Re: True western view of new Baltic masters

On 18 Sept., 06:07, "santak...@xxxxxxxxx" <santak...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
On Sep 17, 9:50 pm, "Pēteris Cedriņš (Peteris Cedrins)"

<cedr...@xxxxxxxxx> wrote:
Russophones in Latvia have even less excuse for being monolingual than do anglos in Québec.
Anglos here can point out (and they do ad nauseam) that what they
speak is the language of the majority of the whole Confederation (as
if that is supposed to make it OK to ignore the local language)
whereas Latvia is no longer in any confederation or soyuz that
relegates its langauge to minority status.

That's why I'm emphasizing the local. The local language in Daugavpils
is _not_ Latvian, so they're really not sinning.

Well, they are turning their backs on Latvia's official national
language, and no good will come of that.

I agree. Not only is it bad for social cohesion -- it doesn't do much
good for the town, either. It's getting more difficult for a
monolingual businessman to deal with the rest of the country, for
example. Students without Latvian skills have a dim future. Lettophone
tourists are often turned off by Latgallia. Politicians with poor
Latvian skills sulk through council meetings. Even monolingual artists
and the like, often dependent upon grants and such, are handicapped.

Those stats I gave that show Ukrainians and Belarusins and
Poles getting russified _now_, in an independent Latvia where Russian
is no longer the _lingua franca_, sort of prove that -- the bigger
language wins, even in the home, most of the time.

Numbers are critical. What you describe is simply not happening in
Lithuania because the concentrations of russophones are not dense
enough. (No double entendre intended. :-) Not even in Vilnius.
When I am in Vilnius my favourite activity is eavesdropping. I love
travelling on the bus where you can't help hearing what everybody is
discussing. So many times I observed groups of up to 3-4 youngsters
where one or maybe two were of Russian background, but they were all
speaking Lithuanian. In a couple of instances the two Russians
present exchanged the very occasional word in Russian inter se, but
otherwise it was all in Lithuanian. I can't be sure (because I am
judging on faces only) but it seems to me that at least a couple of
times 2-3 kids who were all Russian were speaking Lithuanian inter
se. Maybe to fit in better on the bus? I'm not sure. Oh yeah,
another time one kid who was talking Lithuanian happily with other
kids answered his mobile telphone and spoke to his mum in Russian.

Latvia with its high rates of inter-ethnic marriage and changing
demographics is seeing more of that, too, especially as the knowledge
of Latvian increases among non-Latvians. Children with one Latvian
parent are usually sent to Latvian schools. More workplaces are
turning Latvian linguistically. Even in Daugavpils, one hears more and
more Latvian.

Gintai, if everybody around you is a Russophone, chances are that you
or your children will turn into one, unless other factors are heavily
in play (hatred of occupiers, daddy's belt, primal patriotism, etc.).

You don't have to claim that it's hatred. My insistence on all
Lithuanian citizens knowing and using Lithuanian is not because I hate
Russians. (I don't. Only certain ones who did certain things.) My
insistence on all Lithuanian citizens knowing and using Lithuanian is
no different from a insistence on all Swedish citizens knowing and
using Swedish. And heaven help us, who more fanatical than Yanks for
insisting that all US citizens (even just residents or visitors to
USA!) know and use English ?

I was just giving some examples of emotions and factors strong enough
to prevent assimilation. I was trying for the value-neutral, I guess.
I once brought up your average Russkie teen roller-blader in Dvinsk as
an example of somebody I just can't muster Gintautas-style judgement
for; she just doesn't see much point to learning Latvian. The sad
reality is that many ethnic Latvians have as deep an attachment to
Latvia or the Latvian culture as she does -- many will end up in
Ireland with the Lithuanians. Such is life.

The antiquated norms of national romanticism have little traction in
contemporary Europe. That's part of the reason this group sees so
little participation from the Baltics. To most, our arguments are the
ravings of exiles and their progeny, whose world-view has little to do
with reality.

The US as a nation-state is an example of the opposite of what you are
saying in terms of laws and structures, btw -- it was founded without
an official language, intentionally so, and only introduced an
official language, and an extremely limited one, a year ago.

Last I checked, you could take the driving test in a city like Los
Angeles in a plethora of languages. In some areas, even ballots are
multilingual.

Is US policy nice, is the US not linguicidal? Complex questions, but
not to be compared -- US history is very different. The very basis of
the nation was rather radical.

