Let us begin with the difference between an ethnic definition and a functional definition of national languages in Europe today. The ethnic definition is simple: national identities must assert their rights against imperial states; they must assert the status of their language by law and the job is done. The functional definition, however, requires an understanding of the needs of a population in the modern European nation-states.
For centuries the natural situation of Europe had been a myriad of isolated farmers’ communities, whose activities extended to a radius of 40 km at best. Whatever the fate of the various aristocracies, the grassroots population didn’t need to speak a unified language, because its activities simply did not extend to the official national territory. It was a world of many dialects, standard Latvian did not exist, nor standard German, nor standard French. Then came the Nation-State, hence the need for a standard language for a more urban population, involved in a nation-wide economy and a nation-wide democracy.
All things together, let’s face the worst case scenario, one possible linguistic future for Latvia is Latvians speaking English for education, Russian for politics, and Latvian receding into a folkloric language.
From the functional point of view, it is very important to understand here that not everything was achieved through ethnic violence. For example, the Livs in Latvia, like the Bretons in France, did not “surrender” to the dialect of a more powerful medieval ethnic group; they shifted of their own will to the standard language of their own modern Nation; because their autarkical farming communities had become obsolete, they wanted to enjoy modern standards of living and modern education, and they did not suffer particular discrimination in joining the wider national community. That is a general rule all over Europe; despite the nostalgic charm of local folklores, people did change to the language that fitted their needs best in the world they actually lived in.
This is often difficult to grasp because ethnology academics tend be the first ones getting the microphone and speaking about ethnic identities, and they understandably will assert their own subject as very important, if not "vital." But languages don’t die, people use languages as a tool for collaboration, the transmission of knowledge and the expression of their interests. If one language no longer makes that possible, then people will shift to the better language... and will not particularly suffer from it. Ethnologists want to study thriving ethnic communities, but free people generally prefer modern standards of living and modern education. Hence the ambiguity of present-day folkloric festivals, people dressing in strictly rural costumes and performing strictly rural activities, pronouncing a few outdated local words, then getting back to their suburban homes in their brand-new cars, enjoying a modern shower, electricity and HDTV... and talking in the modern language.
The question then becomes: how can Latvian remain the best language for Latvians in the 21st century, or are there other languages that could challenge Latvian in that role. From the functional point of view, the question is not whether Latvian could disappear, but rather how to avoid it becoming a secondary language, used exclusively for folkloric purposes. And since in the past Latvian was several times threatened of becoming a secondary language, with Latvians speaking Russian for all higher education matters, the question is not so absurd as it may seem, and perhaps remains worth considering now.
As far as technical and scientific education is concerned, the languages of all European nations nowadays are challenged by English as a tool for accessing scientific knowledge, research papers, user manuals, international contacts with colleagues, etc. Contrarily to the era of the industrial revolution and Nation-States building, the national economy is no longer sufficient, as international cooperation is becoming the norm. And due to their smaller populations, all smaller European countries obviously need very active policies, including Scandinavia. Therefore, ensuring that in the future educated Latvians will continue to speak Latvian means ensuring that excellent education is provided in Latvian at the level of the university degree, at least, post-degree activities taking place almost unavoidably in English. This will necessarily involve a consistent and continuous process of translation into Latvian of world-wide knowledge.
From the point of view of the humanities and democratic debate at large, the present challenge of European nations is to achieve a necessary change of paradigm. To put it briefly, the era of enthusiastic globalization is now fading away. We can see that European institutions in their present form are failing, that the announced prosperity is not coming, etc. This debate is presently more advanced in Western Europe, where the question is no longer how to become more competitive on the global markets, but how to retain some of the prosperity that was achieved during the 20th century. The proportion of the elites believing that “We will forever produce better goods than China” is steadily dwindling. Eastern Europe was generally slower in that response, because getting independent from Soviet influence was understandably the top priority during the nineties, and for a long time anything Western was considered excellent, if not ontologically synonymous with freedom and prosperity. However, in most Eastern European countries the paradigm is now shifting too, with various forms indeed, according to local political traditions and parties.
And there is the tough cookie for Latvia: because the local Russian population was naturally more inclined to refuse Western influence, they got one step ahead in criticizing the present form of globalization. In a vicious circle, because the local Latvian population identified any criticism of Western influence as Russian, they remained frozen in the necessary change of paradigm. This results in an unhealthy situation, where those Latvians who want to vote for more national sovereignty and in the interests of ethnic Latvians are more or less forced to vote for a Russia-influenced party. It is a real danger that Latvian as a tool for democratic and cultural life gradually fade into irrelevance, becoming an ethnographic museum of the nineties, when everything was Ok, Russia was a total wreck, the younger generations were still there, with a bright future, and you just needed to “create your own business.”
This in turn jeopardizes the process of integration of ethnic Russians into the present-day independent Latvian society. Because Russians, like Latvians, are subject to the laws of linguistic shift, so what’s the point of shifting to Latvian if the language of education and business is English anyway, and for cultural life Latvian has become less relevant than Russian?
There are solutions though, and - in my view - this necessarily entails actively promoting those younger Latvian intellectuals who can promote heterodox ideas, or more generally who can produce the Latvian version of the present anti-globalization ideas, in their various forms. To put it more bluntly, all the ideas presently expressed by Harmony Center should be met by an equivalent Latvian political culture. Not necessarily a competing party, but possibly a grassroots and cultural movement.
All things together, let’s face the worst case scenario, one possible linguistic future for Latvia is Latvians speaking English for education, Russian for politics, and Latvian receding into a folkloric language, exclusively used for the ritual assertion of “identity.” But people want identity ceremonies as a secondary, leisure-time activity only, their primary goal will always be prosperity, standards of living, a bright personal future.... and if possible, not being forced to emigrate.
But don’t worry, the same happened in France too; during the nineties we all believed that the social market economy was total crap, that we would all become successful businessmen... and now we are all wondering if we will have any income at all next year, and maybe a little bit of social housing would be good, just in case, in order to be sure we won’t end up sleeping in the street. But at the same time we don’t want to give up the benefits of the market economy either... Only in France, we don’t fear being assimilated to German occupation when we want to assert that everything is not Ok, when we want to search for new ideas. That seems to be the challenge for Latvians now: how to publicly acknowledge that the world has become too risky and things need to change, without falling back into a Soviet times nostalgia, “faute de mieux.”
Henri Jaak is a French linguist and translator.
