I find your position absurd, Graudiņa kungs. You’ve plenty of hot air and you like to strike poses (appealing mostly to two questionable linguists and a slew of diaspora folk, so far), but little of substance to say. The “ŗ” had disappeared in most of Latvia long before, but was briefly restored. Go through the comments to the piece by Sausiņš that you linked to. Or don’t—I s’pose that most would merely provoke vaimanoloģija about the poor Sovietized nation, so filthy when perceived from the purity of North American latvietība. There are a million things more vital to the viability of Latvian than a disputed palatalization (and Druviete is actually rather right-wing, by the way, having been one of the principal politicians to force through the politicized education reform). I find your (and Sausiņš‘s) posturing extremely counter-productive. Besides the many positive things that could be done directly to add life to Latvian (which don’t include quasi-religious endzelīnisms), we are talking about a country (also a linguistic environment) that is bleeding to death, losing its chances for further existence to mass emigration, the collapse of education and health care, etc. Silly ethnopolitical games have long been beyond tiring.

Want to do something for Latvian? Move to Latvia and speak it. Failing that, buy books and literary magazines, buy CDs by musicians who keep the living language (languages, plural—Latgallian also) alive, donate to schools and groups that promote culture in Latvian, etc. Small languages flourish when they jive—a sclerotic purity is a trivial part of the picture. Fighting Russian or “the Russian world” doesn’t do much; what will make or break Latvian is whether or not it is useful; whether “the Latvian world” is big enough to live in. It won’t ever be sufficient, as Russian and English are. The question is whether it can nonetheless retain its vitality. Continuing to fight World War Two, indulging in the bashing of a third of the population, longing for draconian language laws decreed by a 1930s dictator, and burying our heads in the sand as if we’re not a part of Europe will only help kill the tongue. Which, to be honest, would probably be a relief to some in the former trimda, deep down—the country of the mind seems a lot closer to some hearts than the reality. Why have a country if you can’t have your “ŗ,” after all (as if anything prevents you from palatalizing it in speech, where it matters, or, often, even in text—the latter only banned by some with the same authoritarian instincts those who’d die for the “ŗ” have).

Vysu lobu,
/P

What more can I say Petepoe. You just proved how deeply embedded you’re in “Russki mir” and then you lose control of your emotions and feel hurt when it’s pointed out to you. That’s being very emotional, but I can’t help you there.

You missed the point from the start Petepoe by getting ahead of yourself. No one has suggested that the ”ŗ” is to be restored by the authorities and that the Latvian language be changed back to pre-war orthography. It was, however, suggested that you could always start practicing the ”ŗ”on your own. No one is bashing little Ivan or Natasha as the focus is on political leadership, failed political leadership to be more precise. The point everyone was making was look what has happened to us and our language, using ”ŗ” as backdrop; lets not allow the Russians to push us around anymore, let us not get into this language quagmire deeper. Letts get organized, work together and choose our own destination without letting the Big Brother meddle in. Fear not Petepoe, there will be no team of Latvian language experts from Trimda marching into Dvinskitown to teach the local inhabitants the proper use of the Latvian ”ŗ.” {:~)

Besides, there is no need to be a doom sayer. It’s like causing an unnecessary stampede in a theater because you were trigger happy.

Of course the Latvian language will change after all we are not a zero sum society; we’ve come a long way from the click-languages of our forefathers. The languages of the world will come together over time at their own pace and comfort, without being bullied around, if we can help it. It appears that Russian and the Russki mir setting is perfectly acceptable to you. That’s not fine for me. I am concerned that should we ever get swallowed by the modern feudal Russia it will be no return. That is their strategic game plan. Clearly Šlesers, Kalvītis, Urbanovičs, Ušakovs, Škjēle, etc. are trying to drag Latvia there, but more on all that later. I would like to see Latvians embrace the English language and turn to the Scandinavian countries and the rest of Europe for alliance. It is something that Andis Kudors, in his outstanding article on this subject, is also recommending. Actually I was pleasantly surprised how many young Latvians in my circle of contacts across Latvia already speak English fluently for the reasons that we’ve covered and are representing international companies working out of Latvia as the home base. They are a head of the game and not willing to be dupes of Latvian politicians who want to lead Latvia East. They are the Latvian positive thinkers who are results oriented.

