Language: Latvian
Writer's Background: My grandparents and my mother are from Riga, Latvia and I had the chance to visit last summer. I am learning the language from my grandparents.
Editor's Note: Latvian is one of two surviving languages in the Baltic language family. As an Indo-European language that has a lot of its own unique vocabulary and features, Latvian has been a source of national pride and unifying cutural identity among its peoples. In fact, Krišjānis Barons' created the most complete anthology of Latvian folk songs, or dainas, with 200,000+ amassed between 1895-1915. These traditional quatrains set to song were inducted into the UNESCO Memory of the World program in 2001.
Since the independence of Latvia in 1918 and after the Soviet occupation in 1940, the nation has lessened the widespread Russification of daily life through ardent language policies to encourage Latvian language-learning. Currently, about 90% of people in Latvia speak the language, and the government offers Latvian language programs. For instance, it offers bilingual education in minority languages, such as Belarussian and Estonian, with Latvian as the second language. Consequently, this measure provides minority language speakers a means of integration into the majority of Latvian society. Today, the Latvian Language Expert Commission of the State Language Centre is responsible for the standardization of the language and promotion of officially correct usage of Latvian.
Kogut is a high school junior from Livingston, NJ.
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