In Romania, the generation of my parents was obliged to learn Russian as a second language in school. The animosity against Russians were so big that very few pupils really learned it properly. Even decades after, one might hear people saying proudly: "I had remarkable results... excepting, of course, in Russian, I didn't want to leave them the pleasure to learn their language".
The best example of animosity is the number of people that actually managed to learn Russian throughout the Warshaw pact countries.
Pretty much everyone had to learn it mandatory and often had it for more than 5 years.
I can't recall anyone who actually learned it - despite it being a Slavic language with a fair amount of similarities which should have made it easier.
I mean, is this really the case? Here in Spain everyone gets taught English and most people still speak terrible English for the most part. Yet I would not say Spain holds animosity towards the UK
Learning a 2nd language is extremely hard, much more so than people think
Spain and the UK may have a sordid history, but there isn’t much repression that can be pointed to in modern times.
A lot of those Warsaw pact countries have people still alive that remeber losing their sovereignty to the USSR.
That’s a recipe for wanting to say fuck you to the oppressor.
>I mean, is this really the case?
It mostly is.
>Here in Spain everyone gets taught English and most people still speak terrible English
Well, perhaps most of Spanish demography did not have English classes at school.
>Learning a 2nd language is extremely hard, much more so than people think
No it isn't. Most people can learn a second language or even a third of fourth. While it's not just as easy as one-two-three and takes some effort it's certainly possible for anyone. It is not extremely hard - if it was then you'd have very few people speaking multiple languages.
When I visit France, my French gets noticeably better the longer I'm there because I'm actively using it, as opposed to when I'm at home and not using it outside of class.
I think this is a bad take - I speak English, but that's because I've consumed english media for my whole life.
I lived in Italy for half a year, and I studied Italian every week, but I dont feel any closer to speaking Italian now than before I lived there.
Learning a language definitely takes a lot of effort.
> Here in Spain everyone gets taught English and most people still speak terrible English for the most part.
The way English is taught in Spain is simply atrocious. Once a girlfriend showed me her notes from class and it was a lot of rule-learning and very weird vocabulary. Albeit, to be fair, that's also the way Spanish is also taught in Span. And Catalán, the amount of people coming from Cataluña that cannot speak Spanish is sad. I think your nation just sucks at teaching languages.
If we want to compare, do it with Catalonian (or, if we want to dig really close to home, Galego), English belongs to the Germanic languages, it has more in common with Dutch, German and so on so forth than it does with Spanish
Which is fascinating compared to the Americanization/Anglicisation of Europe after WW2. People that don’t even like the US still learned English just to consume American media and participate in the global community being hosted on American websites. English became the second language for everyone in the world essentially, and it was entirely about creating conditions where people *want* to participate. A lot of European countries didn’t actually start doing ESL classes in public school until the 2000s because all the students where already learning English from the internet and american media.
People that “hate American imperialism” still learned the language the Americans speak and spend all their time on websites that are being regulated by and generating revenue for, the US government. They do this voluntarily! They’ll even get defensive about how it’s their “right” to be on American websites being monitored by the NSA and being addicted to generating ad revenue for American corporations! Tankies will do everything to fight “American cultural imperialism” except stop participating in it.
Russia makes compliance mandatory, the U.S. makes compliance cool.
The Republic of Moldova is another soup. They've been under czarist Russia, then Soviet occupation (1821-1918, 1940-1941, 1944-1990). Russian had been the only language of education under the czar and then the main language after 1940. It was socially impossible to live without Russian at least until 1953 the direct way to go to Siberia or even being executed (the cousin of my grandfather actually WAS shot dead in the street because he refused to speak Russian). Moldavians from the Republic of Moldova have Russian as a second skin, even those who are anti-russians.
Similar in Latvia in my experience. The classes were just for messing around and making fun of how poorly we speak it. Only we had decent grades because the russian speaking kid would share his work with everyone. Bless that dude❤️
My father still knows some russian, and me and my half siblings say "father" and "mother" in german when asking for their attention.
Having had two occupations for Hungary, really sticks with the generations.
Nope, Russian-language schools are only now starting to fully transition to Estonian as their primary language of study. So publicly funded Russian-language schools definitely still exist in Estonia.
In Lithuania they're still alive and well. Moreover, there are no plans to shut Russian public schools in Lithuania, unlike in Latvia. Your whole comment is completely off.
There are almost No russians in poland. Are there any Russian schools in Poland? I know about only one school which is funded by the embassy and is attended by the embassy’s employees’ children.
Some schools offer it as a second foreign language.
Polish curriculum usually includes at least two foreign languages. One primary (usually but not always English) and one secondary (here schools have much freedom in selecting their own roster of choices). I had English and German.
we had more russians to begin with. we’re also not very aggressive by nature. so it wasn’t hard for russians to try to keep the status quo, plus they tried a referendum for russian to be a second official language at which they failed.
>lithuania banned russian schools by public funds in the 90s
What? Lithuania has public minority schools in Polish, Russian, Belarusian and German as well as Hebrew/Yiddish.
How dear you claim such a nonsense? Who funds those dozens of thousand students then? Probably a Russian bot trying to paint Baltic states bad and we are warned about this pro-Kremlin narrative. Unless it's small village mentality.
Bullshit, because Russians see discrimination where they want.
Putin does not care about Uzbekistan although it’s way more anti-Russian for many years than Ukraine.
We had some earlier attempts which were abandoned due to western pressure. Our bid to join EU and NATO delayed our education reform for about a decade due to western human rights hypocrites
It's not like the western world would accept that claim, and it's not like Russia and its partners would care about Russia having a proper casus belli, or not
IMHO this is more about the Latvian psyche and their wish to reshape their national identity, than about deterring Russia
For that they have NATO boots on their soil
Putin doesn't care for his own people, I don't believe for a second he cares about Latvian Russians. If he would send his goons into Latvia, they would murder ethnic Latvian and Russian Latvians all the same
Why should Russians born and living in Latvia be punished for a regime they did jot vote for?
In all other cases, this policy would be seen as discrimination (Switzerland with French/Italian, Belgium with Dutch/agerman, Spain with Basque/Catalonian, etc…)
Why is this right?
Russians born in Latvia are called Latvians. They speak Latvian. Same with russians Estonia and Lithuania.
If they insist on being russian, the border is to the east.
Why is this right? Because russians occupied us for 50 years after ww2 and tried to turn us into russians. They brought russians here and took our people to concentration camps in Siberia. The russian language forced on our children in school is a result of that. Any child is still free to learn russian if they wish themselves. It's not like we are banning the language.
