Latvia

Latvian language policy is made much more complex and difficult to implement by the extremely high proportion of ethno-cultural minorites (around 45% of the population). These include: Latvians, Russians, Byelorussians, Ukrainians, Poles, Lithuanians, Jews, Roma, Germans, Tatars, Armenians, Estonians and other nationalities. There is therefore a very close link between policies supporting and promoting the national language and policies supporting the native tongues of minorities and other more properly foreign languages.

Latvia seeks to develop a voluntarist policy of promoting Latvian as the national language whilst adopting measures promoting the preservation and development of other minority or foreign languages.

Article 4 of the 1922 Constitution, which states that Latvian is the official language of the Republic of Latvia, was revised by the 1989 law on language, which itself was amended in 1992. In these amendments, politicians worked to practise and protect the status of the Latvian language.

This provisions were further developed in the official law on language of 21 December 1999 and the decrees of the Council of Ministers in 2000. They constitute one of the pillars of the Latvian justice system, which veers towards the creation of a monolingual society in the public sphere, while the Latvian authorities support the practice of foreign languages especially in the sphere of education.

As is stated in the 2001 law on “Integration into Latvian society”, these guidelines are designed on the one hand to promote unity in Latvian society and on the other to integrate progressively and harmoniously all minorities (by teaching them the national language), while allowing them to make use of their own or other languages in parallel with this.

Article 5 of the 1999 law does however add that any language other than Latvian will be considered to be a foreign language.

The law regulates the use of the national language in State, municipal, judicial and educational institutions, as well as in other agencies and businesses.

The use of Latvian is compulsory in bodies and private companies working in the domains of security, health, workers’ rights and control of public services. Public service employees and those who work for companies in which the State has the majority share of capital or in which they are required to carry out public functions, have an obligation to master Latvian for use in the exercise of their functions.

The Council of Ministers has responsibility for setting the level of competence in the national language required of such personnel.

Official, business and legal meetings, and those which take place in public service organisations must be carried out in Latvian or at least provide for an interpretation of the discussion in the national language, if at least one participant requests it.

The same provisions apply to the private sector “to the level which is considered to be necessary”, an expression which leaves a large margin for manoeuvre in practice.

The law does not apply to private communications, languages used in a religious context or internal exchanges between certain ethnic groups.

As a whole, these provisions are intended to promote a voluntarist linguistic policy, without which there would be a risk that the national language would be supplanted or ignored by other linguistic groups, thereby harming the policy of cohesion and national integration that the Latvian state hopes to inculcate.

The State Centre for the National Language, which comes under the aegis of the Ministry of Justice, has responsibility for monitoring the way in which linguistic legislation is applied in the Republic of Latvia. Its statutes are approved by the Council of Ministers.

The Consultative Council for the Education of Minorities, created in 2001, facilitates dialogue between the Ministry for Education, pupils and parents at minority schools, parent and pupil associations and NGOs.

In July 2004, a working group was set up to keep dialogue open with the Association for Supporting Schools with Russian Teaching (LASHOR), presided over by Mr. Igors Pimenovs.

The Social Policy Centre ‘Providus’ also encourages this dialogue.

Latvians whose native language is not Latvian are conscious that understanding their national language will facilitate their social, cultural, economic and political integration and give them an edge over the competition in the job market. In 1995, the Latvian Government set up the ‘National Latvian Language Learning Programme’ and in 2004 it created the National Agency for Learning Latvian, which offers free language lessons to professionals for whom knowledge of Latvian is imperative, such as police and medical staff, but also large sections of the working population. The bulletin Tagad (‘Now’) and the newspaper Atslegas (‘Keys’) describe the activities of the Agency and the actions taken by the Government in this domain.

Latvia has gone from having two official languages as the ex-Soviet Republic of Latvia (Russian as majority language and Latvian as minority language) to just one official language, Latvian. Although Latvian is currently the majority language on a national level (62%) Russian as a minority language is nonetheless widely used in the capital and western regions of the country (36%) by the Russian, Belarusian, Ukrainian and Jewish communities.

The maintenance and use of Latvian as the only official language is intended to affirm the identity of the Latvian nation, for which language is one of the main means of expression.

Funding for Latvian linguistic policy is provided by the annual State budget. In 2004, the budget rose to 341,329 lats (€487,612), apportioned as follows:

• Languages Agency of the Ministry of Education and Science: 167,629 lats (49.2%);
• Languages Centre of the Ministry of Justice: 96,000 lats (28.2%);
• Languages Commission of the Presidency of the Republic: 48,000 lats (14%);
• Centre for the Development of Programmes and Exams of the Ministry of Education: 25,700 lats (7.5%);
• Terminology Commission of the Academy of Sciences: 4,000 lats (1.1%).

As a comparison, funding for the national Latvian language training programme also rose that year to 819,433 lats (€1,170,618), while that of the Centre for Terminology and Translation of the Latvian Language to 500,000 lats (€714,285).

School language policy was defined in the law on education of 1991, in which it was stated that any language other than Latvian should have the status of a foreign language. Sixteen years later, it is nonetheless important to recognise that the legal framework and the actual situation do not entirely fit together.

Since September 2004, it has been compulsory for at least five disciplines to be taught in Latvian from the 10th year throughout the public school system. Indeed, in autumn 2006, 73.5% students in the 11th year had begun to have lessons in Latvian. A certain number of schools, however, often of very high calibre, have continued to teach a large part of their curriculum in Russian. In such schools, the adoption of Latvian is progressing slowly but is not without delays and reticence on the part of the school administration and pupils’ parents.

As far as foreign languages are concerned, the latest statistics from the Ministry of Education show that out of 283,947 Latvian pupils attending school in 2006/2007, 242,499 studied English (85%), 96,491 Russian (34%), 47,509 German (17%) and 4,500 French (1.5 %). These figures include pupils who studied several modern foreign languages. Students may choose a first foreign language in their 3rd year (nine years old) and a second in their 6th year (12 years old).  

Latvia has 13 specialist schools which are authorised by the Ministry to teach a foreign language on a more intensive basis. Eight of these teach English, four German and one French. In addition, various cultural associations have been authorised to offer lessons in the native language of pupils (Russian, Polish, Estonian, Ukrainian, Lithuanian, Romani, Belarusian) and receive state funds to do so.

The situation with the Russian schools is unusual. Most lessons are given in Russian, with some teaching in Latvian. These schools are finding it difficult to work towards the 60% of lessons taught in Latvian required by law. Without special dispensation, diplomas issued by the Latvian State and professional qualification exams can only be in the national language.

Article 41 of the 1998 law on education states that educational institutions may offer programmes adapted for national minorities as long as they are in accordance with the Ministry’s regulations on education, but that these programmes must be accompanied by subjects taught in the national language. The Russian community in Latvia has reservations about these provisions as they feel that restrictions imposed on teaching in a native language are seen as a ‘sacrifice’.

The reaction of Latvians to the linguistic situation in Latvia is often emotional and it is therefore difficult to draw overall objective conclusions. Latvian is certainly recognised as the national language, but a large number of Russian speakers think that Russian should be on a level footing.

There are often articles in the press which echo different positions and points of view on what could be called the Latvian languages debate, which has always been based around the idea of Russian vs Latvian. However, the spread of bilingualism is so wide, particularly in the capital, that there are rarely truly virulent debates in either the public or private spheres.

(2009)