Language policy in Latvia
[2] Latvia provides national minority education programmes in Russian (the first language for over one third of the population),[3] Polish, Hebrew, Ukrainian, Estonian, Lithuanian, and Belarusian.
Section 3.3 stipulates that '[t]he State shall ensure the development and use of the Latvian sign language for communication with people with impaired hearing.
In 1995, Latvia signed, and in 2005 ratified the Council of Europe's Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities.
When ratifying it, the Latvian Saeima (Parliament) made two declarations (worded as reservations) limiting the implementation of Articles 10 and 11.
In practice, this had led to re-examinations of various candidates, at least sometimes unexpected, which prevented Ignatāne and Podkolzina (representatives of the Equal Rights party in the 1997 local and 1998 parliamentary elections[8]) from participation.
As of 2011, candidates do not need to prove language proficiency, but elected members of Saeima[9] and local councilors[10] can be deprived of mandate for insufficient command of Latvian.
[21] Critics draw parallels between measures of the Latvian government and the assimilation of linguistic minorities in various countries.
[22] One critic, James Hughes, Reader in Comparative Politics at the London School of Economics and Political Science, has pointed out that Russian-speakers in Latvia constitute one of the largest linguistic minorities in Europe, therefore he considers Latvia's language laws to be denying Russophones their language rights, and thus they are contrary to international practice in the field of minority rights.
[23] Nataliya Pulina in Moskovskiye Novosti asserts that Latvia's Russophones are by percentage actually the largest linguistic minority in the EU whose language has no official status.
[24] Among the political parties, ForHRUL offers in its programme to grant official status to Russian in municipalities where it is native for more than 20% of the population.
Until a judgement[28] of the Constitutional Court upon request of 24 ForHRUL MPs (delivered in 2003), broadcasting in minority languages was limited for private TV and radio (originally within 30%, since 1998 within 25%).
According to Section 6 of Official Language Law, levels of skills in Latvian are defined for various professions, which concern the legitimate public interest.
The labour market shows high demand for skills in Latvian, Russian and English languages.
[31] Previously, according to the Law of languages as amended in 1992 (Section 5), organizers of any public event had to provide a translation into Latvian in their conferences.
[39] According to Education law,[40] as adopted in 1998, the language of instruction in public secondary schools (Forms 10–12) had to be only Latvian since 2004.
On 4 July 2018 Vējonis promulgated a controversial bill proposed by the Ministry of Education and Science on extending the same language restrictions for public higher education institutions to apply for private universities and colleges as well, meaning that private higher education institutions beginning from 1 September 2019, will not be allowed to enrol new students in study programs taught in non-official languages of the European Union, including Russian, and will have to complete the respective ongoing study programs by 31 December 2022.
German was the language of instruction in the first institution of tertiary education on the territory of Latvia (Riga Polytechnicum, founded in 1862).
At the end of the 19th century, tsar Alexander III instigated a policy of Russification in non-Russian areas of the Empire.
The pro-Bolshevik revolutionary soviet, Iskolat, declared on 4 January 1918 that Latvian should be the primary language of administration on the territory of Latvia.
In the postwar Latvian Soviet Socialist Republic, the proportion of Latvian-speaking population decreased due to large losses in World War II and mass deportations, while the Russian-speaking population increased due to the presence of military forces and mass immigration of labour to implement the Soviet Union's industrialization policy (still, due to low birth rate, the population of Latvia had grown by 27.4% between 1959 and 1989 censuses, while that of the whole USSR – by 36.8%).
[71] Consequently, the use of Russian increased and it started to dominate in the areas integrated on a federal level (state security, railway etc.).
[84] Latgalian was not considered a language separate from Latvian in any census, whether during the Soviet period or since the restoration of independence.
[3] Other than native speakers of Latvian and Russian, the numbers of speakers of different mother tongues recorded in the 2000 census were:[75] In 1999, the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe High Commissioner on National Minorities found Latvia's new language law to be "essentially in conformity with Latvia's international obligations and commitments".