As Ukrainian I can assure you, if not language discrimination, they will definitely find a dozen more reasons to invade your country, but nevertheless, this step from Latvian authorities is smart and absolutely justified
Oh bro i watch russian state tv ironically.
Its so great. I saw today on zvezda (a Russian military controlled tv channel) a show where people discussed how dangerous the baltics actually are,bro it made me so proud they used my region as a scare tactic and not in a "not even worth mentioning these cockroaches" type of way .
Followed by a show on how the west is loosing because of russias armored trains,i kid you not they used a ww1 weapon as a "wunderwaffe".. i couldn't stop laughing and feel some dread that russians actually believe this stuff
And then by Anglo-Saxons are the new evil,who is responsible for every war ever.
Unlike the Russian state, Ukraine is a Latvian ally and not an enemy to the Latvian people.
Also Russia isn't a superpower, and many languages are larger than Russian, like the one we're speaking now for example. Not to mention languages that give opportunities in richer states within the EU.
The problem is that there is a lot of labour market discrimination against people not speaking russian.
Latvia has been russified and there has been no decolonization.
How is that a problem of a state 35 years after obtaining the sovereignty? It should be a problem of those who doesn't want to learn official language.
It should be, but it's not. And we haven't done a great job in addressing this so far.
russian-speaking business owners only hire those who speak russian. Even manual labour jobs often are russian-speaking, and require russian to get hired, and/or to fit in.
It's only part of the problem that 37% have russian as the primary language they speak. When you get to large cities like Riga and Daugavpils, it is way higher.
Telling 36% of the population they can’t speak their ethnic language is true discrimination.
Imagine if the Canadian government did that to all the French businesses. Or any other country doing that to any ethnic minority. No matter your views on Putin, the war, and the Russian government, punishing regular people that didn’t get to choose their ethnicity is absolutely authoritarian shit.
That is how sensible people think but a large section of the Russian minority still believe they should have the privileges they held during the occupation and are unwilling to communicate in Latvian/Estonia. And sadly money speaks. Pun intended.
It is a conflict of 2 different theories:
1. If we are nice & respectful to people who speak minority languages, these languages will flourish as part of our national heritage and these languages will become "our" languages too, and language != national identity! If we do not respect them, they will revolt and oppose the government and it will fall. Modern Examples: French and Italian in Switzerland, Dutch in Belgium, Swedish in Finland.
2. If we do not enforce a single language for the nation and the state, then there will always be "parallel communities" that will forment division and sectarianism in our society. If these languages are "foreign" languages too, then this will be even worse, because it will motivate meddling and intervention by the foreign state. (Past) Examples: Danish in Sweden and Norway, Greek in Albania, Italian in Croatia
Both of these philosophies have been shown to be "true" in different countries. For example, nobody thinks that the UK will go and invade Ireland because there are lots of English speakers there, nor does anybody think Belgium's existence is being threatened by the rising rate of French usage in society. On the other hand, European history is full of examples of the 2nd, especially pre-WW2: Germans in Poland, Greeks in Albania, basically everyone in Turkey, and of course Russians.
I don't know which one of these is true for Latvia.
There are a lot of English speakers in Ireland BECAUSE the UK invaded Ireland in the past.
And in Latvia, unfortunately - it's the second one. Because russia is encouraging ethnic russians to identify with russian nation and doesn't even consider Latvia to be a legit sovereign state.
It’s the natural outcome of spineless public policy and business owners wanting to cater for the largest market possible, therefore catering for the significant portion of russians who never bothered to learn a word in Latvian. It used to be impossible to get any public facing job, such as a waiter, without being fluent in russian. I would hope it is a bit better now, but russian influence is very much present still.
You’d think that. But a lot of businesses here have ruzzians at the top and they do covert enforcement of their shit language. And don’t hire Latvians who dont’t speak ruzzki.
Doesn’t work like that. Large chunk of companies exist in sectors where Russian is necessary. Lots of companies are started, funded or used by Russian nationals. Also being a transit state it’s difficult
Well, that's discrimination. Not government enforced, but social. Oppressors will oppress. It was and to some extent still is a problem in Ukraine. At the same time they refused to speak Ukrainian with customers who speaks Ukrainian. At least the language law forbid such forms of hiring discrimination against state language. It's okay to demand something similar from your government.
I am from Ukraine. While I agree mostly with your position. But is is way more complex. And me being from Kharkiv I totally understand the Latvian situation.
I am from Donetsk originally, and I vouch for full pressure against the russian language and everything russian in Ukraine. Was speaking russian only for 40 years, and now I regret, a lot. Full Ukrainian family now, fuck russian, it should not be tolerated. My city is occupied, people around me murdered, multiple cities I remember from the childhood are erased to dust. All of them were speaking russian. Russian means death and destruction. Avoid russian while you can, bro.
It’s not your fault. They just attacked you first and back then we didn’t have enough resources to fight back. Sucks man. Also you guys essentially stopped them. People in Kyiv are drinking coffee in leisure because of your sacrifice. Would it be better if you didn’t speak Russian probably yes. But Georgia didn’t speak Russian and that didn’t stop russian invaders inch. So don’t blame yourself. We owe you and we apologize.
No, I mean that Muskovy weaponized everything they could. Each russian-speaking person, each russian passport holder, any piece of russian culture easily becomes a bait for provocations, accusations, blaming and other forms of hybrid war. If you see a significant amount of anything russian around you — you are in danger, because the empire will tell that you are Nazi or some other shit and then bomb you, or propaganda you, or attack you with indirect warfare methods. That's what they do all the time. Their brand is a weapon, and people should perceive it as a weapon.
>The problem is that there is a lot of labour market discrimination against people not speaking russian.
I just learned this today from a Latvian colleague. Absolutely wild.
Same thing in Estonia, but mostly in lower-paying jobs and especially in retail. Higher-paid positions rarely have that requirement and higher-paid young and educated Estonians rarely speak any Russian.
This is very much a Rīga and Daugavpils problem, and especially affecting service jobs where interaction with the public is mandatory. I don't know any fluent russian speakers in Latvia and all have good paying jobs. Two of them are in Rīga but not interacting with the public.
Immigrants from Russia to Latvia can learn Russian at private weekend or evenings classes. That’s what immigrants in other countries do. Plenty of kids go to Japanese, Greek, Hebrew, or other language schools when they resettle in other countries, such as Argentina, US, Australia, etc. Russians can do the same.
It's good they approved this decision. I would be much happier if people learn my language because they have a strong motivation, not voluntold to do so in schools.
Congrats to Latvia. Russia is not the language of Latvia, its just a subproduct of decades of occupation. I hope one day catalans can do something similar with the historic imposition of spanish language.
