Language Education Policy Profile

1.10 Language Attitudes

“Individuals ….belong to certain places, certain regions, certain country/ies, certain social groups, certain religion/s. …..To understand present identity choices, and speculate on future ones, we have to bear in mind, the size of the national minority group, when their members arrived in Lithuania, and the compact­ness of their residence. It is also important to know whether they come from mixed marriages, if they speak the native language, how cultur­ally close and welcome they feel. …Another important element is connected with the ways the national minorities perceive the social, political and eco­nomic situation. Minorities judge (these matters) from their own political standpoint and their perception of their own economic survival. It is also important to bear in mind the social structure of Lithuanian minorities…”

Although not all of these issues have been examined in this report, some important maters have been considered, all the resultant analyses support Popovski’s conclusion. All minorities differ from each other, and within themselves, in terms of demographic history, regional distribution, age-structure, social structure, language maintenance and language shift.

Popovski also emphasises the importance of language and educational issues to minorities. Bearing in mind that her research focused on the 1988-1993 period. Popovski observed that some Poles, particularly those in Vilnius,

‘argued that there was a need for ….the state .. to introduce 'polyethnic rights' as collective rights which would give allowances to the Polish community in the form of, for example, keeping schools open even if there was an insufficient number of Polish-speaking pupils, Furthermore, (they) saw the learning of the language (Lithuanian) as a gesture of good will which the Poles needed to show towards Lithuania. …knowledge of the language would help the Poles to learn to get to know Lithuanian culture and respect the country.

Popovski argued that they was another strand of opinion among Poles, particularly those in rural areas, who

“….demanded cultural and political autonomy, understood as collective rights … they argued that to be able to preserve Polish identity cultural autonomy was not enough. Poles should be able to have political authority over the South-East…. Polish primary and secondary schools were seen as being of poor quality and for the Poles a possible explanation could be related to, in the words of Apolonia Skakowska⁸⁵, 'The policy of the Sajudis government to put into these regions only half the money which it puts in other regions'.

In this regard, an observation made by Schröder in 2001 might be noted.

“ The “Polish’ schools face serious financial problems, since they are funded through local council budgets and have higher costs for text-books, which are translated from Lithuanian. Under such circumstances, it is perceived by many Poles as a provocation, that recently a large school was built in the provincial town of Salininkai, right in the middle of an almost exclusive Polish settlement, with Lithuanian as the only language of instruction. This school (‘School of the Millenium of Lithuanian Statehood’) is financed from the central budget, boasts an indoor swimming pool, and is attended by many children with a Polish ethnic background”⁸⁶

Popovski saw Russians as less divided on the question of education.

“All Russians were very keen to maintain education in their own lan­guage. This was connected with three sets of issues: (a) the quality of education in Russian schools, (b) educating teachers in Russian, and (c) integrating Russian schools into the state education system. The majority of Russians argued that they would like to integrate into Lithuanian society rather than assimilate and they wanted to pre­serve their national identity. As far as educational standards were concerned, everybody commented that the general educational level in Russian schools was much lower than in Lithuanian ones….’

It is not possible to track these internal variations within minorities with the grosser categories used in large scale surveys. In the 2000 Barometer survey, for example, Rose does not even distinguish between Polish and Russian respondents, let alone accommodate internal differences. Nonetheless, it is clear in the survey responses to see that the attitudinal positions of minorities are by no means homogeneous.

In the first two questions selected from Professor Rose’s 2000 survey, respondents were asked about their views on individual duties and rights, having regard to the national and home languages.

In each case, a majority of both Lithuanian and Russian-speaking respondents agree that a ‘resident’ ought to learn the national language and that a resident should enjoy the right to be educated in the language of their parents. It is significant that a majority of Russian-speaking respondents (68%) should see no conflict in the pursuit of these values. But it is also important to note that about one quarter of Russian-speaking respondents qualify or oppose these positions.

Response	Lithuanian	Russian-speaking
	%	%
Always	95	75
Usually	5	20
Unimportant	-	4
Not at all	0	1
Total	100	100

Response	Lithuanian	Russian-speaking
	%	%
Definitely	88	68
Usually	11	24
Unimportant	1	9
No	--	--
Total	100	100

The first two questions used ‘soft-law’ concepts like ‘ought’ and ‘enjoy’, but the next two deal unmistakably use the ‘hard-law’ language of legal compulsion. The responses reflect these differences. While 70% of Russian-speaking respondents agree that residents ought to learn the national language, this question elicited a much more varied response. In fact, only 13% ‘definitely agree, and 37% ‘somewhat agree’ with the proposition that they ‘should be made to learn Lithuanian.

Response	%
Definitely agree	13
Somewhat agree	37
Somewhat disagree	33
Definitely disagree	12
Total	100

Similarly, only 34% give a definite ‘yes’ to the proposition that citizens should have to pass an examination in the national language. As Lithuania granted citizenship to all residents, this question presumably had little personal implications for the respondents. These replies suggest rather wide disagreement about the relationship between language and citizenship in principle, even among Lithuanians themselves.

Response	Lithuanian	Russian-speaking
	%	%
Definitely yes	67	34
Probably	22	33
Not necessary	10	31
Definitely not	2	2
Total	100	100

The final question asked respondents to give their assessment of the importance of learned selected languages in order to further one’s career. The form of the question allowed the respondent to state if they would ‘definitely’ encourage, encourage on the basis that the language ‘could be useful’, or discourage because the language was deemed ‘not very useful’, or ‘useless’. The table only shows the replies which indicated ‘encouragement’.

Table 25: ‘What language would you encourage a young person to learn (if she/he does not already know it) to get ahead in their work?

Language	Lithuanians		Russian-speakers
	Definitely	Could be useful	Definitely	Could be useful
	%	%	%	%
Lithuanian	--	--	90	9
Russian	29	52	--	--
English	88	11	59	37
German	40	48	19	60
Polish	7	23	8	37

In a personal communication, the Survey Director has confirmed that the instructions given to the interviewers were: if interview is conducted in Lithuanian - please ask about Russian language; if interview is in Russian - ask about Lithuanian language. Thus, neither sub-sample was asked about their attitudes to learning their own language.

Therefore, the rank order of languages for Lithuanians is (quoting definite percentages only): English (88%), German (40%), Russian (29%) and Polish (7%). For Russian-speakers the rank order is: Lithuanian (90%), English (59%), German (19%) and Polish (8%). The very particular wording of this question should, however, be noted in interpreting these results. The choice of languages was (a) determined by work requirements, and (b) by languages which young persons would be commonly expected to know already spoken. As Russian is spoken more widely among Lithuanian speakers than Lithuanian is among Russian speakers, it is not surprising that the ranking of Russian and Lithuanian should differ. (Finally, it should be noted that the so-called Russian speaking sub-sample did not accurately reflect the weighting of the individual non-Lithuanian minorities, and ethnic Russians are clearly over-represented. See the explanation given at the start of Section 2.8 )