It started back in September 2001 when Microsoft Latvia launched the first Latvian version of MS Word 2002. Then two years later MS Excel, MS Powerpoint and MS Outlook in fresh 2003 versions joined the suite and got the Latvian treatment as well. The latest version of the most popular office software for Windows, MS Office 2007, released just before Jāņi this year, has now gone all the way. Not only has the complete suite of applications (Word 2007, Excel 2007, Powerpoint 2007, Outlook 2007, Access 2007, MS Publisher 2007, MS InfoPath 2007 and MS Groove 2007) been adapted for the Latvian language, but the underlying operating system, more commonly known as Microsoft Vista, has learnt Latvian as well.

It seems like that in this latest localisation effort no stone has been left unturned. The control panel, online help, warning dialogs, informational messages—everywhere you look—using either Windows or the Office applications the local Latvian user can just about get by without knowing a single word of English. Even the printed guides and packaging are in Latvian. And no wonder, since this has been the largest localisation project in the Baltics to date and took the combined team efforts of Microsoft Latvia and the localisation company Tilde nearly 18 months to complete. The timing of the project presented challenges with work beginning as early as January 2006—more than a year before the release of Windows Vista itself. To add further pressure on the localisation teams, the effort had to be multiplied by three as Microsoft insisted that all three Baltic language versions be released at the same time this summer.

With more than 10 years of experience in localisation and technical translations Tilde was once again chosen to produce all three Baltic language versions. To deal with new concepts and terminology, Tilde also worked closely with the Latvian Academy of Sciences’ Terminology Commission. The results of that collaboration have now become available at the terminology Web sites www.termini.lv and www.eurotermbank.com.

It is welcoming to see that they have not always followed the current trends and simply adapted variations of the English terms, but have made a concerted effort to find more appropriate and easier-to-guess Latvian words and expressions. After all, what is the point of producing a Latvian version if you are only adding a Latvian ending to the English word?

Did you know that cilne refers to a window tab, starpliktuve is clipboard, vadības panelis is the control panel, iestatījumi refers to settings, darbvirsma is desktop, mapes is folders, uzdevumjosla is Windows taskbar, ekrānsaudzētājs is screensaver, izšķirtspēja is screen resolution, pievienojumprogrammas are software add-ons and noklusējuma programmas are default programs? Some terms introduced with Microsoft Vista include sānjosla (Windows Sidebar), sīkrīki (Windows gadgets), emuārs (blog), Windows sapulču telpa (Windows Meeting Space), ciparslēgs (digital locker), vecāku kontrole (parental controls), zibatmiņa (USB flash drive), RSS plūsma (RSS feed) and vilkšana un nomešana (drag-and-drop). One of the more unusual terms pikšķerēšana for phishing. Who can guess what a pikšķerēšanas filtra iestatītjums is?

To enter Latvian letters with all the garumzīmes and mīkstinājumi (also referred to as diacritics) you need to hold down the right ALT key while pressing the appropriate letter. Hit ALT and “a” to get ā, ALT SHIFT s to get Š and so on. It is interesting to note that under this arrangement the controversial palatalised r or ŗ is supported, but o-macron or ō is not. Microsoft’s implementation of the Latvian keyboard driver, also referred to as “Latviešu (QWERTY),” isn’t as convenient as the ~ or ’ dead-key approach used widely in Latvia (with the WinLogs, WinLat and Birojs Latvian software writing packages). Microsoft has decided to stick to its own universal standard for entering foreign language characters.

In terms of proofing tools, MS Office 2007 includes only the Latvian spellchecker and hyphenator modules, both of which have also been licensed from Tilde. If this is not enough and you need the multiple language dictionaries (Latvian-English, Latvian-German, Latvian-Russian, Latvian-Latvian), thesaurus, grammar-checking and a bunch of additional fonts for the Baltic languages as well, you’ll definitely want to look at the separate add-on package called Birojs 2005.

