Since I have a few readers who are Latvian (seriously, Liene, I'm still working on the picture and frame), and my mother's first trip to Europe was to Latvia (how many people can say that?), I was inspired to bring up an article I found in my local newspaper. It was brought by wire services.
It turns out that there had been a vote in Latvia whether to elevate the Russian language to the status of "official" along side Latvian. The last occupying overlords were Russian, and there are still a third of the citizens of Latvia who consider Russian their first language.
Well, "nē" is Latvian for no, and "net" is Russian for the same, so you should be able to see where this is going.
With 79% of precincts reporting, a resounding 75% of voters voted nē to the prospect of official Russian. It seems like if you multiply those percentages together (almost 4/5 and 3/4), you end up with how many actual Latvians voted against: 3/5, or 60%.
Since 1/3 speak Russian as a first language, it would make sense that a close approximation of the number of people who speak Latvian as a first language would be in the 2/3 neighborhood (accounting for other minorities doesn't change this drastically). This is about 66%. So...almost every single person who speaks Latvian and can vote voted against the referendum.
The awes me for some reason.
Oh wow - great to see this here. Even though i was not able to vote myself everyone i know voted with a "nē". it seems like Russia is trying to get more and more influence over Latvian politics lately.
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