Re: Polish statue not to be rebuilt (quite rightly)

On 19 Aug., 15:54, "santak...@xxxxxxxxx" <santak...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Aug 19, 6:38 am, "P teris Cedri š (the self-hating Lett) wrote:

"[Y]ou don't read carefully and your comprehension skills are low" --
moi, a self-hating Lett? Anybody can go through my past posts or visit
my blog to see that nothing could be further from the truth.

On 19 Aug., 00:05, "santak...@xxxxxxxxx" <santak...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
It's another fact that no Russian or Pole in Lithuania ever learns the
language voluntarily. They only learn it if they are forced to for
work or some other reason.

That's a _fact_? Back it up, please.

You know what: people eat every day (or name some other bodily
function). I don't have photos to prove it, in your terms I can't
"back it up", but common sense tells me so.

The same "common sense" that compels you to stereotype Anglophones in
Québec?

I know many Russophones in Latvia who've learned Latvian "voluntarily"

How many? Three?

Quite a few, actually. There are a lot of reasons for people to learn
another language. When people marry, for instance, they often try to
learn the language of their partner.

or tried to learn (Latvians don't make it easy, usually switching to Russian even if the
interlocutor is fluent).

Like Québécois switching to English. Long periods of occupation and
being treated as a second-class citizen do that to one.

That's part of the reason, sure. But the main reason is a lot simpler
-- most people use language to communicate and don't especially care
to incorporate identity politics into their speech habits. Most
Latvians speak better Russian than Russians speak Latvian.

I've recently returned from a month at the Writers' and Translators'
House in Ventspils

Hardly your average sampling of people in society.

I didn't say it was.

> where I learned more Russian in a few weeks than I

have in the last few years. Why? Because Latvians _like_ to speak
Russian, and because there was no subtext attached to using it.

Ho ho ho. Good one, Petey. Know any more? You may love the language
of those who deported your ancestors - and would gladly support a new
annexation and deportations - but that doesn't mean any more than you
or maybe 1% of true Letts does. I can't say that I've seen a lot of
love and admiration for the Russian language expressed in the Latvian
press in the past 17 years.

Lower down, you write: "I don't hate the Russian language. It's just a
language." But it seems to be more than that for you, no? It's the
language of those who deported our ancestors! (As though no
Lituanophones or Lettophones were involved in those events.) I would
gladly support a new annexation and deportations? The nice thing about
you is that you're so frequently so over the top that no reasonable
person would buy your crap, Gintai.

As to an average sampling of people -- last I checked, a majority of
Letts surveyed think Letts should learn Russian. Other studies show
language questions to be very low on people's lists of concerns --
towards the bottom.

The main concert at the city's festival was "Music from Soviet Films,"

I could kick myself for missing that.

It wouldn't do much for you, just as it didn't do much for me. For my
friend Aleks, it brought back memories of his youth. That's what it
does for most people. That doesn't even mean one has to like the music
-- I hear stuff like "Hungry Heart" and recall high school because
that was being played everywhere. Regardless of how bad the occupation
was, people lived lives and have good memories as well as bad.

most of the songs sung in Russian -- it's the same in Palanga (yes
yes, Henry, tell us again how "Russian" Palanga is...).

Henry would be right in regard to that matter. Now digest this - if
you can: I actually have no objection to that Russian bum ik. I find
it quite melodic and catchy, and my listening to it does not imply
admiration for those who deported my ancestors and would gladly
support a new annexation and deportations. It's just music.

Who keeps talking about deported ancestors, me or you? Most of the
people I saw enjoying Soviet music in Palanga were Lithuanian.

People from all over came to the house and nobody had a problem with
switching to Russian, spoken by many from the West --

Yeah, just your average citizens, right? Like, everybody in the West
loves Russian so much that numbers of kids in Western Europe wanting
to learn English is plummetting and they are all rushin' to learn
Russian, right? And Moskau is just full of thousands of kids from
the West so eager to live in that bardakyna and soak up the language
of Lenin and glorious Soviet/Russian kultura, right?

Where did I say they were average citizens? Does one always have to
talk about averages?

the neuroses of linguistic nationalism have fortunately faded.