The Latvian localised versions of MS Vista and MS Office 2007 are available for purchase only in Latvia and are at the same price as the regular English versions. Although the software products have been available now for several months there hasn’t been any active marketing and they are yet to appear on store shelves of the leading computer stores. When I recently inquired both at Elkor and Technoland in Rīga I received only blank stares and the salespeople directed me to the English versions on display. Price can normally be a decider and definitely helps the spread the word, so Microsoft could possibly do well to consider discounting the Latvian version as it has with previous versions.

For those who already have invested in the English version of Office 2007 and want to give the Latvian interface a go, then for around USD 25 you can download the Microsoft Office 2007 Language Pack for Latvian. Similar packages are also available for Estonian and Lithuanian. The Windows Vista Language Pack that allows you to latvianise your English version of Windows Vista is not yet available, but is expected to be downloadable by the end of the year.

The recent survey about dual citizenship sent out by Latvia’s integration secretariat has raised in me a glimmer of hope that perhaps I could have another chance. Back before 1995, when it was possible for exile Latvians and their children to regain citizenship in the homeland, I balked. My application was all filled out and I was ready to send it to the embassy in Washington, D.C. But a question nagged at me: Why?

I was just a postage stamp away from becoming a dual citizen, in one hand a U.S. passport and in the other a Latvian passport. Acquaintances argued that to have Latvian citizenship would allow me to vote in the homeland’s parliamentary elections. I wondered why I should be voting for people whom I did not know and who would be making decisions that would affect people living in Latvia, but not me.

What clinched the decision to not apply for dual citizenship was a conversation with a woman who had already sent in her application. I posed to her a hypothetical question: You’re in Latvia, with your U.S. passport in one hand and your Latvian passport in the other, and the Russians invade. What do you do? Her answer was a disappointment: She would take her U.S. passport and head home. So much for the responsibility that citizenship brings.

Now, more than a dozen years later, I am ready for both the responsibility and the privilege of Latvian citizenship. I expect to move to Latvia at some point and having dual citizenship would help the process. And having worked in Latvia, I have experienced what a hassle it is for non-citizens to get paid.

Whispers about the possibility of Latvia reintroducing some aspects of dual citizenship have been heard for about a year. As it stands now, the law forbids most Latvians from holding dual citizenship. So it was a pleasant surprise to receive news last week from the Secretariat of the Special Assignments Minister for Social Integration of a survey about dual citizenship.

The survey addresses a specific issue, that of granting dual citizenship to children born abroad of Latvian citizens. One proposal from a task force set up by the integration secretariat suggests this might be a way to foster return migration from some of the tens of thousands of Latvians who during the past several years have moved to Ireland and elsewhere.

I hope it’s a way to start an even broader discussion about extending dual citizenship to an even broader constituency—including those from the trimda who let the 1995 deadline slip by.

The secretariat’s survey asks five questions. Here are my answers:

1. Kurā valstī Jūs šobrīd dzīvojat/strādājat? In which country are you currently living or working?

I live and work in the United States, but I would rather be living and working in Latvia. To avoid a heated political argument at this point, let me just remind readers that none of us chooses where we are born.

2. Vai Jūs esat informēts par Sekretariāta darba grupas izstrādātājiem priekšlikumiem kā atgriezt aizbraukušos Latvijas iedzīvotājus dzimtenē? Are you informed about the secretariat’s task force’s proposals for how to get Latvian emigrants back to the homeland?

Yes, but I am a journalist who keeps tabs on things Latvian. I would not be surprised if many of the surveys returned from locations outside of Europe will show a lack of knowledge or interest about these proposals. After all, the proposals are geared to entice back to Latvia those thousands who have left in recent years to seek their fortunes in countries such as Ireland and the United Kingdom, not the children and grandchildren of the exile.

3. Vai atzīstat, ka Sekretariāta ierosinājums – ieviest dubultpilsonību ārvalstīs dzīvojošo Latvijas iedzīvotāju dzimušajiem bērniem – ir nepieciešams? Do you agree with the necessity of the secretariat’s suggestion that dual citizenship be introduced for children born to Latvian citizens abroad?

Yes, if it clarifies the citizenship law. The law already states that a child born to Latvian citizens abroad gets Latvian citizenship. But there is some confusion, because the law also states that someone who becomes a Latvian citizen (for example, through naturalization) cannot be a dual citizen. I say fix the citizenship law, make it possible for people to hold dual citizenship, and expand the list of who can get dual citizenship.

