-TSS- Posted February 19, 2012 Report Posted February 19, 2012 There was a referendum yesterday in Latvia whether to adopt Russian as the second official language. About 1/3 of the population of Latvia are Russian-speaking, mainly because of the history of the country as an ex-Soviet state and how a lot of Russians were planted in the country. There are second and third generation Russian-speakers in the country who are not citizens of Latvia because they have not passed the language test. The result of the referendum gave a resounding 75-25 victory for maintaining Latvian as the only official language. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-17083397 Quote
olpfan1 Posted February 19, 2012 Report Posted February 19, 2012 1/3 is too big of a number to decide with a referendum It should be their 2nd official language just by the fact that 1/3rd of the population speaks it Quote
Sa'adoni Posted February 19, 2012 Report Posted February 19, 2012 What is most bearing of consideration is that there are perhaps less French speaking Francophones in Canada than Russian speakers in Latvia.... It would however be suprising to see only 25% of Canadians voting to see French maintained as an official language, or the uprising that might result in Quebec as a result of that vote. Although even French in Quebec is undergoing a renaissance toward English. Quote
-TSS- Posted February 19, 2012 Author Report Posted February 19, 2012 (edited) The Estonians had a very interesting interpretation of independence when the Soviet-rule was overthrown. Namely, the Estonians still regard February 24th as their independence day because that was the date they declared independence in 1918. Therefore, they are just about to spend their 94th independence day. The period between 1940-1991 is in their eyes as a period of lawlessness and in their interpretation when Estonia regained its independence in 1991 a legal status was only restored. No need to declare independence because the lack of independence in the intervenening 51 years was illegal in the first place. Therefore, when independence was restored the Estonians decided that the citizens of their country were those people who were citizens in 1940 and their descendants. All of those people who entered the country after 1940 and their descendants were considered as foreign. A very rough decision as many of those people considered foreign by that decision were in fact born in Estonia. Edited February 19, 2012 by -TSS- Quote
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