Excluding Russian from the list of options seems unreasonable given Lithuania borders Russia. Putin won't be around in 50 years, but the Russian language will be. This reminds me of the US frowning upon German speaking communities in WW1.

"When the U.S. entered World War I, it mounted a war on German as well as Germany. Almost all American schools stopped teaching German." https://blogs.illinois.edu/view/25/653544#:~:text=On%20May%2023%2C%201918%2C%20Iowa,the%20language%20of%20the%20enemy.

This has little to do with ethnic animus and everything to do with recognizing Russia’s playbook, which involves claiming all Russian-speaking people as theirs… sometimes with military force. Often with military force.

The US bans on German in WW1 were also sold using national security rhetoric.

The US didn’t share a border with the belligerent in question, I think that comparison is more or less worthless. The US didn’t have a plausible national security concern, Lithuania certainly does, and in fact has history of being annexed by said belligerent.

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The US and German example is just one, but I think it is relevant. WW1 era Americans certainly felt there was a genuine threat and were not quite as cool about their own situation as you are in retrospect.

Lithuanian people aren't Russian-speaking any more than anyone who learns to read Leo Tolstoy natively. I think they are probably more concerned with the Russian exclave that abuts their lands, and is a real sticking point in this growing global conflict.

Russia has no real need for what's left of East Prussia, and giving it to whomever in NATO probably would make it a pretty solid bargaining chip.

Language discrimination is just a bad idea. It never works.

Do you know why the US felt that the German language was somehow dangerous to them? It wasn’t like countries bordering Russia, a country that has used language as a pretext for invasion. Here’s a great article on the subject, and it has this to say:

> Legal historian Paul Finkelman says in 1915 about 25 percent of all high school students in America studied German. But by the end of the World War I that had changed dramatically. German had become so stigmatized that only 1 percent of high schools even taught it.

> "During the war, there is an argument that if you learn German, you will become the 'Hun,' " Finkelman says, using the pejorative term for anyone from Germany. "And there was this notion that language was somehow organic to your soul. So if you spoke German, you would think like a German, you would become a totalitarian in favor of the kaiser."

> When members of minority groups spoke against entering the war in support of Britain, including some, but not all German-Americans, their patriotism was questioned. They were disparaged as "hyphenated Americans."

> After President Woodrow Wilson took the country into war he said, "Any man who carries a hyphen about with him, carries a dagger that he is ready to plunge into the vitals of this Republic when he gets ready."

> Schade says this anti-German sentiment extended to internment.

Let’s be real, it was bigotry and nothing more.

Not exactly a national security argument, and not a rational argument based on precedent either.

https://www.npr.org/2017/04/07/523044253/during-world-war-i-u-s-government-propaganda-erased-german-culture

putin wanted de-Ukrainization and got de-russification. Great plan.

Let them vote on it. It's their country and identity.

Russia will remain an essential language for travel and commerce in the region and this issue will sort itself out over the next couple of decades. Young Lithuanians have no cultural connection to Russia or the USSR.

It’ll be overwhelmingly in favour of scrapping it.

Ethnic cleansing or forced assimilation is never OK, but taking into account the way Russia uses ethnic Russians abroad to pull their strings, I think Lithuania is right.

In fact, the rest of the Baltics and Central Asians should follow suit. Any display of support for Russia should be banned in those countries at this moment with the threat of expulsion to Russia.

5% of Lithuania is ethnic Russian. Smaller than the other Baltic states but still significant.

Not teaching a language in public schools is not discrimination, and a sensible choice for any country with a significant Russian minority as history has shown that having a Russian speaking minority makes you a target for Russian aggression.

I almost agree. I am Estonian and our Russian consistent is bigger than yours. Heres the witch circle - at the moment our capital for example is nicely russified by companies and city government because so many Russians live here and because its so comfy here like this (everything freely available in russian - education, information, healthcare etc). So - they are even more moving here and even less learning Estonian and there you go. The refugee situation made everything again much more difficult because Ukranians tend to speak mostly Russian here (some get pretty mad figuring out our youth is mostly Estonian-English speaking. I guess they thought Russian is more popular here). So again, now is the moment its the nice excuse to put everything even more in Russian. We love to support Ukranians here but we have this Russian dilemma everyday and I am so sorry but we are sick of hearing Russian all around us in Tallinn (you can open which ever forum or comment section in Estonian online articles and it is the most popular theme - too much Russian language lately).