4. Vai minētā dubultpilsonības ieviešana, Jūsuprāt, stimulētu Latvijas iedzīvotāju iesaistīšanos Latvijas demokrātiskajos procesos (vēlēšanās, referendumos u.c.)? Would introduction of the aforementioned dual citizenship, in your opinion, stimulate Latvian citizens to engage in Latvia’s democratic processes (elections, referendums, etc.)?

You’re kidding, right? Citizenship in and of itself is no guarantee of participation in a democratic process, especially if one has little hope or trust in that process. Many people are disenchanted with politics in Latvia. So why don’t they vote for change? Because they have been disappointed so many times before. And the farther away they are from Latvia, the less interested they seem to be. In last year’s parliamentary election, just 542 citizens voted in Ireland—out of tens of thousands who live there. In the United States, where 12,473 Latvians got dual citizenship before the 1995 deadline, the number of voters has decreased with each election. Last year just 1,479 cast ballots, less than half the number back in 1998. A lot more than extending dual citizenship to children will be needed to get folks involved in the political process, perhaps starting with reform of the electoral process.

5. Vai minētā dubultpilsonības ieviešana, Jūsuprāt, kaut kādā veidā stimulētu Latvijas iedzīvotāju atgriešanos Latvijā? In your opinion would the aforementioned introduction of dual citizenship in some way stimulate the return of Latvian residents to Latvia?

I would have to go with the third choice offered by the survey: only together with other efforts to address issues of well-being. Thousands of Latvian citizens have not moved to Ireland in recent years in search of dual citizenship. They have moved there because they are fed up with low wages and the lack of hope in Latvia. Introduction of dual citizenship would work with me and others who want to move to Latvia, but not on those who have willingly moved away. What they need is convincing evidence that life in Latvia would hold as much promise as life in Ireland or elsewhere.

But opening up dual citizenship in a broad way, to the children of Latvians in Ireland and to the children and grandchildren of the exiles, would nonetheless be a step in the right direction. I have to agree with reader Ivars Graudiņš, who wrote in our forums, “Latvians can be supporters of Latvia and things Latvian even when they do not have Latvian citizenship. However, eat your heart out, without citizenship one is marginalized to act for or in behalf of Latvia. Citizenship is a form of empowerment and raises the sense of belonging and responsibility.”

The past month’s political events have tended to overshadow the coming referendum on July 7. And this—in some cases—was what they were seemingly intended to do.

The appointment by the Saeima of a deeply unpopular (and possibly compromised) President Valdis Zatlers at the insistence of the coalition parties has once more led the ruling coalition in Latvia to believe it can get away with anything. President Vīķe-Freiberga’s earlier stopping of two amendments to security laws was the most serious rebuff to such assumed omnipotence, and made her from that moment the extreme enemy of the ruling coalition. (The amendments alarmed the NATO defense alliance as they would have given a far wider range of unaccountable people access to security information.)

Every move since then has come with the calculation of blunting Vīķe-Freiberga and counting down the days to her departure. Equally important has been ensuring a successor who lacks the independence so characteristic of Vīķe-Freiberga’s term of office. 

The considerable kerfuffle over Zatlers’ appointment has concentrated on the infamous “envelope” practice—the custom since Soviet times of giving medical personnel a gift or consideration to ensure better medical attention, and Zatlers like all medical personnel had received such additional payments. In a ludicrous, post-appointment action Zatlers then went to the Taxation Office to declare this never previously declared income, and both he and the head of the Taxation Office urged others to report these payments as well. Press reports a few days afterwards said a total of three individuals had done so.

Yet the ruckus over the envelopes, wounding as it may be to Zatlers, itself has drawn attention away from what is the more serious failing of the man: in not one public appearance or statement has Zatlers demonstrated the least expertise in any aspects of politics, either internal or external. Moreover, as a sign of how cynically the appointment was seen by the coalition, in all the debates not one single relevant quality of the man was ever articulated by those proposing him. Being a clinician and medical administrator was the sole qualification mentioned as sufficient for being a president—that, and being proposed by the coalition.