Ho ho ho. The Kremlin insists that all citizens/residents of Russia
be able to speak Russian - fine with you. (Same in all sovereign
countries.) But Latvija wants all citizens/residents to be able to
speak Latvian - that's a neurosis of linguistic nationalism as far as
your concerned. Why the self-hate? What did they put in your vodka
at the Writers' House while you were listening to "Music from Soviet
Films" and gavarooing pa rooskie?

"[Y]ou don't read carefully and your comprehension skills are low" --
where did I suggest that wanting all citizens/residents to speak
Latvian is neurotic? What I suggested was that having emotional
problems with switching to Russian is neurotic, especially if your
interlocutor is neither a citizen nor a resident. I was speaking
specifically of people who were at the house. I spoke French with the
Bulgarian because it was easiest for us -- others spoke Russian with
her.

One of the Swiss residents said she doesn't like to use Russian here
because people don't like to use it. She was contradicted by everyone.
As you say, it's "just" a language. One that most people here know
well.

Asked if offended, the Letts answered: "Russian is a beautiful language.."

Letts be serious for a minute here. One Lett may have said that. His
initials may have been PC - and I don't mean Politically Correct
(although the suspect may think so [inferiority complex and cultural
cring does that to one - so does drinking "medicated" vodka whil
listening to "Music from Soviet Films"]).

Most people over the age of 35, and not a few younger people, learned
to appreciate the Russian language. Since I'm not talking about the
general public but about writers and translators -- most people there
loved Russian literature.

One of the residents, a Rīga Jew, was working on an anthology of
Latvian poets who also wrote poetry in Russian. He thought at first
that the anthology would be thin -- but quite a lot of Latvian poets
tried their hand at poetry in Russian, from the 19th C to the youngest
generation, for different reasons.

You sound proud when you write that it's "getting harder for them
[Russophones and Polonophones] each year as more and more kids
entering the workforce are monolingual in Lithuanian" -- excuse me,
but that's a disaster.

Hey, have you heard any country at all apologise for the % of its
citizens that are monolingual? Does USA? UK? Holland? France? Any
other normal country? No, because they have no inferiority complex
toward a (former) big brother. Wakey wakey - the russkies are gone
and their not coming back. You don't have to "play it safe" any
more. Why are you still stooped after the yoke has been removed?

I've heard you bitching about American monolingualism time and again
-- yet this is what you'd have Lithuanians aspire to? How is one
"stooped" because one speaks Russian?

The only people who hated Russian were the Ukrainians from Lviv

That's their prerogative. By the way, I don't hate the Russian
language. It's just a language. What I object to (you don't read
carefully and your comprehension skills are low) is Russians
swaggering around speaking russkie to a Lithuanian in Lithuania and
assuming that the Lithuanian is obliged to answer in russkie. He's
not. And if I rejoice that many teenagers and young adults couldn't,
even if they wanted to, that's my business. Chacun son go t. Finns
don't apologise for not speaking Swedish, Czechs don't apologise for
not speaking German, Romanians don't apologise for not speaking
Hungarian, Slovenians don't apologise for not speaking Serbian if they
don't want to, and I'm not going to apologise for any Lithiuanian niot
speaking Russian. (Although I will occasionally speak it or watch it
on TV if I am in the mood and nobody is pushing me to do it.) As far
as aesthetics is concerned, it's certainly easier on the ear than
Polish.

Except in the less pleasant parts of Rīga and here in Latgallia, not
too many monolingual Russians swagger around these days -- meaning
that the issue is being divested of its emotional content.

Ventspils is about half Latvian -- but nearly every local Russophone I
met could speak Latvian. Nearly everyone could speak some English,
too. The Gypsies spoke at least three languages. I guess everybody is
stooped...

interestingly, all of the Estonians preferred Russian to English.

Well, that's the world you live in. Hardly typical.

Hey Vello, do you "prefer Russian to English"? Do you write to LENTA
as well as soc.culture.baltics ?

The Estonians there were over 35 and not from Tallinn.

Viso gero,
/P

http://lettonica.blogspot.com/

.

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