Early influence The modern
Latvian language has retained a number of
loanwords borrowed from
Old East Slavic during the early contacts between the
East Slavic and
Baltic people, such as
kalps ("
farmhand"; from
холпь – "serf, slave"),
grāmata ("book"; from
грамота – "alphabet, writing, literacy"),
baznīca ("
church"; from
божница – "church, chapel"),
modrs ("vigilant, watchful, alert";
мѫдръ – "wise"),
sods ("punishment"; from
судъ) and
strādāt ("to work"; from
страдати).
In the Governorate of Livonia (1721–1918) and Courland (1795–1918) " in the
Russian Empire by region and state according to the
1897 Imperial Russian Census.
Governorate of Courland and
Governorate of Livonia are in the upper left corner. founded in 1883 On September 14, 1885, an ukaz was signed by
Alexander III setting the mandatory use of Russian for
Baltic governorate officials. In 1889, it was extended to apply to official proceedings of the Baltic municipal governments as well. By the beginning of the 1890s, Russian was enforced as the
language of instruction in Baltic governorate schools. According to the
1897 Imperial Russian Census, there were 25,630 (3.8%) speakers of "
Great Russian" in the
Governorate of Courland and 68,124 (5.2%) speakers of "Great Russian" in the
Governorate of Livonia, making Russian speakers the 4th largest linguistic group in each of the governorates.
In independent Latvia (1918–1940) In the 1925 census,
Russians were reported as the largest
ethnic minority (10.6%) and Russian was spoken as the family language by 14% of inhabitants. A small percentage of Russian speakers were not ethnic Russians and conversely, a small percentage of ethnic Russians used another language in the family, which was attributed to
interethnic marriages, living in an area with another
majority language and, in the case of Russian speakers,
Russification policies of the
Russian Empire. As a legacy of Russian imperial rule from the 18th to early 20th century, schools with instruction in Latvian were far less prestigious among Latvia's ethnic minorities than minority schools with instruction in Russian. For example, in the 1922/23 academic year only 18.3% of pupils in Russian schools were ethnically Russian, while 55.7% were
Jews, 10.4% were Latvians and 7.4% were
Poles. In the 1930 census, Russian was reported as a family language by 13% of inhabitants. In 1940, 216 of 1521 schools in Latvia had Russian as the
language of instruction and
trilingualism in Latvian, German and Russian among the population was common.
In Latvian SSR form issued in Riga in 1945, after the
Soviet re-occupation of Latvia in 1944, filled out only in Russian for Lenin Street (, ), the Soviet name for Riga's central
Brīvības iela from 1950 to 1991, at the
Museum of the Occupation of Latvia 1944–1957 The number of native Russian speakers increased sharply after the
Soviet re-occupation in 1944 to fill the gaps in the
workforce created by
World War II,
mass deportations,
execution and emigration. New, previously virtually unknown groups such as Russian-speaking
Ukrainians were also
introduced. Russian became the language of State business, and administrative positions were largely filled by ethnic Russians. In addition to that, Russian served as the
lingua franca among the increasingly urbanized non-Russian ethnic groups, making cities major centres for the use of Russian language and functional bilingualism in Russian a minimum necessity for the local population. In an attempt to partially reverse the previous Soviet Russification policies and give the Latvian language a more equal position to the Russian language, the Latvian national communist faction within the
Communist Party of Latvia passed a bill in 1957 that made the knowledge of both Latvian and Russian obligatory for all Communist Party employees, government functionaries and service sector staff. The law included a 2-year deadline for gaining proficiency in both languages.
1958–1970 In 1958, as the two-year deadline for the bill was approaching, the
Communist Party of the Soviet Union set out to enact an education reform, a component of which, the so-called Thesis 19, would give parents in all of the
Soviet Republics, with the exception of
Russian SSR, a choice for their children in public schools to study either the language of the republic's
titular nation (in this case Latvian) or Russian, as well as one foreign language, in contrast to the previous education system, where it was mandatory for schoolchildren to learn all three languages. A month after the removal of the Latvian National Communist leader
Eduards Berklavs, All-Union legislation was implemented in Latvia by
Arvīds Pelše. (including 47% Latvians), while only 18% Russians reported having any knowledge of Latvian. It was even more disproportionate among the Latvian SSR's non-Russians and non-Latvians: 152,897 claimed Russian as their first language, in comparison with only 28,444 who claimed Latvian as their first language. Furthermore, it pointed out how almost two-thirds of radio and television broadcasts and around half of the published
periodical literature in Latvia was already fully in Russian. Works of Latvian authors and school textbooks in Latvian were often not published due to an alleged lack of paper, whereas works of Russian authors and school textbooks in Russians were published. Even many collectives where Latvians formed the majority often yielded to the demands of their Russian-speaking members to conduct the meetings in Russian out of fear of being accused of
nationalism.
