For Latvian Press 2, Fascist
RIGA – This blog is in English. Outside of this blog, I use three languages frequently interchanging them, each with some kind of accent.
At a recent gathering of old friends, someone told me to speak Russian properly. Another time, a Latvian woman who interviewed me in Latvian for the European Commission survey asked me four times if it’d be easier to switch to Russian because of my obscure accent. When I was in the US last time, some people thought I was from Saskatchewan, eh?
Latvian is my outside language, though at times, it can be < a href="http://allaboutlatvia.com/article/680/misplaced-languages/">challenging to have a conversation if your Latvian is even slightly accented. I try to use it whenever possible unless I know a person doing the customer service is a Russian. You can figure out by the person’s name, their slight accent, however, admittedly it’s becoming harder and harder to distinguish people’s native language. Unless of course they want you to know it: they wrap themselves in a Russian tricolor, or wear a shirt that reads, Россия, or CCCP.
In two recent incidents, language laws, common courtesy, and market forces collided in a spectacular fashion, too typical for a small country like Latvia, exposing more chronic lack of manners and absence of culture of courtesy.
At the end of August, a passenger at the Riga International Airport spilled coffee on a waitress, following a run-in with her in the language department. The man asked for the service in the state language at the Coffee Nation shop inside the transit area of the airport. The woman refused, saying this is a transit area and laws of Latvia do not apply here. She called him a fascist. He spilled hot coffee on her. She called the police, which ended up costing him Ls 50 for swearing and hooliganism and made him miss his flight to Berlin.
The man demanded the language police and other authorities look into the language knowledge of the Coffee Nation employees.
Today, the state language police fined the head of the establishment for offering menus in English. The victim of the coffee spill has been out sick and reports suggest she’ll undergo through the language test once she returns back to work.
Earlier this summer, a customer at a Narvesen convenience store threatened to sue the company after its employee allegedly refused to offer service in Russian. He asked a question about the cell phone card in Russian, the young woman who works at Narvesen later said. “I asked if he could repeat his questions in Latvian,” she said. The man got angry, called her names in a language she didn’t understand, but apparently knew well enough to understand the naughty bits. His wife allegedly said that you cannot work in customer service not being able to speak Russian.
Let’s face it. The overall culture of politeness and common courtesy is basically non-existent here. You don’t even have to venture into the realm of the customer service. It’s everywhere. An old woman whined for good half hour on a trolleybus, demanding the driver stop the trolleybus and open the window because it was too hot. A friend of mine made a mistake on a tram of speaking a foreign language too loudly on the phone. A group of 20-somethings ethnic Latvians mocked the foreign language.
The customer service in Latvia especially bad. People behind the counter are often rude, especially when it comes to the language. Granted, it’s better than it was after the fall of the Soviet Union, but it still doesn’t reach the levels one would like. Often, you ask for help and it seems you’re bothering a customer service representative from chatting with his colleagues. The examples are too many to name. Add the sheer rudeness on top of the ethnic sensitivities and you’ve got yourself a bitter cocktail of stories like the ones above.
Echoing Eric’s comments, these stories are not about the language issues, they’re not about Russians and Latvians. It’s about the lack of culture.
September 25th, 2008 at 20.39
“An old woman whined for good half hour on a trolleybus, …”
Must be the same old woman I once saw, on a packed trolleybus, complaining today’s younger generation showed her no respect because no one got up to offer her their seat. I will grant her that point. But earlier, she had elbowed her way past me and a few others, hauling two large and full plastic bags, to get on the bus. Gordie Howe would have been proud of her (hockey inside joke).
September 28th, 2008 at 2.38
I’ve heard it is required by law in Latvia that higher school lectures must speak Latvian or be assisted by a Latvian interpreter. (What about texts in foreign languages?) I could not believe it but I was told so by a lecture of the University of Latvia. I am just unaware whether it is always done so in practice. I cannot even imagine this rule applied to the university which I used to study at. We used to have many foreign professors from different countries as well as foreign students studying together with us (and we also were given opportunities to study abroad). It’s a striking difference to me, although I came to Latvia just from its neighborhood.
Second, all foreign persons’ original names in Latvia must be “latviskoti” (e.g. Shakespeare – Šekspīrs, Dumas – Dimā) but I saw the name of some foreign magazine printed by the daily “Diena” as original yesterday. When you encounter a foreign name in Latvian, you have to guess what it is, however brand names are spared.
While filling in various official forms in Latvia, I am asked to indicate my nationality (besides my citizenship), and when I say I have no nationality or, if you like, my nationality is my citizenship, they are so surprised that call their boss for instructions what to do in such an odd situation. In my own country the law guarantees person’s right not to indicate any nationality, and I don’t even remember which year I was asked about it in my country last time.
