Misplaced languages
RIGA – A conversation that took place at an office building between me and a man named Ivars, who works for the building’s owner. Most of the conversation took place in Latvian.
Ivars: Jus esat no firmas? / Are you from a firm?
Me: Ja. / Yes
Ivars: Vai jus esat saimnieks vai klients? / Are you an owner or a client?
Me (with an accent): Es esmu gandriz ta ka saimnieks. / I’m almost like an owner.
Ivars: Тогда вам необходимо знать, что в здании не будет электричества в понедельник с 9 до 17. / (In Russian). Then you need to know that we won’t have any electricity in the building on Monday from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Me: Paldies. / Thank you.
So, why would an ethnic Latvian switch to speaking in Russian after detecting an accent?
July 6th, 2008 at 10.38
If you should ever listen to my wife (ethnic Latvian) your question would be, “why doesn’t an ethnic LV switch to Russian when speaking to someone who is obviously unilingual Russian?” Sorry, but you are attempting to generalize from your specific situation in a way that just doesn’t make sense. This guy was in certain ways just doing good customer service- respond to someone in the language he felt that they might be more comfortable in. In this case, that might have been a poor assumption. The counter is people like my wife who have to be dragged kicking and screaming into any conversation in Russian.
tom
July 6th, 2008 at 19.01
tom,
that would have been fine if it was a single case, or if it only were true in the context of customer service. But it isn’t. It happened to me when I was on a plane from London to Riga, talking to a fellow passanger and this is just one example. It’s quite usual for ethnic Latvians who are older than a certain age to switch to Russian when addressing someone who speaks Latvian with an accent (and not only Russian accent at that).
July 6th, 2008 at 21.46
Alek,
I can match you anecdote for anecdote. They don’t prove anything. Please make some sort of a point. Not to be difficult, but what are you trying to say- LVs are too nice, LVs are weak, subservient? What is your point? Like I said, I can tell you about time after time where I have seen LVs (my wife as one) refuse to speak Russian.
Of course we all tend to see that which reinforces our own biases. I am open to info that would dissuade from mine. To be clear- my bias is that LVs are strong and will stand up for themselves, but are aware of the need to be polite (as they see it) when the need arises.
Like German chancellor Willy Brandt said decades ago: “If I am selling to you, I speak your language. If I am buying, dann mssen Sie Deutsch sprechen.”
July 7th, 2008 at 12.04
Here’s the point - ethnic Latvians are more likely to switch to a non-Latvian’s language than any other nationality that make Latvia their home. The reason for it? I’m not sure. It could have something to do with the national weakness? Years of oppression? Feeble national character? These are just guesses.
Sure, there are Latvians who refuse to speak Russian. Many of them. What about English? Would your wife refuse to speak English with a non-native Latvian speaker (who is not a Russian) because of his or her accent, or errors? I know of at least one guy who found it frustrating to learn the language because people switch to English once they hear his accent.
July 7th, 2008 at 14.23
Alek,
The point that you are making is one that would need to be backed up by some form of statistical proof- “more likely” has a meaning. As I said, I have observed exactly the opposite. Do you have such proof or simply your anecdotal observations?
July 7th, 2008 at 14.49
I don’t have the time to do a bit of research on the numbers, however, one thing that jumps to mind is the series of ads by the Language Commission encouraging, admonishing Latvians to use Latvian in conversations with non-Latvians. I certainly suspect that if it weren’t true, the commission would see no need for such an ad campaign.
Having said that, your question is legitimate and deserves an answer. I will try to find some statistical data to back this up.
July 7th, 2008 at 14.56
This phenomenon isn’t unitque to Latvian of course. Many Welsh-speakers will switch to English with anyone they think who doesn’t look Welsh. What ‘looking Welsh’ means is very subjective and varies from person to peson … very trendy, very rich, ‘hoodie’ and of course, (from their point of view) non-White; black or Asian (although there are, thankfully, many Asian and Black people who speak Welsh). Even if someone does speak Welsh, if they have a different Welsh accent, until quite recently there was this idea (promoted by the media very often) that Welsh-speakers couldn’t undersand one another, because, well some Welsh speakers say ‘fo’ in stead of ‘fe’ for him!
The assumption is that Welsh has ceraint social domains and that beyond those domains, English is the ‘norm’. These domains vary from person to person as well as age, background, politics etc.
