Everyone who calls Latvia their home must be able to speak Latvian. Not only people who acquired citizenship at birth live in Latvia, but also those who acquired it during the naturalization process. Foreign students from various European, Asian and African countries call our country their home. Highly qualified newcomers to society live in Latvia, who strengthen our companies with their skills on a daily basis. And we must not forget about those who once did not become citizens of Latvia, but still consider our country as their home.
All these people are united by the fact that Latvian is not their native language. Anyone who will call Latvia home now and in the coming years must know the Latvian language, initially at least at a conversational level with the opportunity to learn it at an excellent level as quickly as possible.
However, language learning is currently left to its own devices. It is not one of the state’s priorities, therefore the necessary financial resources are not allocated to language training, and language policy is left only in the rhetoric of politicians’ public statements.
Latvian language courses for 400 people per year
The action plan of the Prime Minister’s second government envisages strengthening the national language by promoting the use of the language in public space. The measure envisages the allocation of 4.6 million euros for the implementation of language courses and conversational language clubs in the period from July 2023 to 2025. The allocated funding will enable approximately 976 third-country nationals to learn the Latvian language over a three-year period. That would be around 400 people a year, which is definitely not enough.
In 2023, additional funding of 765,000 euros is expected to be allocated separately to Ukrainian civilians, which would help approximately 1,000 Ukrainians learn the Latvian language.
The current amendments to the Immigration Law provide that approximately 25 thousand Latvian residents will have to prove a language proficiency level of at least A2 by September 1 in order to renew their residence permits. Of course, we can continue to despise, condemn and in any other way make non-Latvian speaking Latvians feel that they are not welcome in Latvia, but we can also go another way, that is to direct the language policy to the result, ensuring that everyone has the opportunity quickly, easily, cheaply or learn Latvian as quickly as possible for free.
The question we have to answer is – do we want everyone living in Latvia to know the Latvian language, or do we want to keep this as a heated issue of political rhetoric with no possible result?
As the second task in the field of language policy, the action plan mentions the improvement of attitudes towards the use of the Latvian language in everyday communication. The government anticipates that we will improve the attitude by providing quality literature and providing support for the activity of the National Library of Latvia Jury of children, youth and parents. This is, of course, welcome and necessary, but does such a narrow point of view suggest that the national language policy is one of the country’s priorities with the clear goal of ensuring that everyone living in Latvia is able to converse in Latvian as quickly as possible?
Support for the library’s initiative is necessary and welcome, but we cannot predict that this, as one of the three primary tasks in language training, will provide the necessary result, ensuring the ability of everyone living in Latvia to converse in Latvian.
Annual report to the Saeima or debate on language
The third measure envisages the submission of annual reports by the responsible ministers to the Saeima on the state of the state language. Every year on October 15, the National Language Day, the Saeima will organize a debate on the situation of the Latvian language in the country.
Also a nice event, but will the debate in the Saeima ensure the ability of more than 25 thousand Latvian residents to learn the language by September 1, not to mention all other newcomers to our society who need to learn the language.
Learning the Latvian language should become a priority in work, not in plans
The government and the majority of the Saeima need to agree that strengthening the national language in our society is one of the primary tasks of this government, clearly confirming this with adequate funding.
Are politicians ready to finally participate in solving the problem, ensuring a clear result measured in thousands of people instead of a few hundred? Currently, the government acts as a lower-impact NGO, providing funding for courses for a few hundred non-language speakers per year. The government should set language training as one of its primary tasks, so that by 2026 every resident of Latvia would have learned Latvian at least at a conversational level and every newcomer to our society would have been included in language training in time.
Perhaps it is necessary to determine one responsible institution for language teaching and language policy in the country. The aforementioned tasks of action proposed by the Kariņa government affect several state administrative institutions. Ministry of Education and Science as the leading institution in the field of national language policy; The Ministry of Culture, which implements the policy of social integration; as well as the Society Integration Fund as an institution that coordinates the socio-economic integration of newcomers to society in Latvia. It would probably be effective to appoint a minister for this special task, at least for a while, who would be responsible for the result on a daily basis – to ensure the acquisition of language skills as quickly as possible for all foreigners living in Latvia.
All in one language
Everyone living in Latvia for a long time must be able to converse in Latvian. This will not happen if we leave language learning to its own devices. The current plan proposed by the government will ensure that only the most motivated, financially secure or specially selected non-language speakers will start learning Latvian in the next four years. However, the courses should be available to everyone living in Latvia – foreign students in universities, other migrants in their companies, non-citizens and citizens of other countries, both for a fee and in free courses throughout Latvia.
If we want everyone in Latvia to be able to converse in Latvian, then the national language policy cannot be limited to providing courses for 400 people, support for the library and debates in the Saeima.
The author is a political party Movement For! executive director and board member