Middle,
tertiary and
higher education institutions had begun transitioning to Russian as the language of instruction, whereas many of the officials that had objected to these policies had been removed from their posts. In 1989, Russian was the native language to 42% of inhabitants, including 8% of the population who were non-Russians, while 39% of inhabitants spoke it fluently as a
second language. Non-Russian ethnic minorities had been particularly susceptible to linguistic Russification as, for example, the percentage of Belarusians who reported Belarusian as their native language had decreased from 42.6% in 1959 to 32% in 1989, while Poles with Polish as their native language had dropped from 55.3% to 27.3%. 95% of Belarusians and 88% of Poles had proficiency in Russian, but only 18% and 37% had Latvian knowledge. The only ethnic minority with a higher proficiency of Latvian (64%) than Russian (48%) were the Lithuanians. In the , 37.2% reported Russian as the language they primarily speak at home. In the
Latgale region, Russian was spoken at home by 30.3% of the population, but
Zilupe Municipality was the municipality with the biggest percentage of Russian speakers (42.1%). In the capital, Riga Russian was spoken at home by 55.8% of inhabitants. A 2012 research "Language situation in Latvia: 2004–2010" by the
Latvian Language Agency reported that the overall proficiency of Russian as a second language was decreasing due to it losing its popularity among the youth, especially in areas with a very large
Latvian majority. In a 2004 survey 73% of the respondents rated their Russian language skills as good, but in 2008 the overall proportion had decreased to 49%. The number was even lower among young people (between 15 and 34 years of age), of whom 54% said they have a good command of Russian, 38% have a low command, and 8% have no knowledge of Russian. Nonetheless, the proportion of people knowing Russian (98%) was still higher than the proportion of people knowing Latvian (92%). Overall, 1% of the respondents with the native language of Latvian did not know Russian, and 8% of the respondents whose native language was Russian reported not having any knowledge of Latvian in return. The report also noted the increasingly explicit and disproportional demand for Russian language skills from the employers and
linguistic discrimination of non-Russian-speaking candidates in the job market, especially in cases when Russian language skills were prioritised over
professional qualifications. The follow-up research "Language situation in Latvia: 2010–2015" pointed to the dysfunctional
employment law, which allowed for the situation where the employees in almost all sectors, especially the service industry, were expected to have proficiency in Russian. The Head of the
Latvian State Language Center Antons Kursītis named it one of the main reasons influencing youth emigration to other European countries. In January 2018,
Latvian State Language Center released an app
Valodas draugs (Language Friend) for reporting suspected violations of the Latvian language law and praising companies for their friendly attitude towards the Latvian language. The app was criticized by Russian-speaking activists who claimed it instigates
ethnic hatred and attempted to block it on
Google Play Store. On November 1, 2018, Saeima approved amendments to the employment law proposed by the
National Alliance, stipulating that employers cannot request knowledge of foreign languages if the use of the said languages are not included in the employee's duties and cannot deny employees the right of using the state language. According to the authors, the amendments were mostly aimed towards employers requesting the Russian language, even when the company has no dealings with foreign clients.
2012 constitutional referendum to adopt Russian as the second official language by municipality.
IN FAVOUR AGAINST On September 9, 2011,
NGO "
Native Language" submitted a petition to the Central Election Commission signed by 12,516 people on making Russian the second state language in Latvia. From November 1 to November 30, 2011, the Central Election Commission held an official signature gathering, during which 187,378 of the required 154,379 signatures were collected and the proposal was sent to Saeima. The
Harmony Centre leader and Mayor of Riga
Nils Ušakovs publicly declared that he had signed the petition but as a "private citizen". After that, other deputies, local government representatives and public officials from Harmony Centre began to sign it as well, including MP who was later issued a written warning by the Saeima Mandate, Ethics and Submissions Committee for violating the
deputy's solemn vow (oath), in which Kabanov swore to strengthen the Latvian language as the only official language. Harmony MP
Andrejs Klementjevs refused to formulate his party association's official position, stating that Harmony Centre had distanced itself from the matter, however they would examine the proposal carefully should it reach the parliament. On December 22, 2011, deputies from Harmony walked out of the meeting before the vote, in which the Saeima rejected the proposal. This forced a
constitutional referendum that was held on February 18, 2012. According to the Central Election Commission, 74.8% (821,722) voted against, 24.9% (273,347) voted for and the voter turnout was 70.37%. The next day,
Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russia announced that "the outcome of the referendum is far from reflecting the true mood in Latvia." pointing to around 319,000
non-citizens that could not participate in the referendum due to their status. The former
presidents of Latvia Guntis Ulmanis,
Vaira Vīķe-Freiberga and
Valdis Zatlers, leaders of the Latvian diaspora organizations (head of the Jānis Kukainis, chair of the
American Latvian Association Juris Mežinskis, chair of the Daina Gūtmane; chair of the Latvian Congress of Russia Lauma Vlasova, chair of the Pēteris Strazds and chair of the Andris Ķesteris) and the leading coalition of
Unity,
Zatlers' Reform Party and the
National Alliance all urged voters to participate in the referendum and vote against Russian as a second state language. The president at the time
Andris Bērziņš initially advised people to ignore the vote gathering, dismissing it as a provocation, but when it came to a referendum also called voters not to support Russian as the second state language and said he would resign should the referendum succeed. Several notable
Latvian Russians, including sculptor
Gļebs Panteļejevs, stage director
Marina Kosteņecka, and journalist , as well as the President of Russian fraternity Dmitrijs Trofimovs also called for a 'no' vote. == In education ==