For a further example of the stance of the coalition, Tautas partija (People’s Party) deputy Jānis Lagzdiņš immediately after the Saeima decision on Zatlers went out to the sizable crowd protesting Zatlers’ appointment and gave them a physical “get stuffed” sign. Appearing smiling before the Saeima’s conduct committee, his punishment was the expected rap over the knuckles with a wet noodle: a warning.

The coalition’s hope for an earnest, administratively neutral, presentable but ultimately quiescent president may or may not be fulfilled. For the coalition, Zatlers is of course a completely expendable figure.

The arrival of the new president now signals the impending end of Vīķe-Freiberga’s term. In her last address to the Saeima, she gave her customary sombre recounting of political problems mixed with praise for economic and social progress and words of hope for Latvia’s future. But apart from the words, two aspects of the aftermath of her speech were noteworthy. Her speech ended without even polite applause from the Saeima—the coalition parties (and some opposition parties) cannot wait to see her go. Secondly, the standard ritual of presenting flowers to the president was overlooked—in the flower-mad culture of Latvia, where the slightest appointment or distinction or event, merited or not, will bring garlands of flowers to whomever, such an omission cannot be seen as mere forgetfulness.

The conduct of the Saeima and its deputies appears to have fallen to its lowest ebb.

Journalism, too, has deteriorated, as seen in the antagonism between Diena—fierce critic of Zatlers and the coalition while staunchly supporting Vīķe-Freiberga—and Neatkarīgā Rīta Avīze, supporter of exactly the opposite. NRA praised Zatlers’ appointment, and on this occasion made hay of Diena’s discomfort. Diena added to its own woes in two episodes at Zatlers’ first press conference after his election. One concerned two Diena journalists, pressing questions regarding the envelopes, resorting to angrily shouting their accusatory questions. Take time to think about whether you have ever seen this happen anywhere before—journalists shouting at an appointed president. And perhaps worse was to follow: when a Chinese journalist covering the event asked a question on Latvia’s relations with China, these same Diena journalists pulled the sides of their eyes into slits to mock him. This gesture is far from being just infantile nonsense or a joke, but a deeply disturbing sign of how racial stereotypes are still spontaneously current in Latvian life and how little journalists understand even the basics of their profession.

NRA meanwhile has stepped up its own campaign of denigrating Vīķe-Freiberga’s term of office, of which we are likely to hear a great deal more.

The referendum and what is at stake

July 7 is the referendum date but also, in somewhat bizarre irony, the last day of Vīķe-Freiberga’s tenure as president. And while much has happened to cast the referendum into the shadows, there is no doubt this is the main political event now before the summer silly season, and a crucial test also of Vīķe-Freiberga’s standing.

At the symbolic level, her departure is being used by her supporters as an occasion for a massive show of support. A “hill of flowers” (flowers again!) was created June 30 at Turaida to acknowledge her contribution. As Diena correspondent Laila Pakalniņa splendidly observed, such an agreeable undertaking was however rather beside the point: the best show of gratitude for Vīķe-Freiberga would be a massive “yes” vote in the referendum.

While technically this is a referendum about amendments to two laws on security arrangements, politically much more is at issue. If the referendum does not get the required numbers, it will be triumphantly seen by the ruling coalition as the uselessness of the president’s action, the impotence of an opposition and the general irrelevance of any public opinion to the running of the country in the coalition’s own interests. Never mind that the coalition, under fear of backlash, itself immediately withdrew the amendments after the president froze their implementation: all the pompous self-righteousness will be directed at those who dared oppose the coalition. On the other hand, a “yes” vote in the referendum will not unseat the coalition, but it will cause it to have trouble brushing off the rebuff as merely a hiccough and as irrelevant. No doubt a successful “yes” vote would redouble the coalition’s efforts to reimpose its hegemony and in particular put extra pressure on President Zatlers to never have any piece of legislation rejected by him. But it will also give confidence to the opposition to challenge this further. The stakes, as always, are high. A vote in the referendum is essential.