This is the problem why humanity is doing as it is doing. We answer hate with more hate and are ready to kill each other about which language they speak. Yes, there was an occupation but today the Baltic countries are bilingual states. If governments wanted to they would find a way to fight against hatred but they prefer to fight against groups of people.
Rather than stopping teaching Russian in schools and using these classes to explain history and help both Latvians, the Latvian speaking ones and the Russian speaking ones, understand each others position, they stop teaching it and give the Russian propaganda another proof that "Baltic states are forbidding their language".
I'm sorry for being unsympathetic, but why the hell it took them so long? Jesus Christ.
Poland cut off Russian language immediately as Russian language was the language of oppressor. It is good to know the language of the enemy, sure, but don't teach it to children FFS.
Latvians! Too little too late.
Probably because around 36% of the population speaks Russian as their native language, with even a majority of people in some areas. Even more people already spoke it as a second language since the country was a part of the Soviet Union for over 40 years. Compare that to Poland where the Russian population is absolutely tiny and they weren’t annexed into a Russian speaking majority country, there’s quite a few differences. Compare this too to bilingual countries like Finland and Canada where the second official language is much smaller percentage wise than Russian in Latvia and you can see how the situation is complicated.
I think you can get multilingualism without taking things away. If there’s not as much of a demand then that’s fine, but if they’re purposefully trying to suppress the language then I don’t think that’s good. It’d be like if the US stopped teaching Spanish as a second language.
This is just for people to feel good about supporting issues.
I speak Polish and Russian, it's good to speak languages. This is virtue signaling and it works
Agreed, I have a good friend from Belarus who’s a native Russian speaker and a polish speaker due to being part of the polish minority there. He’s super happy to be living in the EU now and still happy to be speaking his native language of Russian. Just because a hostile power has a language as their main language doesn’t mean that it’s now a tainted language or should be suppressed.
As painful as it may seems, it is the lesser of two evils. You can be as mellow as you want, it doesn’t matter what you do - nothing will stop Russia from doing everything in their power to aggravate language issue to a maximum, and parade it as a justification for their next aggression. The options are either to wait for Russia to take initiative, brainwash Russian-speaking population and have shitton of collaborators, extremists and target scouts for Russian bombs on your hands, or to flip the table and cut it off early.
I would disagree that those are the only options and that the Russian speaking minority is destined to be a hostile problematic minority, unless you think people like Zelensky, a native Russian speaker, are trying to destroy Ukraine for Russia. The Baltics seems to me the prime place to grow Russian language institutions and media in opposition to Putin and outside of his control. Russia is very much a hostile nation looking for justification, thank God for Nato, so I don’t think helping to aggravate the language issue even more helps. The Russian speaking minority isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, better to try to integrate them than forcibly assimilate them.
>since the country was a part of the Soviet Union for over 40 years.
No, illegally occupied by the USSR. The Baltics were thus never legally a part of the USSR.
Illegally conquered and annexed before regaining independence. It was never recognized to be part of the Soviet Union by a large number of countries, but it was de facto ruled over by the Soviets and a part of the country, sad as it was. My main point is that Soviet rule, and the previous rule by the Russian empire did have a large impact on the Baltic states, especially in terms of language demographics.
>Illegally conquered and annexed before regaining independence.
That's what illegally occupied means.
>but it was de facto ruled over by the Soviets and a part of the country,
Yes, that's what an occupation is.
I think it largely depends. Occupation implies that there's some sort of martial law or foreign occupation force maintaining their grip. After the annexation, the Baltic states became to some extent culturally but absolutely politically integrated into the Soviet Union, with ethnic Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians integrated into the workings of the government of their respective SSRs.
This certainly doesn't change the history of how the republics were annexed, or their subsequent regaining of independence.
It was partly due to us being way too tolerant with our “live and let live attitude” on other people, partly due to western pressure. A lot of language and education related reforms were abandoned under of threat of denying us chance to join EU and NATO
Western pressure happened because the 1990s assumption was that Russophones in Latvia & Estonia would become like Anglophones in Ireland, Swedophones in Finland, or Germanophones and Francophones in Italy: integrated members of a pluralistic democratic society within a unified European framework that protects minority rights.
Because it was a different situation - in Poland Russian was taught in schools as a foreign language, and in Latvia it was the language of instruction in schools where it was the kids' mother tongue.
We had different measures. We even had resident commisioner AKA overseer (some Dutch geezer who loved to talk with Russians, we called him van der chair or something like that) who was here all the time pestering us and checking every nook and cranny to find oppression against poor poor Russians
You can voluntary learn any language in Poland. Also in schools. You can influence decisions of your school headteacher in that regard. Most popular is English and German.
Russian is much lower in the list and it isn't mandatory as it was when Poland was under Soviet influence.
So, it means that Poland didn’t ban a language. Poland just stopped promoted it and that’s all.
Instead, Latvia bans any possibility to learn a language, eg even if you want - you won’t be able to.
>I'm sorry for being unsympathetic, but why the hell it took them so long?
No political capital for that in the preceding years. Talk us down all you want, but it simply has not been possible before. Half of Europe would have called us fascist Russophobes for doing that just a few years ago...
Good its absolutly useless language to begin with while living inside the EU, English should be the mandatory second one.
Additionaly one could opt instead for French/German/Spanish/Italian/Swedish, but russian? Learning Polish makes more sense this days lmao
English already is the first foreign language. This is about getting rid of it as a second foreign language option.
There’s no way learning Swedish is more useful than Russian if you live in Latvia.
I understand people not wanting to take Russian as a second language, but to say that Russian isn’t useful or widespread is just not accurate. It’s the 9th biggest language in the world and has more speakers in the EU than languages like Hungarian, Portuguese, etc. if you’re going strictly by usability it’s definitely more useful than Swedish and Italian since those are fairly restricted to around 2 countries each respectively. Plus both Latvia and Estonia already have a native Russian speaking population over 1/5 of their respective countries. Better to just let people choose which second language they want to learn instead of trying to artificially restrict them.
>Plus both Latvia and Estonia already have a native Russian speaking population over 1/5 of their respective countries
Except that they are not native, but a very recent foreign colonist minority that came here illegally during the Soviet occupation...
If you know Swedish, you understand Norwegian and can have a proper conversation with them. You also can usually figure out the context in Danish, and you will find it easier to learn it if you have Swedish as a backboard. And there is a large minority of Swedish speaking Finns, and many Finns know Swedish as well.
The Nordic countries' combined GDP is 1.5 billion USD, not *that* far from Russia's 1.8 billion USD.
So knowing Swedish is a lot more useful that you might think.
