Hold your tongue

Edited highlights of an article by Joel Alas in the indomitable Baltic Times:
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Estonians should be taught to be less hostile and more sympathetic to people learning their language, according to the chief architect of the nation’s new integration programme.

A week after Russian-speaking 10th grade children began a new set of Estonian-language literature classes, Ain Aaviksoo from the Praxis Centre for Policy Studies suggested Estonians should also be given classes in how to be more embracing of new speakers.

Aaviksoo, whose think-tank has been hired by the government to help formulate its integration policy for 2008-13, said Estonia should drop its defensive attitude toward its language, which is often perceived as a hostile barrier to those seeking to learn it. Instead, Aaviksoo said a more positive promotion of the language and a kinder attitude to new speakers would improve the situation.

“There are things we can’t change about history and our past issues, but we can change our attitudes toward our compatriots,” Aaviksoo said. “Our constitution says that one reason for the existence of the state is to preserve our language and culture. The problem is how to interpret that. If you adopt a protective approach, then in a way you create enemies of every outsider.”

Instead, Aaviksoo said the language could only survive if others are positively encouraged to learn it. “You can’t be hostile to outsiders: you have to be capable of embracing them. Many people who speak English know that it is spoken in different ways, so it is possible to understand someone who can’t speak it fluently. In Estonia it isn’t so. Many Russians tell me they feel more comfortable speaking Russian because too much attention is placed on them because they speak Estonian differently.”

Full text: http://www.baltictimes.com/news/articles/18768/
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I wonder how Joel's Estonian is coming along. As far as I am aware he is a fellow Aussie, so it would be interesting to find out the experiences he's had compared to my own.

For the first couple of years I was in Estonia, anyone who discovered I was making an effort to learn the language was suitably impressed and encouraging. Stammering attempts at ordering things in restaurants and cafes were met with patience, a smile and charitably simplified responses. Students I became increasingly able to help out in terms of vocabulary if they gave me the Estonian word were chuffed I was going to the trouble, especially off my own bat.

Fast-forward a couple of years and the feedback started to take on a different tone. Most reactions to the fact that I was still even in Estonia and learning Estonian were "why?" and "why bother?" respectively. My answer to the latter at least would always be the same - "because I live here" - although this would rarely satisfy the dumbfounded people who had put the question to me in the first place.

It would also invariably bring out the hipocrisy in them too: since I spoke English, "the world language", what was the point in studying Estonian beyond the charmingly perfunctory? When I parried with the argument that Russian-speakers speak one of the world's biggest languages too, so why should they bother if I needn't, their answer was always: "That's different." But it's no different at all. And nor is that an answer.

I'm one of these people who likes to learn at least a handful of pleasantries whenever I'm going somewhere new, whether it be a few hour's stopover in Kuala Lumpur, Oslo for the weekend or two weeks in Spain and Portugal. I'm also a languages person, which helps. But actually living somewhere is a different matter. I could and in many cases do get by perfectly well on English in Estonia, but that hasn't stopped me wanting to learn the national language. In fact how anyone can live in a foreign country and not try to learn its language, out of respect alone if nothing else, is beyond me.

But I will admit it is more difficult to do so these days than it was when I first arrived seven years ago. If your speech or accent gives away the fact that you're not Estonian and not a Russian-speaker, everyone automatically switches to English with you whether you want them to or not. I've had countless bizarre conversations where I insist on sticking to Estonian and the Estonian insists on sticking to English; I guess we both need the practice, so it works out in the end. Can't be of much help though to people just starting out with the language, and it doesn't change the fact that the attitude to speakers of English (and other languages) attempting Estonian remains starkly different to that of Russian-speakers doing the same.

Nothing's insurmountable though. The fact that my almost exclusively self-taught Estonian is good enough for me to be working as a translator after the first five years of my life here were largely spent in an English-language environment should be proof enough that anyone can do it. I would certainly advocate them trying. You get to know so much more about a country and its people when you can view things through their language.