Then Latvians are going too fast in rendering an offer to switch to Russian if they intercept any accent in your speech. I think it does no good to anybody, especially local Russians who need to improve their Latvian. When I first came to Riga, I was surprised some taxi drivers did not speak Latvian at all. Now there’s a problem in service sector. The problem in general is just bad service; however it includes some linguistic aspect. A young girl at “Domina” shop center asked me to speak Russian or simpler Latvian, as I was said to speak Latvian too fluently, too fast. She asked to excuse her because she was Russian. The worst experience I have had was that with the “Elkor” trade center. When I finally tried to complain a bit to them about their service, I was asked (not in a polite manner) to change Latvian for Russian. I am afraid the better part of the population has emigrated to Ireland and Great Britain or to the Latvian countryside, therefore employers now hire occasional stuff from those who don’t just mind spending their time in a shop where they can have fun by shocking their customers.
September 28th, 2008 at 11.56
There is simply not enough commercial thinking in the shops. I think it comes from the Soviet time, when shop employees had a high status because they had easier access to scarce products.
October 3rd, 2008 at 14.07
Hello!
Thank you for a wonderful blog and raising this important issue of language policies in Latvia. I am a Belarusian national living in Vilnius, Lithuania, but I have my uncle and aunt living in Riga. They lived their for most of their life, and they told me a lot about the unfairness of the Latvian politics as it comes to granting citizenship. When a person born in Latvia was not automatically granted citizenship, come on, this was ridiculous. I guess now they still have this law.
Anyway, I think it is good to learn languages and once you live in the country, you should learn its language. I do learn Lithuanian now and I already know some 5-6 other languages. But well, my first education is linguistic, and I like learning languages. I imagine there are lots of people who have lots of problems dealing with those harsh rules and regulations you have in Latvia. In Lithuania, we are lucky to have a more liberal system. Yet, it’s not that perfect, too.
I have written a large blog post on languages and my native Belarusian language in particular. If interested, you are welcome to check it out - http://belarus.blogsome.com/2008/09/05/the-belarusian-language-is-doomed/
October 7th, 2008 at 20.09
It makes perfect sense to me to “translate” foreign names into the Latvian alphabet. For those who know the Latvian alphabet, it is then VERY obvious how to pronounce those foreign names.
I don’t know of any European country that grants citizenship by being born there, although France and Germany do have some limited provisions, so Latvia is not a special case in this regard.
October 9th, 2008 at 12.24
First of all, thank you for all your comments.
bertil, commercial thinking doesn’t come naturally to Latvians. Latvians are not willing to sell their principles for a buck. I remember contacting someone from the Blackheads House regarding the legend that Riga is the home of the First Christmas tree. The woman didn’t want to talk to me because she didn’t believe the legend, but it seemed like such a nice way to attract tourists to Latvia in the wintertime. The truth was more important than money. I think the same thing is true when it comes to the language.
endrus, the citizenship laws are not unfair. Nothing prevents your uncle to naturalize and obtain citizenship. I had written about it before.
Also, I apologize, but I had to install a required registration to post comments from now on. Have been combating spam.
November 17th, 2008 at 19.54
This post reveals a striking evidence of some “ethnic attitude” of a sort. I wouldn’t go that far as to say that it’s Latvian peculiarity, but for sure, people who live for long time in Latvia tend to adapt to this kind of “smugness”, defiance and coldish when not “stand-offish” behavior.
I spent long time in Latvia and I longed for time to receive a “thank you” when holding the door open to the next entrant on shops premises. It never happened.
To the best of my recollection, throughout some seven years I spent long spells in Latvia, no one ever said “thank you” for letting them ahed or for behavioral amenities as such. I found extremely rude even russian customer representatives or sales assistants in Latvia, pretty much differently from Russians in Russia. This very harsh opinion of mine clashes profoundly with the warm and kind hospitality, generosity and care offered to me by people I established personal and friendly relationships. However, even with those people I had always to be careful to never express different opinions from theirs, no matter what the realm or subject of the conversation. I reached the conclusion that for Latvians (in general of course) a simply different opinion sounds as insulting to them only because it’s different. Nevertheless, within Latvians who have lived only in Latvia and never travelled abroad I often perceived a deep, icing tendency to relate to other people from different cultures. For sure I won’t remember Latvia as home of openness, kindness and transparency. It’s enough to cross the border with Lithuania to feel a completely different vibe. I regret the seven years I devoted to this country. Perhaps the first country that truly explained to me the inner and subtle meaning of that famous statement by G. B. Shaw :
Any place deserves to be visited, at least not to commit the mistake to go there again.