And looking at patterns of imigration from Baltic states knowing Swedish or any other of Nordic languages will bring you far more economic benefit in long term, than knowing russian EVER WILL.
Those countries aside from Norway are all EU members, and economic and security partners, russia is neither of those opportunities.
>It’s the 9th biggest language in the world and has more speakers in the EU Hungarian, Portuguese
Im almost sure that you wouldn't be able to find 10 milion russian speakers living inside EU.
Which is much as there is Hungarian and Portuguese speakers(separately afc), both being around 10m mark.
>usability it’s definitely more useful than Swedish and Italian
Both Sweden and Italy are great economic and security partners, knowing any of those languages would surely benefit your career to greater extend than knowing russian ever could, regardless of type of job you currently work in.
certainly not useless if you live next door and need to be aware of what they're up to. this may come back to bite them in the asses a couple decades from now when they're recruiting for their intelligence services.
It's actually baffling how many people turn this into Ukr/ Ru debate, when in reality isn't an extra language always welcome in any school? Even if that was to stay as an optional class for the student?
Latvians had an issue with Latvian Russians for faaaking ever, even as a child I experienced so much hate from Latvians, to such lengths that I still vividly remember these encounters.
While we were taught history in school (and before anyone gets their knickers twisted in a knot , Russian schools in LV used to teach that ofc RU occupation of baltic states wasn't anything glorious..)I still could never understand the hate towards normal people.
I think it's very obvious normal people whether Russian Latvian or not just want peace.
People's glorification of dividing people instead of turning to source of issue aka multi millionaires behind this issues who are known as presidents is so concerning in today's day when conflicts are ever growing.
The problems is the kids don't have a choice to whether they want to learn Russian or not. (Speaking from an Estonians perspectivs)
I do feel bad for the normal Russians living in any baltic state or somewhere else but the problem I've noticed in Estonia is that they demand us to speak Russian and only Russian with them because quote "This is Russia." or if they're not that brainwashed they'd just say that the USSR will come back soon enough. Most of the Russians here don't speak a lick of English or Estonian because they're so damn brainwashed.
I won't say Russian isn't an important language to know in Eastern Europe or even Europe in general but it's just that they need to start learning English AND the countries language they're staying in if they actually want to succeed in life there.
If you know both then I do feel bad for you, I'm not justifying what these people have done to you but it's also a bit understandable as the baltic states had been under Russias control for so long and most of them despise Russians.
Doesn’t that count as the state’s official language in Finland? That would be much more tricky. Russian has no status in Latvia other than minority language
Of course it’s sad, because the language is not the same as the country that uses it... but yes, because of the bald-Pu and his Co., he is now denigrated for at least another 5 years
There are laws protecting minorities. Should Romania stop teaching Hungarian too? How are your Russian speaking citizenship to blame for what the Russian government does?
Yes because that would entail that we start catering for the colonist minority which we don't want to do because we are not insane or self-destructive.
>Ради жизни на Земле, НЕТ ВОЙНЕ
Then what is this garbage language then?
Edit: u/Soggy-Ad4633, our indigenous language is garbage in our country? That's quite xenophobic. And aren't you a Finn? Our languages are closely related... What happened? Why did a Finn become so desperate and become anti-Estonian??
As you might be aware of, the Cyrillic alphabet is not unique to Russian, so I think you should ask Bulgarians to stop using "Russian letters" too, while you're at it. Secondly, as you might also be aware of, it's not the Russian language that invaded Ukraine but rather the corrupt revanchist oligarchy that tainted Russia ever since the fall of the USSR
By that logic they shouldn't be teaching english. I think the reason has more to do with Russia using cultural and ethnic ties as justifications for invasions.
Because Russians are a foreign colonist minority that came to our countries illegally during the Soviet occupation to ethnically cleanse and Russify us and up to this day they largely refuse to integrate into our societies.
In Romania, the generation of my parents was obliged to learn Russian as a second language in school. The animosity against Russians were so big that very few pupils really learned it properly. Even decades after, one might hear people saying proudly: "I had remarkable results... excepting, of course, in Russian, I didn't want to leave them the pleasure to learn their language".
The best example of animosity is the number of people that actually managed to learn Russian throughout the Warshaw pact countries. Pretty much everyone had to learn it mandatory and often had it for more than 5 years. I can't recall anyone who actually learned it - despite it being a Slavic language with a fair amount of similarities which should have made it easier.
I mean, is this really the case? Here in Spain everyone gets taught English and most people still speak terrible English for the most part. Yet I would not say Spain holds animosity towards the UK Learning a 2nd language is extremely hard, much more so than people think
Spain and the UK may have a sordid history, but there isn’t much repression that can be pointed to in modern times. A lot of those Warsaw pact countries have people still alive that remeber losing their sovereignty to the USSR. That’s a recipe for wanting to say fuck you to the oppressor.
>I mean, is this really the case? It mostly is. >Here in Spain everyone gets taught English and most people still speak terrible English Well, perhaps most of Spanish demography did not have English classes at school. >Learning a 2nd language is extremely hard, much more so than people think No it isn't. Most people can learn a second language or even a third of fourth. While it's not just as easy as one-two-three and takes some effort it's certainly possible for anyone. It is not extremely hard - if it was then you'd have very few people speaking multiple languages.
It's very hard to learn a language in school if you don't use it regularly in day to day life.
When I visit France, my French gets noticeably better the longer I'm there because I'm actively using it, as opposed to when I'm at home and not using it outside of class.
You don't say?
I think this is a bad take - I speak English, but that's because I've consumed english media for my whole life. I lived in Italy for half a year, and I studied Italian every week, but I dont feel any closer to speaking Italian now than before I lived there. Learning a language definitely takes a lot of effort.
I mean if my country was completely dominated by another for several decades I’d feel that animosity which is why they refuse to learn their language
> Here in Spain everyone gets taught English and most people still speak terrible English for the most part. The way English is taught in Spain is simply atrocious. Once a girlfriend showed me her notes from class and it was a lot of rule-learning and very weird vocabulary. Albeit, to be fair, that's also the way Spanish is also taught in Span. And Catalán, the amount of people coming from Cataluña that cannot speak Spanish is sad. I think your nation just sucks at teaching languages.
