Come Together
Estonia has a large Russian minority within its borders. Most estimates place it at 25% of the population. The Russians bring their own culture and language, along with a reluctance to learn the Estonian language.
The Estonian Ministry of Foreign affairs developed a plan for integration for minorities into the Estonian culture. Kudos for placing it online.
The largest portion of this plan aims to empower of the citizens of this country can speak the national language. Some points about the program:
+ Extensive result-based subsidisation of language training
+ Estonian as a Second Language teaching in kindergartens, schools, vocational institutions
(for non-Estonian schools -ed)
+ the social harmonisation of society, based on the knowledge of the Estonian language and the possession of Estonian citizenship
"The goal is to offer non-Estonians the possibility to learn to freely communicate in Estonian while preserving their own language and cultural identity." The well funded plan includes:
+ Production of Russian-language and bilingual television and radio programmes, radio broadcasts in minority languages
+ Support for ethnic minority cultural societies', art groups' and Sunday school projects
A look over at Wikipedia on Estonian Language reveals that the language is by about 1.1 million people.
English is the secondary language for Estonian speaking schools. It already serves as a way for ethnic minorities to speak with each other. Living in Tallinn, one can argue that English is enough to navigate the city. As Estonian integration into the EU continues to grow - What language is being used for international buisness? Why would a minority group living in Estonia prefer to learn Estonian as a second language as apposed to English?
3 comments:
I guess the state wants to make sure than any person can get by in the majority language - Estonian.
So if you are at a gas station in Narva, you can order in Estonian and get the right amount of ga sput in your car.
And if you want to be Estonia's foreign minister and you are of Russian descent, it doesn't matter because you can speak the language of government/business etc.
Also, there are problems in the service industry, especially in Tallinn.
Because if you order a locksmith to your home, you may be in need of a translator if you don't know any Russian.
It's hardest on two groups - the elderly and the youth. Many of the elderly Russians cannot speak Estonian at all.
If they must work, they wind up getting menial labor jobs where they aren't expected to know Estonian. But even that can lead to problems.
Likewise, young Estonians who don't know Russian have a hard time when they get Russian customers where they work. If they work at a store and a Russophone customer comes in, they must always defer to another employee who can speak that language.
All of this creates friction in society. The Estonian on line at one business establishment where Russian speakers frequent gets mad because he can't get served in his own language - the majority language.
"How can it be," he wonders, "that I learned to speak Russian in school and from TV and these guys here have lived in Tallinn all their lives and can't speak one word of Estonian."
The Russian speaker on the other hand finds himself unable to cope with the most basic service jobs without learning this difficult Finno-Ugric bog language. He can't work as cab driver, he can't work at McDonalds, he can't work as a waiter - all of these doors are closed to him.
I thank you for bringing concrete examples, and some strong ideas. Both in comparing Tallinn to Narva, and in comparing future leaders with the service industry.
I am starting to see how narrow my viewpoint has become.
For the politician, locksmith and many service industry, I think language will become a competitive advantage. Those that want to succeed will need to be able to speak multiple languages. Would it be fare to say in a market driven economy those that can reach a wider consumer base will succeed?
Maybe this would be enough for locksmiths to take those government sponsored classes? Could this lead to the ridiculous conclusion that Russian locksmiths do better, because they speak Russian and Estonian. While Estonian locksmiths will have to pay for classes to catch up in Russian?
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