How do Latvians and Russians evaluate Latvian?

Dzintra Bond, Dace Markus, and Verna Stockmal
Ohio University and the University of Latvia

ABSTRACT

 Bilingual ethnic Russians and Latvians residing in Riga were interviewed as part of an ongoing project to investigate the pronunciation of Latvian. The goal was to talk with participants who learned Latvian over as much of the past 50 years as possible. The generations of Latvians from elderly to teenagers would represent increasing and then decreasing pressure to know and use Russian. Ethnic Russians of comparable generations would be expected to show and inverse pattern of knowledge of Latvian. The participants were administered a questionnaire, based on a questionnaire designed to investigate bilingualism in Canada . The questionnaire assessed educational background and the proportion of use of Latvian and Russian at home, work or school, and in social situations. The questionnaire also investigated the participants’ history of learning their second language and their evaluation of their own proficiency.

INTRODUCTION

 We are all familiar with the history of language use in the Baltic States for the past fifty years. Both Latvia and Estonia, and to a lesser extent, Lithuania, have experienced asymmetrical bilingualism. The local populations have found it essential to have a good knowledge of Russian whereas the ethnic Russians who are residents of the countries have been able to function without knowing the local languages. As Druviete (1997) has noted, it was practically impossible to do shopping, get medical aid, or communicate with administrative bodies without a knowledge of Russian.
This situation has created a natural linguistic experiment on the effects of language contact. Our larger project explores the effects of extensive bilingualism on the pronunciation of Latvian. What we wish to report here is a portion of this project, the self-evaluation of ethnic Russians and Latvians of their knowledge and use of the two languages.
Our approach is based on the notion that examining the speech of different generations is equivalent to looking back in time. Labov (1994) has summarized considerable evidence that speakers adopt their speaking style and dialect features as adolescents and are not likely to change the basic features of  their speech past that age. Chambers (1992) has examined the acquisition of a new dialect and reports that age is one of the critical variables determining success for some phonological features.
METHOD
We selected participants to interview who represented, as much as possible, the time period during which Russian became an obligatory second language in Latvia. The oldest participant was 77 years of age, the youngest participants were students in high schools, 15 years of age. In order to avoid issues concerning dialect variation, all participants were residents of Riga or its environs. Participants were recruited through personal contact and tended to be relatively well educated or the children of well educated residents of Latvia.
In a small country with considerable contact with other languages, the individual life stories of the participants were quite diverse. For example, one elderly Latvian speaker had also learned Livonian at home as a child. A middle-aged Latvian speaker had spent considerable time in Russia as a young woman; she claimed that she had spoken Russian so much that she had almost forgotten how to speak Latvian. Three young women indicated that some member of their immediate family spoke Polish as a first language.
Despite such unavoidable issues, the participants were classified according to age, as the best way to examine general trends in the use of the target language. Both groups, ethnic Russians and Latvians, were placed into five categories.
? The first group consisted of high school or technicum students (L0, R0). These participants would have grown up during a period when Latvian had become the official state language and was a normal means of discourse in all circumstances.
? The second group consisted of university students (L1, R1). For the Latvian participants, Russian would have comprised a major portion of their education. For the ethnic Russians of this age, Russian would have been the normal language.
?  The third group consisted of recent university graduates (L2, R2) who were in the early stages of their professional lives. While they were receiving their education, the ethnic Russians in this group would have had little need to learn Latvian. The Latvians, on the other hand, would have expected to use Russian in their professional lives.
? In the fourth group, the participants were somewhat older adults who were working in their profession (L3, R3). The Russians would have lived in a primarily Russian-speaking environment for most of their lives. The Latvians would have been using Russian on a daily basis in activities outside the home.
? The participants in the fifth group (L4, R4) were either retired or of retirement age. The Latvians in this group would have received at least some of their education before Russian became the dominant language in the country.
The five groups represent the changing roles of the two languages in Latvia. For the youngest, Latvian is the state language. For the middle three groups, Russian was required in education and professional life. For the oldest group, Latvian was, at first, their primary language. Of course, all the ethnic Russians would have been motivated to learn Latvian during the past ten years. The number of participants in each group is given in Table 1. Although it would have been desirable to have ten participants in each category, in some cases it was impossible to recruit a sufficient number in the time available.
 All participants were administered a questionnaire which attempted to capture their own perceptions about their knowledge and use of Latvian, Russian, and other languages. The questionnaire was administered in Latvian. If participants did not understand a question, it was explained in either Latvian or Russian, as appropriate. The questionnaire dealt with two issues. First, participants were asked several questions to determine under what circumstances and in to what degree they used the two languages. Second, participants were asked to evaluate their proficiency in their other language. The questionnaire was based on the previous work of Flege, Frieda, and Nozawa (1997).
RESULTS
