Multilingvisms latviešu diasporā Vācijā

Abstract

Over the last fifteen years, the large-scale emigration from Latvia, triggered by economic crisis of 2008, has led to the emergence of “new diaspora” communities in the EU. In Germany, the number of Latvians has increased rapidly since 2011, when Germany opened its labor market for immigrants from the new EU member states, including Latvia. Since then, according to the German Federal Statistical Office, the number of Latvian citizens in Germany has grown steadily reaching 39,555 at the end of 2019. The exact number of Latvians in Germany, however, is unknown, as the statistics are based solely on the fact of Latvian citizenship. The new sociocultural environment, in which migrants find themselves, have tremendous sociolinguistic consequences on their language practices. When moving to another country, not only the level of language skills but also the linguistic behavior and attitudes of emigrants towards their mother tongue change for both objective and subjective reasons. In addition to their mother tongue, Latvians living in Germany use German, Russian, and English in their daily lives. Against the background of these very strong languages, a complex and heterogeneous situation emerges in connection with the transmission of the Latvian language to the next generation. Although, most Latvians in the diaspora (incl. those in exogamous partnerships) want their children to speak Latvian, this desire does not always get fulfilled. The main aim of this article, hence, is to explore language attitudes and language use patterns among Latvians in Germany and to assess their role in the transmission of Latvian to future generations. The empirical basis for the article comes from fifteen qualitative interviews with first-generation Latvian emigrants living in Germany. The study focuses specifically on the “new diaspora” that has emerged over the last thirty years since Latvia regained its independence. The findings of the study suggest that since the beginning of the 1990s both the motivation for Latvians to emigrate and the demographic structure of the diaspora have changed significantly. Moreover, reported linguistic socialization preferences, motivation behind language choices, and everyday language use patterns point to rather heterogenous linguistic profile of the “new Latvian diaspora” in Germany. At present, at least three very different groups or “bubbles” can be distinguished among the interviewed respondents: “the well-integrated/assimilated bubble” with German as a dominant everyday language, “the Latvian bubble”, characterized by the dominant use of Latvian, and “the East European bubble” with Russian as a dominant language of everyday interactions. In addition to these findings, the article also discusses factors that, according to the representatives of the diaspora themselves, promote and hinder the maintenance of the Latvian language in emigration.