Cheers, Ivars

I reserve the right to use my native language whenever I want and however I want. I choose to use Latvian with the Latvians and Russian with the Russians. And Russkii Mir - whatever that means - has nothing to do with it. For me, it is a courtesy thing.

Instead of griping about the ethnic Latvian leadership pulling your beloved Latvia toward Russia, why don’t we embrace Russians who live here and propagate the core European values of free speech, freedom of assembly (on May 9 or any other day), to them? Why don’t we call them “our Russians” thus negating the Kremlin’s move on their compatriots?

PS Funny. Russkiy Mir doesn’t even have any presence in the Baltic States.

Graudiņa kungs wrote, inter alia:

You just proved how deeply embedded you’re in “Russki mir” and then you lose control of your emotions and feel hurt when it’s pointed out to you.

Excuse me, but there is not a smidgen of truth in this contention of yours. Repeating it over and over won’t make it true. You’re getting as Goebbelsian as Ambersun in your old age.

Fear not Petepoe, there will be no team of Latvian language experts from Trimda…

Wasn’t it the Subcommandante [sic] who worried about this weird habit you have of capitalizing Trimda?

I’m delighted that a guy who heads a radical group that promotes Mein Kampf as the answer to Latvia’s current predicament is into free will (is that like the Freiwillige?), but forgive me if I’m a little suspicious when you start the thread by linking to praise for the language law decreed by the dictator in contrast to the policies that the freely elected Parliament adopted by consensus. You then go off and start another thread with a title that underscores precisely this ethnopolitical dead end.

There is no Trimda, capital “T” or not. There’s a diaspora. Latvia has been sovereign for nearly two decades and Russkiedom by any name couldn’t give a flying “f” whether the “ŗ” is restored or not. If you want to believe that all those against it are Sovietized, please do so. I have spoken to linguists about these issues at length, and there are different aspects to the question. The stupidest thing one can do is bring it down to yet another silly game of Letts vs. Russkies, Left vs. Right thrown in for sport.

Besides, there is no need to be a doom sayer. It’s like causing an unnecessary stampede in a theater because you were trigger happy.

I’m not a doom-sayer. It certainly ain’t me causing any stampede—the stampede is taking place because this is a terribly messed up country where, as Ījabs so poignantly put it, there may come a point where only a fool could live in it.

You clearly don’t grok the gravity of the situation. I live here. I say farewell to friends and acquaintances abandoning this country on a regular basis. In my work, I peer into various spheres and am quite familiar with the rot. Latvia is in critical condition.

I would like to see Latvians embrace the English language and turn to the Scandinavian countries and the rest of Europe for alliance.

Beautiful. Let’s see how many empty sentences you can write, shall we? Plenty of Latvians (and plenty of Latvian Russians) are embracing the English language. Does doing so necessarily entail turning their backs on Russian? What alliance would you like? We’re in NATO, the EU, the OSCE, the CoE, and the CBSS. There’s some other alliance you’re pining away for?

What I think you don’t get is that people flogging fresh editions of Mein Kampf or longing for 1930s ethnopolitics just ain’t too popular in Scandinavia.

You also seem to miss the fact that most folks just don’t do stuff out of idealism unless they can get their ideals to correspond to hard realities. Šnore can go on faux news with Glenn Beck, but it’s highly questionable whether, for all the whooping and hollering of the US right wing, Latvia should place its eggs in some wing-nut basket. Paleocons like Pat Buchanan have repeatedly made it perfectly clear that Yanks shouldn’t die for Daugavpils (in those words). Neocons? Well, I don’t think they’re ready to die for Daugavpils, either. They might be willing to let Daugavpils die for the cause, though!

Hard realities—Russia, Eurasian as it may be, is also in Europe and is our neighbor. Ain’t no changing the geography, and though the history should be rewritten (but not by Ruks and his ilk)—like it or not, the Russian language and culture are here to stay. I could make some sarcastic comments about just how the alliance with Sweden has worked out—debt peonage, davai!—but I’m sure you’ll see people doing that at the ballot box this fall.

As to emotionalism—nice try, Ivar, but my emotions come with cold, hard facts. In the other thread, you reveal your ignorance about the agreement to maintain Soviet monuments, something I have discussed at length. You blithely ignore the beef all the time, whether that’s Aleksejs’ material on the poverty rate or my remarks on the politics of Ruks. I’m told you’re a big VVF fan. So what gives, Ivariņ? 