 It is interesting to note which second language the participants reported. The ethnic Russians almost always reported that their second language was Latvian and the majority of the Latvians reported that their second language was Russian. The only exceptions were speakers who had grown up with a different language in their immediate family. In contrast, the majority of the very youngest group of ethnic Latvians (L0) gave their second language as English. For this group, English represents a choice, a decision. When given an opportunity to study a second language, the youngest group of Latvians strongly favored English over Russian.
How often do Latvians speak Russian?
The participants were asked to estimate the percent of time they had used Latvian and Russian over the past year. Overall, the ethnic Latvians claimed that they used Latvian between 70% and 80% of the time. The high school students (L0) and the retired people reported a slightly higher percent use of Latvian than the other three groups. On the average, the retirees participated in relatively small social groups and spent most of their time with family and close friends, all speaking Latvian. The Latvians reported that they spoke Russian from 10% to 20% of the time. The high school students claimed to speak Russian less than any of the other groups.
How often do Russians speak Latvian?
 The Russians presented a different picture in describing their overall use of the two languages. All reported that they spoke Russian more than Latvian, but in relatively equal proportions. They spoke Russian from 50% to 60% of the time and Latvian from 30% to just over 40% of the time. The high school students (R0) spoke Latvian the least of the five groups. The overall pattern of language use by both ethnic groups is given in Fig. 1.
When do they use the two languages?
Both ethnic Russians and Latvians were asked to indicate what proportion of the time they used their two languages in various social domains: at home, with family, with friends, at work or school, on the telephone, and at social events. All groups of Latvians reported that they used Latvian almost exclusively in all of these social domains. The only mild departure from a picture of overwhelming use of Latvian is the university students (L1) who reported somewhat less (68%) use of Latvian at social events. The use of the two languages in various social domains is given in Fig. 2.
The picture for ethnic Russians is quite different. They report that the predominant situation for using Latvian is work or school. In other domains of life, their use of Latvian varies but appears to be quite limited. Only the oldest group (R4) report that they use Latvian at social events and with friends more than 50% of the time. These data are given in Fig. 3.
 As another index of the use of Latvian, the participants were asked to give names or other designations of people with whom they habitually spoke in Latvian. Disregarding the elderly Latvians, the other groups easily named between six and ten people with whom they conversed in Latvian. The Russians tended to name fewer people, but still reported that they had between four and eight conversational partners with whom they spoke Latvian. It appears, then, that the two groups do not differ appreciably in the number of people with whom they are able to use Latvian. The numbers are given in Fig. 4.
How well do Latvians know Russian?
Both groups were asked to estimate their ability to speak, understand, read and write in Russian or Latvian. For this response, the participants used a 7-point scale, with 7 representing maximum skill levels. The four oldest Latvian groups, from university students to retirees, reported excellent ability to understand and read Russian and very good ability in speaking it. They were somewhat more modest about their claim to be able to write it. In contrast, the youngest group of Latvians (L0) claimed to be able to understand Russian reasonably well, but reported that their other skills in the language were quite modest. This self-evaluation is consistent with the tendency for Latvian high school students to prefer to study English as a foreign language rather than Russian. These responses are given in Fig. 5.
How well do Russians know Latvian?
 All five groups of ethnic Russians, even the high school students and the retirees, claimed to have quite good knowledge of Latvian. They were best at understanding and reading and worst at writing, as one might expect. These data are given in Fig. 6.
CONCLUSION
 We can conclude that the ethnic Russians feel that their knowledge of Latvian is adequate and that they have an adequate supply of conversational partners. They use Latvian when they need to do so, at work or at school. In social and family situations, however, they are much more likely to use Russian than Latvian. The Latvians use their native language as often and in as many situations as possible.
 We should end with a note of caution. Although the participants were encouraged to answer honestly, it is always possible that self-reported patterns of language use, or of skill levels, overestimate or underestimate the reality. To some extent, the participants may have been describing themselves as they wished to be seen rather than as they were.
REFERENCES
Chambers, J. K. (1992), Dialect acquisition, Language 68: 673-705.
Druviete, Ina (1997), Linguistic human rights in the Baltic States, International Journal of the Sociology of Language 127: 161-185.
Flege, James Emil,  Elaina M. Frieda and Takeshi Nozawa (1997), Amount of native-language (L1) use affects the pronunciation of an L2, Journal of Phonetics 25: 169-186.
Labov, William (1994). Principles of Linguistic Change Volume 1: Internal Factors. Cambridge, MA: Blackwell.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS

Research for this project was supported by a grant from the International Research & Exchanges Board, with funds provided by the US Department of State (Title VIII program) and the National Endowment for the Humanities. None of these organizations is responsible for the views expressed.
A preliminary version of this paper was presented at the Forth Baltic Conference in Europe, Tartu, June, 2001.

Table 1. Participants responding to the questionnaire

Group 
Number
Year of birth
Second language
L0  11  1984-1985 Russian (3) English (8)
L1  7  1977-1982 Russian (5) German (1)
Polish (1)
L2  8 1969-1976 Russian (all)
L3  6 1957-1963 Russian (all)
L4  6 1923-1942 Russian (5) Livonian (1)
R0  20  1984-1985  Latvian (all)
R1  11  1978-1981 Latvian (all)
R2   2  1970-1974  Latvian (1) Polish (1)
R3  13 1947-1961   Latvian (12) English (1)
R4  4  1939-1945   Latvian (all)

View Figures
Updated July 31, 2001