I think it stupid to compare Sweden to Lithuania or Latvia, sorry.
Sweden was a major power and is ethnically quite homogeneous. Finland,
once part of Sweden, gives substantial rights to a small linguistic
minority. As we know, that minority had a different relationship to
Finland than the German, Polish, or Russian minorities in the Baltics
did or do to the nation-states.

You want "fanatical" language policies -- look to your beloved France,
the cradle of coercive linguistic centralization.

Not to go over old ground, but many Latvians _like_ speaking Russian.
I can cite heaps of anecdotal evidence; a few of my friends switched
to Russian because of their reading, in adolescence -- the Russian
world is simply bigger, a lot bigger, and when the rest of the world
was mostly closed to them, that was an avenue of access and escape.
Nowadays that's English. One can get out of one's low-ceilinged life;
it can be downright Oedipal.
There's no comparison with French, because French is a major language.
Though Esths, Letts, and you famously accursed Lithuanians have a
wonderful literature, they do not compare; one cannot possibly
restrict oneself to Latvian literature and claim to be an educated
person, not to mention a person who has a grasp of hydraulics or
poetry. Face it. This does not mean that the language is impoverished.
"Die Grenzen meiner Sprache bedeuten die Grenzen meiner Welt."

You forget about literature in translation. Since 1991 there is
almost no major work/author from any language/culture that hasn't been
translated into Lithuanian. Don't forget that not every great book in
the worlds was written in English or Russians. Those guys read a hell
of a lot of stuff that has been translated too (if they are serious
readers).

This made me laugh really hard. You really believe this? You must have
a really short list of "major" works/authors, Gintai. I most
definitely do not forget about translation, being a translator and
knowing many of Latvia's major translators. Please, Gintai, add it up
-- how many books were translated into English last year, and how many
into Lithuanian? Russian?

Sorry, but I was just offered a translation project that might serve
as an example here -- the history of Afghanistan. There isn't one in
Latvian -- though we have soldiers in Afghanistan, like Lithuania
does. Have you one in Lithuanian? Maybe you do -- I hope you do. But
the fact is that very little is translated into Lithuanian. A lot of
great stuff is translated, but it is a tiny percentage of what exists,
and there are not just books but entire realms of knowledge that do
not, did not, and will not receive the Lithuanian light of day.

Indeed, "those guys" read a lot of translated stuff -- because it's
available. Arabic, spoken by many more people than speak the Baltic
languages, sees little translation either way -- the Arab world is
fundamentally retarded, in other words.

Then there's the question of the quality of translation -- my friend
Uldis has been working on a Koran for years and years, for example. He
has also worked on the Bible -- after all, until recently we only had
Glück's Bible, heavily influenced by Luther's... Glück wasn't even a
Lettophone.

My point stands, Gintai -- the Lithuanian world in terms of the word
is much, much smaller and poorer than the Russian, French, or English
world. This does not make the language inferior, this does not have
nasty implications, this does not mean that Lithuanians shouldn't
concentrate upon translation, etc. -- it does mean that a monolingual
Russian lives in a much richer world than a monolingual Lithuanian
does. If you want to know about, say, Sufis, you will encounter a vast
body of information in Russian, English, Turkish, etc. -- what can you
find in Lithuanian?

[snip, only 'cause I lack time right now]

If future students of Baltic history lack Russian -- there will be no serious histories, no?

Wrong. Everything in the world worth reading has been / will be
translated into the almighty English. 90% of all articles in all top
academic journals are already in English. Russian is a bit player and
will continue to be so.

You've a strange sense of "worth" for a proponent of a minor language,
Gintai, if not a twisted one.

In my view, a serious historian uses primary sources. A lack of
Russian skills would subtract at least two centuries from serious
study.

As to Russian being a bit player -- bull. If that's the case,
Lithuanian isn't even a player. That's just not true -- I've read a
bit of history, and historians knowing no Latvian but relying upon
Russian and German are really lost when they try to tackle 20th C
Latvian history. Not knowing the languages of the imperial powers that
had the most profound effect on our countries for centuries is at
least as bad for a historian.

Unlike Lithuanian, Estonian, or Latvian, Russian is a major language.
I repeat -- face it. Facing reality makes the defense of language
rights make sense, in my view. Absurd denials and ostrich behavior are
just plain silly.

Geriausio,
/P

http://lettonica.blogspot.com/

.

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