Where do you see discrimination?

I just refuse to speak any russian now.

>Heres the witch circle

What is a 'witch circle' in this context? Is it an Estonian saying? Is it a common phrase? Genuinely curious.

I guess its Estonian, means one thing leads to another and back to the beginning...endless circle 😁

It's really up to the students though, right?

Russia was invading and oppressing Lithuania on and off for better part of last 250 years, Putin being gone is not likely to change their aspirations of dominating their neighbours.

It was happening naturally. Most young people are very fluent in English and just learn some Russian to get by in school. Other languages have also became a bit more popular (French, German, Mandarin).

I feel like the whole "let's push Russian out" is a bit populist and not needed, the language itself didn't do anything and again, it was being phased out "organically" already.

Company I work with had outsourced some projects to both Belarus and Ukraine, everyone's 3rd language here (Baltics) is Russian, yet, we all still communicate in English.

The banning of a language in a school just shouldn't happen period in a free and democratic country. It was wrong when Russians ban Ukranian in schools and its also wrong (probably less wrong considering but still) to ban russian in schools where native russian speakers exist (as a non-zero amount do in Lithuania)

Let's forget about the politics and war for a second here.

What second foreign language would you want them to learn?

Popular western languages that can be used in the future as an advantage to further your career or enjoy, say, French authors in their native tongue?

Or Russian - corrupt country that supports terrorism with a shit economy that cannot give us any advantage except to buy cheap shit?

If Russia becomes a normal country in the future, we can revisit this question in 30 years or so.

Edit: changed 'second' to 'second foreign'.

The discrimination has been other way around, Russian was de-facto 2nd foreign language just because of abundance of Russian teachers from Soviet times. If you wanted any other option you are either completely out of luck, or lucky enough to go to some special school that had German or French as an option. Something like Spanish of Mandarin is completely out of equation.

No one from my generation (gen Z) who weren't Russian speaking to begin with can do anything with Russian beyond saying basics. It's just not used anymore.

And when it comes to education options, I am also yet to hear anyone studying in Russia, Belarus, Ukraine or any other Russian speaking country to warrant it. Most people go to US, Germany, France, South Korea, Denmark, Netherlands (statistics), so that Russian language is just a leftover that doesn't really practically help.

Even in business, we actually have projects right now with Ukrainian company, before that a Belarusian... We all communicate in English. All tools and documentation are in English, it would be akward to speak about those terms and have to make some weird Russian-English words so even that comes organically (tech company).

No one is banning anything. This is 2nd language option in schools. Russian already has been an useless historical leftover. Almost everyone had to learn Russian because we only had Russian teachers and no other options. Absolutely no one uses it past their school (it's 99.9% English).

Looking at where people go to study for their degree, it's Scandinavia, Germany, Netherlands, so any of those languages would make more sense.

Even French would make more sense that Russiam considering that it is still commonly used as diplomacy language.

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Identity? Russian is just a common second language taught in schools, that's all.

And it's not very useful in terms of job opportunities and international relations. German, French etc. would be more useful.

In school I took russian language because of rumour that it's easier to pass. Kinda regret that now because... well... it just useless now (I don't even plan to travel there because they tend to grab people for political theatre). Other options were german and very rarely french (not all schools had that).

Lithuania is not banning it lol. You can always learn on your own.

Yeah they can download Duolingo whenever they feel like it.

Remember, no Russian.

I agree that it's not really neccessary, but why even teach it? I don't plan traveling to Russia or even need to speak it professionally, so practically no use for it. I think it's good that now the focus is on other languagues because when I chose it in highschool I chose it out of sheer populism.

Best is English. Sure Germany and France are big part of the EU, but realistically, not just in Europe but everywhere stuff done between nations mostly gets done in English.

Remember all those ministers in a train to Kyiv; from Iceland, Latvia, Estonia, Finland, Sweden, Lithuania and Norway? Many of their languages are “cousin” languages, but I bet my ass that they were speaking English on that train-ride.