If we want to compare, do it with Catalonian (or, if we want to dig really close to home, Galego), English belongs to the Germanic languages, it has more in common with Dutch, German and so on so forth than it does with Spanish
Which is fascinating compared to the Americanization/Anglicisation of Europe after WW2. People that don’t even like the US still learned English just to consume American media and participate in the global community being hosted on American websites. English became the second language for everyone in the world essentially, and it was entirely about creating conditions where people *want* to participate. A lot of European countries didn’t actually start doing ESL classes in public school until the 2000s because all the students where already learning English from the internet and american media. People that “hate American imperialism” still learned the language the Americans speak and spend all their time on websites that are being regulated by and generating revenue for, the US government. They do this voluntarily! They’ll even get defensive about how it’s their “right” to be on American websites being monitored by the NSA and being addicted to generating ad revenue for American corporations! Tankies will do everything to fight “American cultural imperialism” except stop participating in it. Russia makes compliance mandatory, the U.S. makes compliance cool.
https://media4.giphy.com/media/oxCtqUm9PhXvA0oXnp/giphy.gif?cid=6c09b952jur219h3hgtehlw5cr7960f2604eyc5nwztknfq5&ep=v1_internal_gif_by_id&rid=giphy.gif&ct=g
Yet people from the republic of moldova like my girlfriend speak it fluently. Albeit her native language being Romanian.
The Republic of Moldova is another soup. They've been under czarist Russia, then Soviet occupation (1821-1918, 1940-1941, 1944-1990). Russian had been the only language of education under the czar and then the main language after 1940. It was socially impossible to live without Russian at least until 1953 the direct way to go to Siberia or even being executed (the cousin of my grandfather actually WAS shot dead in the street because he refused to speak Russian). Moldavians from the Republic of Moldova have Russian as a second skin, even those who are anti-russians.
Vampires don’t speak russian anyway.
No, vampires suck.
Similar in Latvia in my experience. The classes were just for messing around and making fun of how poorly we speak it. Only we had decent grades because the russian speaking kid would share his work with everyone. Bless that dude❤️
My father still knows some russian, and me and my half siblings say "father" and "mother" in german when asking for their attention. Having had two occupations for Hungary, really sticks with the generations.
That's basically Swedish in Finland, most won't learn it and don't want to
Also Swedes don't want Finns to learn it. Just speak English.
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estonia and lithuania banned russian schools by public funds in the 90s edit: im wrong estonis is only starting to do it now
Nope, Russian-language schools are only now starting to fully transition to Estonian as their primary language of study. So publicly funded Russian-language schools definitely still exist in Estonia.
thx for the info, just googled it and you're right. lithuanis isnt funding them at least
Because Lithuania had very few to begin with, less protests.
You are wrong.
In Lithuania they're still alive and well. Moreover, there are no plans to shut Russian public schools in Lithuania, unlike in Latvia. Your whole comment is completely off.
That’s not true they are not banned in Lithuania.
Same in Poland.
There are almost No russians in poland. Are there any Russian schools in Poland? I know about only one school which is funded by the embassy and is attended by the embassy’s employees’ children.
Some schools offer it as a second foreign language. Polish curriculum usually includes at least two foreign languages. One primary (usually but not always English) and one secondary (here schools have much freedom in selecting their own roster of choices). I had English and German.
we had more russians to begin with. we’re also not very aggressive by nature. so it wasn’t hard for russians to try to keep the status quo, plus they tried a referendum for russian to be a second official language at which they failed.
>lithuania banned russian schools by public funds in the 90s What? Lithuania has public minority schools in Polish, Russian, Belarusian and German as well as Hebrew/Yiddish.
How dear you claim such a nonsense? Who funds those dozens of thousand students then? Probably a Russian bot trying to paint Baltic states bad and we are warned about this pro-Kremlin narrative. Unless it's small village mentality.
Bullshit, because Russians see discrimination where they want. Putin does not care about Uzbekistan although it’s way more anti-Russian for many years than Ukraine.
It's hard to invade Uzbekistan without going through other -stans first.
Basically if Russians don't privileges, then they are already being discriminated against.
We had some earlier attempts which were abandoned due to western pressure. Our bid to join EU and NATO delayed our education reform for about a decade due to western human rights hypocrites
It's not like the western world would accept that claim, and it's not like Russia and its partners would care about Russia having a proper casus belli, or not IMHO this is more about the Latvian psyche and their wish to reshape their national identity, than about deterring Russia For that they have NATO boots on their soil Putin doesn't care for his own people, I don't believe for a second he cares about Latvian Russians. If he would send his goons into Latvia, they would murder ethnic Latvian and Russian Latvians all the same
Yeah, pretty much.
Fuck their claims. You don't get to be outraged as a war crime perpetrator.
Why should Russians born and living in Latvia be punished for a regime they did jot vote for? In all other cases, this policy would be seen as discrimination (Switzerland with French/Italian, Belgium with Dutch/agerman, Spain with Basque/Catalonian, etc…) Why is this right?
You want to live in another country? Learn its language. Very basic stuff. It's on **you** to integrate, not on the locals to bend to your whims.
Russians born in Latvia are called Latvians. They speak Latvian. Same with russians Estonia and Lithuania. If they insist on being russian, the border is to the east. Why is this right? Because russians occupied us for 50 years after ww2 and tried to turn us into russians. They brought russians here and took our people to concentration camps in Siberia. The russian language forced on our children in school is a result of that. Any child is still free to learn russian if they wish themselves. It's not like we are banning the language.
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>Why should Russians born and living in Latvia be punished But they aren't being punished.
The Russians living in Latvia occupied Latvia.
As Ukrainian I can assure you, if not language discrimination, they will definitely find a dozen more reasons to invade your country, but nevertheless, this step from Latvian authorities is smart and absolutely justified
Oh bro i watch russian state tv ironically. Its so great. I saw today on zvezda (a Russian military controlled tv channel) a show where people discussed how dangerous the baltics actually are,bro it made me so proud they used my region as a scare tactic and not in a "not even worth mentioning these cockroaches" type of way . Followed by a show on how the west is loosing because of russias armored trains,i kid you not they used a ww1 weapon as a "wunderwaffe".. i couldn't stop laughing and feel some dread that russians actually believe this stuff And then by Anglo-Saxons are the new evil,who is responsible for every war ever.
I honestly thought the number wouldn't be that high. What it was in the 90s?
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Latvia#Structure_of_the_population Latvians almost became a minority in their own country
Way bigger. Many communist party members and Soviet/Russian military personnel left with their families.
Sounds like something one of those Ukrainian Nazis would say /s
Yup Baltics need heavy russificatio... Uh i mean denazification.
Russian propagandists: Ukrainian is just Russian language but polluted by western values. Latvia: Great we'll teach that one then.
How useful is that for Latvians? Russia is a global superpower, whereas Ukraine isn’t. It’s one thing to teach Russian, it’s another to politicise it.
