Re: The Baltics Should Emulate the UK
- From: holman@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx (Eugene Holman)
- Date: Wed, 10 Aug 2005 13:39:07 +0300
In article <1123666784.649040.30750@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>, "vello"
<vellokala@xxxxxx> wrote:
<deletions>
>
> Eugene, nobody denies that russian is important language in world as
> whole and in Baltics in particular. Problem is, most people just can't
> go to manage in many different languages. In a rough way, there will be
> one foreign language for "ordinary" folks and 1,5-2 for educated
> people.
In small countries such as the Netherlands, Belgium, Luxembourg, Denmark,
and the three Baltic countries, even ordinary people bus drivers, train
conductors, ticket sellers, travel agents, taxi drivers, hotel workers,
bar tenders, police officers, restaurant personnel, sales personnel have
to be able to manage in several languages. I don't think that the people
working at Stockmann's in Tallinn are above the ordinary, but the flags
that they wear on their name tags indicate that most can do business in
three or four languages, typically Russian, English, and Finnish, seldom
German, French, or Swedish, in addition to Estonian.
> Choice, what to learn is mostly made by parents in very young
> age - 5-7 years. So choice must reflect linguistic realities 20+ years
> from today. What would be your advice for young couple choosing
> language(s) for their kids going to school this or next year? For sure
> there will be large russian-speaking minority in Estonia also after 20
> years, but I'm sure there will be no problems to communicate with them
> in estonian (having in mind rapid process in first 14 years of
> independence).
Correct. Still, if Estonia is to be a democracy that guarantees its
minorities the kind of linguistic rights that many European countries
grant their minorities, it will need police officers, judges, social
workers, and medical personnel who can deal with the part of the
population, many of them elderly, that feels uncomfortable doing serious
business in Estonian. I think that it is safe to say that twenty years
from now Narva, Sillamäre, Lasnamäe, and Kohtla-Järve will still be places
where it is possible to live a normal life with only a rudimentary
knowledge of Estonian. The schools will see to it that all young people,
even in overwhelmingly Russian-speaking places such as Narva and Sillamäe,
know Estonian perfectly, but the fifty-year old Russian speakers of today
who know little or no Estonian will be seventy-year olds twenty years from
now, and probably will not know much more of the national language.
Estonia can ignore them, or it can do what most countries do and ensure
that at least minimal services are available to them in Russian.
> Ordinary folks will take one language - and it is for
> sure English. More ambitious folks will look for more - but in EU,
> having some career in mind, French and German will be for sure more
> "profitable"? (I don't have in mind linquistical careers here build on
> knowing some special language)
German, although important, is not as important or influential as it once
was, and doing business in Germany/Austria with Germans/Austrians in
English is quite normal nowadays. The French are more adamant about
insisting that their language be used, but the same development that took
place in Germany is currently underway, even if young French people
usually have a far worse practical command of English than young Gerans do
(I work with exchange students from both countries and have a considerable
amount of empirical experience with this issue). Very few Estonians know
Spanish or Portuguese, both of them EU languages as well as the languages
used in rapidly emerging Latin America and other countries where English
is not widely known.
If I were to live in the Tallinn area and have Estonian-speaking children,
I would do everything I could to make sure that they learned as much
English, Russian, and probably Finnish (given that it is so easy for
Estonians) as early in life as possible. That would give them privileged
access to local jobs involving contact with the public as well as the
linguistic capital to learn any other languages they might need later in
life.
If I were an Estonian economic planner I would predict that in the best of
all possible scenarios for the world twenty years from now, one edge that
Estonia curently has and should maintain with respect to Finland is that
its tourist industry can provide Russian-speaking visitors with a full
range of services in Russian. Given that St. Petersburg is about equally
close to both Helsinki and Tallinn, and will, if visa regimes are
abolished or eased and high-speed rail lines link it to both Tallinn and
Helsinki, provide a second inflow of money to the Estonian economy from
day-trippers and longer-term tourists. Estonia will be the destination of
choice due to its lower price level as well as to the greater willingness
and ability of Estonians to speak Russian, particularly if it is in their
economic interest. The flow of tourists, and money, to Estonia will be far
larger than the one what the Finns and
Swedes currently account for, given that there are already 6,000,000
increasingly affluent people in the greater St. Petersburg area.
Regards,
Eugene Holman
.
- Follow-Ups:
- Re: The Baltics Should Emulate the UK
- From: henry alminas
- Re: The Baltics Should Emulate the UK
- Prev by Date: Re: The Baltics Should Emulate the UK
- Next by Date: Helicopter crash outside Tallinn!
- Previous by thread: Re: The Baltics Should Emulate the UK
- Next by thread: Re: The Baltics Should Emulate the UK
- Index(es):
Relevant Pages
|