But it’s the drift of your posts that most perturbs me emotionally. It appears that Russian and the Russki mir setting is perfectly acceptable to you. Just what do you propose? Why in the hell should Russian not be acceptable, and what right do I have to accept or reject it? In context, please. I’ve repeated literally hundreds of times that I basically support the language laws and even the education reform. If you’d like to go further, I would even appreciate creative approaches to the real problem that Ruks and others draw attention to—language in the workplace. I would like to see language policy extended into the private sector, as it is in Québec. Doing that is very delicate and difficult, however, and the fascistic brutes you invoke are far more likely to accomplish the opposite.

You’re living in a dream world if you think one could follow the lead of a Ruks or a Kušķis and appeal to “Europe.” In the course of my speckled career, I’ve met many a Scandinavian diplomat. They look upon even what we have—which, to you, is already lacking in the kind of backbone you and Ambersun can pretend to muster in occupied Injun territory—with deep suspicion. And I daresay that suspicion is warranted.

Vysu lobu,
/P

P.S. To meld with Grasis’ Baez variation, there’s always this, isn’t there. The saved to mājās part—forgot?

/P

Just bcause we have not succeeded in convincing the Russians that our side of the story has at least some truth in it, does not mean that we should stop trying.  It is the truth that a directive descended from Moscow on the philology Department of the University of Latvia to implement changes in the direction of making Latvian more like Russian.

A typical example is Ainas Blinkenas introduction of the word “mērs” (with narrow “e” pronounciation) as the mayor of a city.  It simply does not have a Latvian sound!  Since “mērs” (measure)un “mēris” (plague) are already words in our language with differen meanings, a logical choice would have been “meijers”.  Beside, what is wrong with saying “Pilsētas galva” vai “Pilsētas vecākais”?

Good grief: we have so many foreign words in Latvian, I can’t even count. The other day I heard the word “šerot” for example, from English “to share.” The language is a living breathing thing.

Labrīt,

As a living, breathing thing—it can also be suffocated. I’ve nothing against slang or loan words per se, but how (and often whether) one borrows words or creates new ones is what matters. Good Latvian—which is not synonymous with dryness and can be far juicier than the pathetic patois one so often hears, or academic prose so often heavily laden with foreign words—is close to the roots. Living and breathing doesn’t preclude purification, which tends to make living and breathing easier.

There’s nothing wrong with mērs. It’s said differently (see Rasma Grīsle). All languages have homographs. No one confuses nokauts, slaughtered, with nokauts, knockout. Мэр comes through the French maire, entering Latvian via the Russian. Pilsētas galva is long and clunky, and shortening it to galva would be rather awkward.

Vysu lobu,
/P

Again, I’m not talking about a good literary Latvian. Heck, people on the street do not use literary Latvian, English or Russian. The language of Dostoyevsky is diminished to a hybrid of English-Latvian-Russian with a lot of unnecessary words thrown in. You and I, Peteris, were at a bar next to a bunch of people whose language is worth a good anthropological study. You can’t legislate how the language is used, if that is what you meant by “purification.” It just won’t work. Teens will still be saying “šerot,” and “fak.”

PC observes this about language…

As a living, breathing thing—it can also be suffocated. I’ve nothing against slang or loan words per se, but how (and often whether) one borrows words or creates new ones is what matters. Good Latvian—which is not synonymous with dryness and can be far juicier than the pathetic patois one so often hears, or academic prose so often heavily laden with foreign words—is close to the roots. LIVING AND BREATHING DOESN’T PRECLUDE PURIFICATION …

Does PC have the right idea?

Let’s try to contrast this with the German language and its own adoption of “modern” technical terms.
The Germans had a tendency to come up with really long compound “words” for technology, whether this technology was born within her borders nor not.

No surprise here though—- For even Latvians have this tendency, except that they usually prefer shorter phrases instead of a really, really long word. As it had been noted by me before, Latvians (whether they are way too aware/familiar of the “difficulities” of long compound words) have sometimes done a good job in “creating” Latvian technical terms.

Mikus E.

“Es ar savu fidiņu flanēju pa Grīziņu.  Te pretim nāk Džonīts un piešujās.  Es saku:  “Džonīt, atšujies!”  Džonīts neatšujās, es izvilku repsīti un Džonīts nolika karoti.