My guess is that the underlying message from your conversation Alek is that the vendor was being polite but there is also a lack of confidence in the vendor to discuss in Latvian with people he believes to be outside the domain of the Latvian language. Latvian is not the dominant, all-domain language therefore where as Russian is maybe.
There may also be a nervousness on behalf of the vendor to discuss with people whose second language is Latvian, mistaking a different accent or hesitation for non-comprehension. A ’stonger’ Latvian speaker (like Welsh-speaker) would just speak a little slower and use simpler words, but without patronising the person. Other, less politcal people maybe, just switch to the presumed dominant language. This is all very well but makes it very difficult for learners to gain fluency, especially with ‘ordinary people’.
Ironically, the ‘best friend’ of someone who wishes to learn an new language, like Welsh (and I assume Latvian) is the more political person, ones who are often called ‘radical’, ‘narrow’ or even ‘extreme’ as they will continue to speak the language with the learner and be quite considerate. Switching to Russian (English/Spanish/German) means that second language speakers will find it even harder to achieve fluency.
July 7th, 2008 at 23.26
I guess to me the answer would be kapec ne? I fall into the same trap all of the time. My excuse is that I need to practice my Russian. On the other hand since my Russian is more than rusty I found myself often reverting back to Latvian or English if that’s the common language. I think you are reading far too much into this. As Russian fluency decreases so will the “politeness”. Actually in stores I find it more and more common that I’ll continue jabbering in Latvian and if the other person is Russian with minimal knowledge of Latvian they’ll respond in Russian.
Andrejs
July 8th, 2008 at 10.25
I would have to agree with Tom here. I worked/lived in Riga for 18 months and the hostility of ethnic Latvians towards a non Latvian-speaker astonished me on a daily basis. I was refused (customer) service on several occasions (until I asked to see the manager that is) when I was using Russian. Then I would switch to English, that usually did the trick of “OK” service. One however has to make choices about English - the generation of 45+ hardly speaks any English and the only foreign language they speak is Russian. As often was the case, (when I got slapped back with Latvian on both of the languages I tried to use), I would just go off in Estonian and we would have a back and forth in Latvian and Estonian. Anything to prove to a Latvian national that the customer is NOT Russian. At times that didn’t work either. So I figure that a common Latvian customer service person must have a thing for Estonians as well other than I caught them on a bad day. Funny really, oh it used to frustrate the heck out of me…:)
July 10th, 2008 at 18.34
I too have had a few less than courteous encounters with customer service people in Latvia. I concur with Luarvik that it is a generational thing based on my experiences. My troubles usually occur with the older set. I am happy to find more and more younger people in the service sector who speak decent English and are eager to show it off. This annoys me a bit as I would like to try to improve my limited Latvian language skills.
I still remember a very pleasant experience at a double coffee (in the new shopping mall in old Rīga) where we were served by a young (20-ish) Russian lady who spoke to me in English and to my wife in Latvian. And all with smile.
July 14th, 2008 at 11.24
Great blog, subscribed to your rss feed. Thanks.
July 26th, 2008 at 1.12
A better question would be - why everyone thinks believes that everyone else does and would want to speak Russian ? I speak Russian very badly (I learned German in school, I tried to swich to Russian, but they didn’t let me, people I know mostly speak Latvian to me and I don’t realy have time to learn it elsewhere), so I have observed that even most Latvians assume everyone knows Russian (for example strangers who have addressed me on street almost always spoke Russian, and on TV Russian mostly gets subtitled not dubbed). However I have had prolonged contact with Russians - I graduated from Russian owned private school, where half of students and teachers where Russian. I can see several reasons why to swich to Russian. Some Russians themselves swich to Russian (even when I have told them that I don’t speak Russian). And there are Russians who can be very annoying if you don’t speak to them Russian - I sure can see reason why older people, who probably had to deal with such persons more often during Soviet era, would choose to comunicate in Russian. These two plus the idea that everyone knows Russian somtimes have caused me feel very bad at times. Also mind that Latvians are use to speak in Latvian with native speakers, who speak correctly and understand at once, and Russian accent in particular is very harsh to Latvian ears (this might be a great pain to people who have just started learning Latvian). And of course swiching to Russian gives oppurtunity to train/show of ones linguistic skills. Some probably also believe that person would feel better if spoken to in their native language