>I agree that it's not really neccessary, but why even teach it? I

There was still a lot of trade with Russia, especially before 2010's-ish. On top of that due to Soviet Union there were a lot of Russian teachers and very few of other languages. It wasn't much of idealogical choice, more just practical.

I am talking about now. Now it's not even practical to know.

I don’t know. It’s always better to know more about your enemy. Know what they’re saying, know what they’re thinking.

Yeah but the bigger problem is abundance of Russian teachers and lack of any other language teachers.

I can't think of any possible way this could be bad, why even stop there Ban books while your at it.

#cool&normal

This is not a ban: this is the government deciding that they aren't going to fund Russian 2nd language teaching with limited funds and school hours. Students will still be free to speak Russian to each other.

Okay that is an important distinction, thanks for the clarification. It still rings a little icky, but yeah thats a very different situation.

I think it could deprive those kids of economic prospects or the ability to learn fluency to say comminucate at family gatherings but that is a much subtler critique

It's not the language they have an issue with, but the Russian policy of using force to defend Russian speaking people in foreign nations. If a large enough portion of their population speaks Russian Lithuania could potentially be attacked by Russia on such absurd grounds.

But then you wont know how to ask them to stop raping you and your children

Lithuania has began phasing out russian years ago. At this point this has little to do with russian playbook and is just an excuse to finally finish the job.

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That being said, you are right about Russian playbook. Which is why Lithuania refused Kaliningrad when it was offered it. Really don't want your population to jump from less than 8% ethnic russians to around 30% in one go.

You are not the only person in Lithuania. Maybe someone else wants to learn it. Primarily a small percentage of ethnic russian and polish families.

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I'm not sure how old you are, but choosing russian in 90ies and up to 2010 was done because knowing russian was better than not knowing it since it was akin to second language and was useful at job hunting.

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These days it's less useful due to russian warmongering cutting up bussiness ties but the main problem is also that Lithuania simply doesn't have enough teachers of other languages as compared to russian. Though given time and with the nature of how things go, that will change in the future as more and more youth focuses on other foreign languages and replaces aging teachers.

Pretty sure international law prohibits that. Heck, the only Lithuanians with dual citizenship are foreigners who took Lithuanian as second citizenship. Lithuanian constitution prohibits us from taking second citizenship.

If you want to enjoy literature, then chosing Russian isn't a bad choice. they have plenty of well known and pretty good authors and books. Let's not pretend that just because Russia is currently being a terrorist state, that their long history of literature is suddenly not worth reading or is inferior to lets say French or German.

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It's weird that you say let's forget politics and war and then bring politics in describing Russia.

Russia could in theory attack anyway justifying supression and ethnic cleansing of ethnic minorities in Lithuania.

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That aside, Lithuania is a member of NATO and Russia is being busy losing to Ukraine. Kinda doubt Lithuania at this point has any reason to fear an invasion.

Sure, but its an unfair collective punishment against those Russian speakers in lithuania for the actions of a state for which they have NO CONTROL. Kids who might of gotten a minor or major in Russian later on in life are going to miss out on opportunities in their personal lives all due to the fact the languge they are interested in happens to be used by an ugly state actor

In other words, they are taking out the fear of a possible Russian invasion out on their own citizens by depriving them of the substantial econimical socetial and familial benefits a second language can do

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Jolanta Urbanovič later added, yes we have decided under the current climate that we will adopt Australian profanity instead of teaching Russian, it will best support Ukraine and vilify Russia,

Some examples that I will be posting on our government website will be...

"F**kme Russia, why dont ya just bugger off ya c**ts"

"'Hey Fair suck of the sav Russia why don't ya GFY"

"Haha F**k me dead who wold have thought Russia would conscript so many drongos and wankers"

"Strewith Ukraines up against some wombats who'll end up rooting eachother"

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"

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This is nothing new. Lithuania has been phasing out Russian since the later half of the first decade of 21st century.

And from 2015 you can no longer even fill out forms in Lithuania in russian language.

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To pick other foreign languages also requires more teachers speaking those other languages. I hope government is prepared to dish out money for salaries to encourage young people to stay and become new generation of teachers, instead of running away to other foreign countries.

Same thing is happening in Riga. Hell, Daugavpils is mostly Russian-language dominant.

