Riga City Youth between Latvian and Russian

Abstract

This paper presents the findings of a survey of 995 late adolescent residents of Riga – Lettophones, Russophones, and native bilinguals – offering evidence that the youngest generation of Latvia’s capital has broken away from Soviet-era language trends, communicating in Latvian more frequently and confidently than Russian. Two correspondences, unique to the linguistic group in question, are also discussed. (1) Among the Lettophones, any preference for the other language in intercultural communication is far more likely if the language is also used at home. (2) Among the Russophones, any preference for the other language in intercultural communication is more likely among females.

Keywords:

• Latvia
• Riga
• Latvian
• Russian
• bilingual

Acknowledgements

For invaluable feedback during the survey creation process and for highly successful surveying, the author would like to thank Anna Bushnaya, Dāvis Grundmanis, Jegors Ivanovs, Mārtiņš Kozlovskis, Maija Marinčenko, Darja Maslova, Inese Mazareviča, Krišjānis Mazurs, Maija Meļinovska, Edgars Neverovskis, Yaroslava Obertas, Alma Ozoliņa, Santa Pavloviča, Vladimirs Račejevs, Anna Skačeka, Kirils Strukovs, and Ilja Surikovs. In addition, the author would like to thank Imants Auziņš, Ieva Kļava, and Aleksandra Volņistova for crucial input during the early stages of the project and Anastasija Oļeiņika for creating back-up translations of the surveys. Finally, the author would like to thank Professor Anders Paalzow for his suggestions regarding the final article.

Notes

¹ A slight percentage of the Russophones left this question blank or marked their answer unclearly: 3%, or a total of 13. Regarding the first two survey questions as well as the language profile, blank or unclear answers made up no more than 1% of the total for each group.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Benjamin Breggin

Benjamin Breggin is the coordinator of the Academic English programme at the Stockholm School of Economics in Riga. He has a BA from Sarah Lawrence College and an MSc and a PhD from the University of Edinburgh. His research interest is language trends in the Baltic region.