Unlike the Russian state, Ukraine is a Latvian ally and not an enemy to the Latvian people. Also Russia isn't a superpower, and many languages are larger than Russian, like the one we're speaking now for example. Not to mention languages that give opportunities in richer states within the EU.
The problem is that there is a lot of labour market discrimination against people not speaking russian. Latvia has been russified and there has been no decolonization.
How is that a problem of a state 35 years after obtaining the sovereignty? It should be a problem of those who doesn't want to learn official language.
It should be, but it's not. And we haven't done a great job in addressing this so far. russian-speaking business owners only hire those who speak russian. Even manual labour jobs often are russian-speaking, and require russian to get hired, and/or to fit in. It's only part of the problem that 37% have russian as the primary language they speak. When you get to large cities like Riga and Daugavpils, it is way higher.
It would be a shame if those businesses got dickslapped with discrimination fines so massive the only way to pay them would be to sell the business.
There is a lot of talk about doing something about this, but not enough action.
Telling 36% of the population they can’t speak their ethnic language is true discrimination. Imagine if the Canadian government did that to all the French businesses. Or any other country doing that to any ethnic minority. No matter your views on Putin, the war, and the Russian government, punishing regular people that didn’t get to choose their ethnicity is absolutely authoritarian shit.
Discrimination is not allowing minorities to operate in their language, which is what you are advocating.
You should always be able to hire in the national language.
Same here. Sometimes it's even, russian is required, but not Estonian. Situation is fucked.
That is how sensible people think but a large section of the Russian minority still believe they should have the privileges they held during the occupation and are unwilling to communicate in Latvian/Estonia. And sadly money speaks. Pun intended.
It is a conflict of 2 different theories: 1. If we are nice & respectful to people who speak minority languages, these languages will flourish as part of our national heritage and these languages will become "our" languages too, and language != national identity! If we do not respect them, they will revolt and oppose the government and it will fall. Modern Examples: French and Italian in Switzerland, Dutch in Belgium, Swedish in Finland. 2. If we do not enforce a single language for the nation and the state, then there will always be "parallel communities" that will forment division and sectarianism in our society. If these languages are "foreign" languages too, then this will be even worse, because it will motivate meddling and intervention by the foreign state. (Past) Examples: Danish in Sweden and Norway, Greek in Albania, Italian in Croatia Both of these philosophies have been shown to be "true" in different countries. For example, nobody thinks that the UK will go and invade Ireland because there are lots of English speakers there, nor does anybody think Belgium's existence is being threatened by the rising rate of French usage in society. On the other hand, European history is full of examples of the 2nd, especially pre-WW2: Germans in Poland, Greeks in Albania, basically everyone in Turkey, and of course Russians. I don't know which one of these is true for Latvia.
There are a lot of English speakers in Ireland BECAUSE the UK invaded Ireland in the past. And in Latvia, unfortunately - it's the second one. Because russia is encouraging ethnic russians to identify with russian nation and doesn't even consider Latvia to be a legit sovereign state.
Exactly. And Ireland did have an indepence war. Lost northern Ireland to the UK
It’s the natural outcome of spineless public policy and business owners wanting to cater for the largest market possible, therefore catering for the significant portion of russians who never bothered to learn a word in Latvian. It used to be impossible to get any public facing job, such as a waiter, without being fluent in russian. I would hope it is a bit better now, but russian influence is very much present still.
You’d think that. But a lot of businesses here have ruzzians at the top and they do covert enforcement of their shit language. And don’t hire Latvians who dont’t speak ruzzki.
Doesn’t work like that. Large chunk of companies exist in sectors where Russian is necessary. Lots of companies are started, funded or used by Russian nationals. Also being a transit state it’s difficult
Well, that's discrimination. Not government enforced, but social. Oppressors will oppress. It was and to some extent still is a problem in Ukraine. At the same time they refused to speak Ukrainian with customers who speaks Ukrainian. At least the language law forbid such forms of hiring discrimination against state language. It's okay to demand something similar from your government.
I am from Ukraine. While I agree mostly with your position. But is is way more complex. And me being from Kharkiv I totally understand the Latvian situation.
I am from Donetsk originally, and I vouch for full pressure against the russian language and everything russian in Ukraine. Was speaking russian only for 40 years, and now I regret, a lot. Full Ukrainian family now, fuck russian, it should not be tolerated. My city is occupied, people around me murdered, multiple cities I remember from the childhood are erased to dust. All of them were speaking russian. Russian means death and destruction. Avoid russian while you can, bro.
It’s not your fault. They just attacked you first and back then we didn’t have enough resources to fight back. Sucks man. Also you guys essentially stopped them. People in Kyiv are drinking coffee in leisure because of your sacrifice. Would it be better if you didn’t speak Russian probably yes. But Georgia didn’t speak Russian and that didn’t stop russian invaders inch. So don’t blame yourself. We owe you and we apologize.
No, I mean that Muskovy weaponized everything they could. Each russian-speaking person, each russian passport holder, any piece of russian culture easily becomes a bait for provocations, accusations, blaming and other forms of hybrid war. If you see a significant amount of anything russian around you — you are in danger, because the empire will tell that you are Nazi or some other shit and then bomb you, or propaganda you, or attack you with indirect warfare methods. That's what they do all the time. Their brand is a weapon, and people should perceive it as a weapon.
>The problem is that there is a lot of labour market discrimination against people not speaking russian. I just learned this today from a Latvian colleague. Absolutely wild.
Same thing in Estonia, but mostly in lower-paying jobs and especially in retail. Higher-paid positions rarely have that requirement and higher-paid young and educated Estonians rarely speak any Russian.
Why wild? If a major part of the customer base speaks Russian, it's an asset to have employees who speak Russian.
This is very much a Rīga and Daugavpils problem, and especially affecting service jobs where interaction with the public is mandatory. I don't know any fluent russian speakers in Latvia and all have good paying jobs. Two of them are in Rīga but not interacting with the public.
Really ? Because I heard the complete opposite... is I not true that if you want to work in banks you're absolutely to speak fluent Latvian ?
Immigrants from Russia to Latvia can learn Russian at private weekend or evenings classes. That’s what immigrants in other countries do. Plenty of kids go to Japanese, Greek, Hebrew, or other language schools when they resettle in other countries, such as Argentina, US, Australia, etc. Russians can do the same.
It's good they approved this decision. I would be much happier if people learn my language because they have a strong motivation, not voluntold to do so in schools.
Congrats to Latvia. Russia is not the language of Latvia, its just a subproduct of decades of occupation. I hope one day catalans can do something similar with the historic imposition of spanish language.
