03.02.2018, Riga.
On January 31, Nil Ushakov, the Mayor of Riga on his Facebook page has left an ironic comment about the new “Language friend” mobile application starting its work in Latvia.
“Estonian government introduces electronic residence permits and discusses the creation of its own national crypto currency. The response of the Latvian government followed shortly. We have made a mobile application offering an option to file complaints against violators of the bill on the official language,” Ushakov wrote.
On January 31, the Latvian State Language Center released a new mobile application offering its users to file a complaint against persons, who they consider to have an insufficiently good command of Latvian.
Over one third of the people living in Latvia consider Russian their native language. Nonetheless, it has no status as an official or regional language in the country. In addition, more and more restrictions are being imposed on its use time and again. On January 23, the government of Latvia supported introducing amendments to the current legislation providing for school instruction only in Latvian. The Latvian State Language Center, which promotes this policy is being called “the language inquisition” for its active efforts.
Source: Rossa Primavera News Agency
