Language Education Policy Profile

1.5 First and Second Languages Combined

Source: Lithuanian Statistics Department. Special tabulations

The scale and range of current plurilingualism is striking. A majority of all ethnic groups are at least bilingual, and significant percentages are trilingual. In this regard, the Polish community is particularly impressive, with two thirds or more claiming proficiency in three languages – Polish, Russian and Lithuanian.

When viewed by age-group, the changing pattern of combined linguistic repertoires becomes apparent.

Table 8: Overall Linguistic repertoire by age group

Language	Age group
	0-4	5-9	10-14	15-19	20-29	30-39	40-59	60-79	80+	unknown
Lithuanian	87.9	93.0	97.0	96.8	92.4	91.0	92.7	89.3	89.3	30.3
Russian	6.1	11.1	33.3	69.9	86.1	89.0	89.0	65.7	35.6	22.6
Polish	4.9	6.0	7.6	9.3	14.0	16.0	18.2	18.9	18.6	4.0
English	0.1	3.3	34.4	51.1	32.2	17.0	11.2	2.2	0.8	5.8
German	0.0	0.3	9.4	21.2	14.0	8.8	7.5	3.8	3.8	3.1

Source: Lithuanian Statistics Department. Special tabulations

The proportion of native/mother tongue speakers is the dominant factor in the composition of Lithuanian speakers. In all cohorts, about 90 -100% of Lithuanian speakers have learned it as their first language. Although the overall proportions of the population who can speak Russian in adult cohorts is over 80%, all but about 6% have learned it as a second language. This is also true of Polish, English and German speakers, albeit within lower overall percentages.

As already noted, but also apparent in this table, it would appear that the percentages speaking Russian and Polish are likely to decline in the long-term, but the percentages speaking English and German are likely to increase.

Finally, before leaving this section on language speaking abilities it should be noted that all of the census questions which elicit this data are of a general nature, and assessments of ability are made by the respondents themselves or, in the case of children in particular, by the head of household. It is possible that ‘real’ levels of ability may vary a good deal more among speakers than these statistics reveal. Nonetheless, survey evidence would suggest that respondents do, in fact, discriminate meaningfully when asked to rate their language abilities.

For example, in 2001, Russians and Russian-speakers in Professor Rose’s Baltic Barometer survey were asked about their capacity to take on a job where a knowledge of Lithuanian was required.

Table 9: Question: ‘Could you hold a job where knowledge of Lithuanian was needed?’

In the same Baltic barometer Survey, a second on the same topic was asked of Lithuanian and Russian-speakers alike.

Table 10: Question ‘ If a well paying job, for which you were qualified, was advertised in (the other language), would you apply?’ (Percentages)

Again, the percentages who unambiguously answer ‘yes’ correspond closely to the census percentages who claim knowledge of the respective languages – 64% of Lituanians claim to be able to read/write/speak Russian while, as noted above, 55-70% of non-Lithuanians claim to be able to read/write/speak Lithuanian.

While not conclusive, the close correspondence between census and survey data clearly adds to the credibility of both.