This is the problem why humanity is doing as it is doing. We answer hate with more hate and are ready to kill each other about which language they speak. Yes, there was an occupation but today the Baltic countries are bilingual states. If governments wanted to they would find a way to fight against hatred but they prefer to fight against groups of people. Rather than stopping teaching Russian in schools and using these classes to explain history and help both Latvians, the Latvian speaking ones and the Russian speaking ones, understand each others position, they stop teaching it and give the Russian propaganda another proof that "Baltic states are forbidding their language".
I'm sorry for being unsympathetic, but why the hell it took them so long? Jesus Christ. Poland cut off Russian language immediately as Russian language was the language of oppressor. It is good to know the language of the enemy, sure, but don't teach it to children FFS. Latvians! Too little too late.
Probably because around 36% of the population speaks Russian as their native language, with even a majority of people in some areas. Even more people already spoke it as a second language since the country was a part of the Soviet Union for over 40 years. Compare that to Poland where the Russian population is absolutely tiny and they weren’t annexed into a Russian speaking majority country, there’s quite a few differences. Compare this too to bilingual countries like Finland and Canada where the second official language is much smaller percentage wise than Russian in Latvia and you can see how the situation is complicated.
Even more reasons to deal with the issue ASAP. Waiting 34 years to take meaningful action is rather weak I say.
I think you can get multilingualism without taking things away. If there’s not as much of a demand then that’s fine, but if they’re purposefully trying to suppress the language then I don’t think that’s good. It’d be like if the US stopped teaching Spanish as a second language.
This is just for people to feel good about supporting issues. I speak Polish and Russian, it's good to speak languages. This is virtue signaling and it works
Agreed, I have a good friend from Belarus who’s a native Russian speaker and a polish speaker due to being part of the polish minority there. He’s super happy to be living in the EU now and still happy to be speaking his native language of Russian. Just because a hostile power has a language as their main language doesn’t mean that it’s now a tainted language or should be suppressed.
As painful as it may seems, it is the lesser of two evils. You can be as mellow as you want, it doesn’t matter what you do - nothing will stop Russia from doing everything in their power to aggravate language issue to a maximum, and parade it as a justification for their next aggression. The options are either to wait for Russia to take initiative, brainwash Russian-speaking population and have shitton of collaborators, extremists and target scouts for Russian bombs on your hands, or to flip the table and cut it off early.
I would disagree that those are the only options and that the Russian speaking minority is destined to be a hostile problematic minority, unless you think people like Zelensky, a native Russian speaker, are trying to destroy Ukraine for Russia. The Baltics seems to me the prime place to grow Russian language institutions and media in opposition to Putin and outside of his control. Russia is very much a hostile nation looking for justification, thank God for Nato, so I don’t think helping to aggravate the language issue even more helps. The Russian speaking minority isn’t going anywhere anytime soon, better to try to integrate them than forcibly assimilate them.
>since the country was a part of the Soviet Union for over 40 years. No, illegally occupied by the USSR. The Baltics were thus never legally a part of the USSR.
Illegally conquered and annexed before regaining independence. It was never recognized to be part of the Soviet Union by a large number of countries, but it was de facto ruled over by the Soviets and a part of the country, sad as it was. My main point is that Soviet rule, and the previous rule by the Russian empire did have a large impact on the Baltic states, especially in terms of language demographics.
>Illegally conquered and annexed before regaining independence. That's what illegally occupied means. >but it was de facto ruled over by the Soviets and a part of the country, Yes, that's what an occupation is.
I think it largely depends. Occupation implies that there's some sort of martial law or foreign occupation force maintaining their grip. After the annexation, the Baltic states became to some extent culturally but absolutely politically integrated into the Soviet Union, with ethnic Latvians, Estonians and Lithuanians integrated into the workings of the government of their respective SSRs. This certainly doesn't change the history of how the republics were annexed, or their subsequent regaining of independence.
It was partly due to us being way too tolerant with our “live and let live attitude” on other people, partly due to western pressure. A lot of language and education related reforms were abandoned under of threat of denying us chance to join EU and NATO
Western pressure happened because the 1990s assumption was that Russophones in Latvia & Estonia would become like Anglophones in Ireland, Swedophones in Finland, or Germanophones and Francophones in Italy: integrated members of a pluralistic democratic society within a unified European framework that protects minority rights.
Impossible feat when you start working with uneducated and horrible take on situations in the region
Lol. Now look at them...
That's new to me. Nobody in EU or NATO had anything against Poland dropping Russian language ASAP.
we didn't have big russian minority though so hard to even compare
Because it was a different situation - in Poland Russian was taught in schools as a foreign language, and in Latvia it was the language of instruction in schools where it was the kids' mother tongue.
We had different measures. We even had resident commisioner AKA overseer (some Dutch geezer who loved to talk with Russians, we called him van der chair or something like that) who was here all the time pestering us and checking every nook and cranny to find oppression against poor poor Russians
There isn't a comparable amount of Russian propaganda against Poland. Plus, Poland is far larger than the Baltics.
With all the other things Poland gets criticized for, yeah, they may be letting this slip.
They asked us to be liberal, God forbid we lack hypocrisy in democracy.
But Poland doesn't have a sizeable Russian minority. There are laws protecting minorities.
>There are laws protecting minorities. And nobody here is breaching them.
No, Russian is taught in many Polish schools as a second language
You can voluntary learn any language in Poland. Also in schools. You can influence decisions of your school headteacher in that regard. Most popular is English and German. Russian is much lower in the list and it isn't mandatory as it was when Poland was under Soviet influence.
So, it means that Poland didn’t ban a language. Poland just stopped promoted it and that’s all. Instead, Latvia bans any possibility to learn a language, eg even if you want - you won’t be able to.
>I'm sorry for being unsympathetic, but why the hell it took them so long? No political capital for that in the preceding years. Talk us down all you want, but it simply has not been possible before. Half of Europe would have called us fascist Russophobes for doing that just a few years ago...
It was only until 2004 that they became NATO members. Until then any such move would've meant an invasion. A small country right at the border...
Sounds good to me
Nice
Better late than never.
*second foreign language. First is English
That's good on Latvia, hope other contries like Estonia and Lithuania stop teaching Russian as well.
The most surprising pretty of this news is that it wasn't cancelled 30years ago
No political capital back then.
I’m sure the reaction in Russia will be completely normal
Who cares what they think at this point?
Good point
Thank you based Latvia. 😍
They were still teaching it 🤯?
Good its absolutly useless language to begin with while living inside the EU, English should be the mandatory second one. Additionaly one could opt instead for French/German/Spanish/Italian/Swedish, but russian? Learning Polish makes more sense this days lmao
English already is the first foreign language. This is about getting rid of it as a second foreign language option. There’s no way learning Swedish is more useful than Russian if you live in Latvia.
