where he promises to  trampoline “over men and horses, hoops and garters, lastly through a hogshead of real fire!” It also sounds like there’s a distinct possibility that it could degenerate into absolute chaos if, for example, the snowmobiles try to race the reindeers, or the lassoers take on the ice-fishers (after all, it doesn’t say what the championship lassoers are meant to lasso). If you’re thinking of heading along, please note that: ‘it’s not allowed to bring […] knifes or any other form of weapon to the festival concerts. If you bring any of this items they will be confiscated’. Which reminds me of this recent exhibition (in French).

Photo of the Sami rap group Duolva Duottar

Sami rap group Duolva Duottar

I realised, while browsing the festival website, that I really don’t know anything about the Sami/Sámi/Saami people. However, I work with two Finns (one of whom will be posting a related article soon), and having heard these people mentioned on more than one occasion I decided to do some research.

The Sami are the arctic indigenous people inhabiting Sápmi, a geographical area which, according to Wikipedia, covers parts of northern Sweden, Norway, Finland and the Kola Peninsula of Russia, but also the border area between south and middle Sweden and Norway. It’s really quite a large area (see map). They are the Nordic countries’ only officially indigenous people and their traditional languages are the Sami languages – apparently there is not one Sami language, but, depending where you look, nine or ten, all of which are endangered. They are classified as part of the Finno-Lappic group of the Uralic language family (you can see the Uralic language family tree illustrated – along with many others – on this nice site: Ethnologue).

Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite - the poster that inspired the song

Being for the benefit of Mr. Kite - the poster that inspired the song

The languages use agglutination extensively — that system of combining affixes to the root of a word which allows words like the Finnish epäjärjestelmällistyttämättömyydellänsäkäänköhän to exist (which to you and me means: “I wonder if — even with his/her quality of not having been made unsystematized”). Also, they have an average of 13-14 cases and use an extended (very extended) Latin alphabet. So, for an English speaker, rather complex.

My ‘research’, i.e. poking around the web and bugging my Finnish colleagues, brings me back to that same old question, that is to say, should we allow and accept that languages die off through a process of natural/artificial selection? Or is it the case that they are so inextricably linked with notions like identity and culture that to lose a language is to lose so much more? Or is there a middle ground where accept that not all languages can last for ever, but pledge to do more to see that they are recorded for posterity? I’d welcome your thoughts.

Thanks to Katri Mäenpää and Kirsi Suutarinen for their advice.

Lá Fhéile Pádraig Shona Duit

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It’s St. Patrick’s Day, and I’m interested to see that it’s Féile Pádraig that’s trending on Twitter, rather than its title in English (including the variations St. Pat’s, Paddy’s Day, etc.). I’m also reminded of an article I read recently in the Irish Times on a new proposal for the language from Fine Gael, the party that came into power in Ireland after elections in mid-February. Enda Kenny’s party are proposing to make Irish optional after the Junior Cert (roughly equivalent to GCSEs, state examinations taken around the age of 15).  So maybe Irish is not doing so well after all…

Irish, also known as Gaeilge, is the national and first official language of the Republic of Ireland. Today, it is spoken as a first language only by a small minority of people in Ireland, and as a second language by a larger minority. However, it is widely considered to be an important part of our (yes, if you haven’t guessed by now, I’m Irish) culture and heritage.  It is also an official language of the European Union and an officially recognised minority language in Northern Ireland. And for all of the above reasons, but mostly for cultural/heritage reasons I suspect (rather than the language’s practical uses), several hundred students staged a silent sit-down protest at Dáil Éireann (the Irish Parliament) before making their way to the party’s headquarters to deliver a petition with more than 15,000 signatories opposed to the proposal.

St. Patrick on a 3p stamp

St. Patrick on a 3p stamp

As readers of this blog will know, I’m often at two minds about how we artificially preserve languages, or resurrect them as in the case of Modern Hebrew, and to what extent we shrug our shoulders and allow the natural ebb and flow of languages to take their course.

The reasons for Fine Gael’s proposal are not articulated in the Irish Times piece, however the comments from the protesters give some telling clues, and having been through the Irish education system myself, I can see where they are coming from. Comments refer “to a problem that has been brewing for years”, “Fine Gael […] avoiding the issue” and “it’s a lot easier in the short term to just do away with it and not have to deal with what the difficulties in teaching Irish are.”

Irish is a language that was actively revived in the 19th and 20th centuries after the English occupation of the country as part of a Gaelic revival. However, it seems that the school curriculum has changed little since, and I interpret the comments above as references to this fact. Those who do well at the language in school seem to do so, to a large extent, on account of summers spent in Irish schools in the Gaeltacht parts of the country, i.e. Irish-speaking regions located in the west of the island. These schools are part of the lore of an Irish upbringing where success is generally measured – on the part of the pubescent students at least, rather than the parents who forked out the money – by the number of members of the opposite sex one kisses, as opposed to the number of new additions to one’s Irish vocabulary.

Those who don’t, suffer unabated years of reading and writing short stories of idyllic (or deadly boring) picnics on sunny days (?) where ceapairí (sandwiches), milseáin (sweets) and cáca milis (cake) abound. However, joking aside, the immersive nature of these schools, where a full sentence in English could see you sent back to Dublin in shackles, or at least disgrace, are a far cry from the sterile Irish classes I experienced.

My friend Philip just asked me if I honestly think that the proposal, if implemented, would make any difference, positive or negative, to the language. I always contrast my 10+ years of learning Irish to the 5 years I spent learning Spanish: I received an A+ in Spanish at ‘Honours level’ in the Leaving Certificate – my highest mark – yet struggled to pass the ‘Pass level’ Irish exam. True, this is anecdotal evidence, and true, a term abroad in Murcia did wonders for my Spanish, but I feel that my learning there was supported by the curriculum, not deadened by it. So Philip, if you’re reading – I doubt the number of fluent Irish language speakers will ever tip the balance. And while it continues to be an obligatory subject, Irish will continue to plod along.

However, with Irish threatened by becoming optional after 15, and the curriculum staying as it is, a decline must surely ensue. But how about a scenario where teaching methods are updated, textbooks are revitalised, and terms in Irish schools are incorporated into the curriculum? Maybe we’ll master the language by 15 and can then choose fairly whether to continue or not.

Anyway, Happy Paddy’s Day to one and all, I’m off for a gargle (not Gaelic but Hiberno-English – a whole other language!).