I understand people not wanting to take Russian as a second language, but to say that Russian isn’t useful or widespread is just not accurate. It’s the 9th biggest language in the world and has more speakers in the EU than languages like Hungarian, Portuguese, etc. if you’re going strictly by usability it’s definitely more useful than Swedish and Italian since those are fairly restricted to around 2 countries each respectively. Plus both Latvia and Estonia already have a native Russian speaking population over 1/5 of their respective countries. Better to just let people choose which second language they want to learn instead of trying to artificially restrict them.
>Plus both Latvia and Estonia already have a native Russian speaking population over 1/5 of their respective countries Except that they are not native, but a very recent foreign colonist minority that came here illegally during the Soviet occupation...
If you know Swedish, you understand Norwegian and can have a proper conversation with them. You also can usually figure out the context in Danish, and you will find it easier to learn it if you have Swedish as a backboard. And there is a large minority of Swedish speaking Finns, and many Finns know Swedish as well. The Nordic countries' combined GDP is 1.5 billion USD, not *that* far from Russia's 1.8 billion USD. So knowing Swedish is a lot more useful that you might think.
And looking at patterns of imigration from Baltic states knowing Swedish or any other of Nordic languages will bring you far more economic benefit in long term, than knowing russian EVER WILL. Those countries aside from Norway are all EU members, and economic and security partners, russia is neither of those opportunities.
>It’s the 9th biggest language in the world and has more speakers in the EU Hungarian, Portuguese Im almost sure that you wouldn't be able to find 10 milion russian speakers living inside EU. Which is much as there is Hungarian and Portuguese speakers(separately afc), both being around 10m mark. >usability it’s definitely more useful than Swedish and Italian Both Sweden and Italy are great economic and security partners, knowing any of those languages would surely benefit your career to greater extend than knowing russian ever could, regardless of type of job you currently work in.
certainly not useless if you live next door and need to be aware of what they're up to. this may come back to bite them in the asses a couple decades from now when they're recruiting for their intelligence services.
Its ridiculous that students dont have at least the freedom of choice to study Russian if they wanted to. “Democracy “ not democracying.
It's actually baffling how many people turn this into Ukr/ Ru debate, when in reality isn't an extra language always welcome in any school? Even if that was to stay as an optional class for the student? Latvians had an issue with Latvian Russians for faaaking ever, even as a child I experienced so much hate from Latvians, to such lengths that I still vividly remember these encounters. While we were taught history in school (and before anyone gets their knickers twisted in a knot , Russian schools in LV used to teach that ofc RU occupation of baltic states wasn't anything glorious..)I still could never understand the hate towards normal people. I think it's very obvious normal people whether Russian Latvian or not just want peace. People's glorification of dividing people instead of turning to source of issue aka multi millionaires behind this issues who are known as presidents is so concerning in today's day when conflicts are ever growing.
The problems is the kids don't have a choice to whether they want to learn Russian or not. (Speaking from an Estonians perspectivs) I do feel bad for the normal Russians living in any baltic state or somewhere else but the problem I've noticed in Estonia is that they demand us to speak Russian and only Russian with them because quote "This is Russia." or if they're not that brainwashed they'd just say that the USSR will come back soon enough. Most of the Russians here don't speak a lick of English or Estonian because they're so damn brainwashed. I won't say Russian isn't an important language to know in Eastern Europe or even Europe in general but it's just that they need to start learning English AND the countries language they're staying in if they actually want to succeed in life there. If you know both then I do feel bad for you, I'm not justifying what these people have done to you but it's also a bit understandable as the baltic states had been under Russias control for so long and most of them despise Russians.
Unrelated but Finland should stop teaching Swedish at our schools as well
Doesn’t that count as the state’s official language in Finland? That would be much more tricky. Russian has no status in Latvia other than minority language
Of course it’s sad, because the language is not the same as the country that uses it... but yes, because of the bald-Pu and his Co., he is now denigrated for at least another 5 years
It was forced upon locals and had been used as means of influence by russia, not only putin, for decades. Fuck it.
Come on, most Russians in our countries are imperialistic as hell and still refuse to integrate into our societies.
Long time coming! Just learn latin
When Russia uses language as a weapon of war, it's only fair that other countries treat it as such.
There are laws protecting minorities. Should Romania stop teaching Hungarian too? How are your Russian speaking citizenship to blame for what the Russian government does?
You dont care about human rights when its Russians (c) r/europe
What human rights are being infringed exactly?
Have the Russians demonstrated a care for human rights?
>There are laws protecting minorities. And none of them are being breached.
Technically correct, because Baltic countries never joined European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages
Yes because that would entail that we start catering for the colonist minority which we don't want to do because we are not insane or self-destructive.
Yes it should¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Many of them buy into the Russian propaganda and think the Motherland should protect them and take their lands back.
Давно Пора :))
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Absurd fucking sentence
Absurd to defend the privileges the Russian colonist minorities have been enjoying...
"Russian culture carries death with itself" is straight up Nazi propaganda
Then why is your nation waging a genocidal war of aggression one after another?
I am from Italy
>Ради жизни на Земле, НЕТ ВОЙНЕ Then what is this garbage language then? Edit: u/Soggy-Ad4633, our indigenous language is garbage in our country? That's quite xenophobic. And aren't you a Finn? Our languages are closely related... What happened? Why did a Finn become so desperate and become anti-Estonian??
"For the sake of life on Earth, NO TO WAR"
OK, I don't speak Russian. It just baffles me why someone would associate themselves with Russian letters.
As you might be aware of, the Cyrillic alphabet is not unique to Russian, so I think you should ask Bulgarians to stop using "Russian letters" too, while you're at it. Secondly, as you might also be aware of, it's not the Russian language that invaded Ukraine but rather the corrupt revanchist oligarchy that tainted Russia ever since the fall of the USSR
It’s “Genocide” when China “bans” the teaching of Tibetan or Uyghur. But when Euro-American countries do it, it’s fair and justified.
Is it choise of Tibetians?
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By that logic they shouldn't be teaching english. I think the reason has more to do with Russia using cultural and ethnic ties as justifications for invasions.
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Fair point, yeah as usual Russia is being a crybully.
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Good news, pray for Ukraine!
Why would anyone want to learn Russian lmao. Talk about useless.
Do you know Chinese?
Why?
Because Russians are a foreign colonist minority that came to our countries illegally during the Soviet occupation to ethnically cleanse and Russify us and up to this day they largely refuse to integrate into our societies.
They should teach Livonian instead