I know and speak pretty good in Russian compared to my peers ( thanks, Dad), but even I don't see the point of language in Baltics. It just needs to stop eventually.

Everyone should

Well duh, Lithuanian and LAtvian are of the same baltic family but languages are so differen't, it is impossible to communicate. A russian and Polish have better understanding of each other language than Two Baltics. Add in, a bunch of nordics and you must speak english out of politness.

Yes, I am not saying that Russian don't have good authors, but the cultural aspect is just a bonus I guess. The main point is the value of the language learnt. You can learn French and then go to a university in France or get a job in a business that works with France. You could do the same with Russian, of course, but... yeah. If you had to choose one...

>It's weird that you say let's forget politics and war and then bring politics in describing Russia.

Yeah, I guess I got carried away, just a lot of emotions directed towards the east at the moment.

Then everything is unfair. The fact that the same funds also don't go to creating more opportunities for kids to learn more directly useful languages such as English is also unfair.

Can't blame ya. What with Russian government deciding to become terrorists.

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I can't really comment on bussiness side of things in modern Lithuania. Haven't lived there for 12 years and things most certainly changed.

But 12 years ago knowing Russian was a massive boon for finding jobs in Lithuania it self. Even more so if you knew both English and Russian.

You need to read to do well in lessons, not the other way around.

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Now show this to dumb fucks from Ukraine who can’t comprehend this. Bruh mayor of Kharkiv recently got fine for not speaking Ukrainian… And it’s Ukraine having war and especially Kharkiv being one of frontline cities, not Lithuania.

Like asking them works

Somehow I don't think that removing Russian as a useless 3rd language thought in school is the same as forced assimilation.

Why isn't Russian thought in USA as a 2nd language. Sounds like ethnic cleansing according to you.

Russian isn't banned, that is a lie. Schools just won't be paying for a useless 3rd language.

You are demonstrating your inability to read and understand basic English.

Nothing is being banned.

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> You can learn French and then go to a university in France or get a job in a business that works with France. You could do the same with Russian, of course, but... yeah. If you had to choose one...

Language is not the the only deciding factor though. Education in Russia is free, cost of living is low. There are significant amount of students from Africa and China who come for education to Russia and then return home.

The only thing here is that Lithuania has a lot of teachers that can teach Russian and not so much that can teach other languages, the process of phasing out will finish itself when generations fully change, you can't just will teachers into existence even if you had extra money. Calls for it is just populism just like a lot of other stuff that politicians say.

It's not like it's impossible to choose German if you want your kids to study it right now. In practical terms, especially with increased migration from the east, knowing Russian is not an unpractical thing if you do not plan on leaving Eastern Europe.

But I am opposed to having a mandatory additional foreign language in general, so if that's the case, it shouldn't be forced into people, but definitely should not be removed as an option.

> What second language would you want them to learn?

Most common are German/French as 3rd language - since second language is mandatory English

For context: Lithuanians learn Lithuanian - their native language. Then they learn English in kindegarten and/or from 2nd grade of school. Then at 6th grade they get to pick a second foreign language. That depends on school - some schools already didn't have russian as an option, mine had French, German, and Russian, and the only reason I chose russian was because my parents understood it so they thought I should take it so they could help me with homework.

Removing russian would be removing one of the multiple second-foreign-language options. That's it. And it's not even popular and/or useful (most businesses are Europe/Asia/US oriented. Most students choose to study in Western Europe).

Russian schools (minority-specific school, just like Jewish or Polish or Ukrainian) where all subjects but Lithuanian language are taught in russian, still exist with no plans to close them down. This will only affect 2nd foreign language learning in standard Lithuanian public schools.

Same here, completely useless. I wish I had German instead. I did pick it up at year 11, but we only had 1.5h a week which was a lot less than other languages and was not enough

2nd foreign language options in my school were German, French, and Russian. (1st foreign language is English). My parents made me choose russian and I regretted it ever since. Especially that it's useless for me other than see war reports in their language and understanding just how fucked up their general population is. Meanwhile some of my classmates who picked French ended up studying in France. My half-sister is Belarusian and she picked russian as a 2nd foreign language because she already spoke it and it was an easy way to get good grades with minimal effort. Also, Russian schools where all subjects except for Lithuanian and English are taught in russian exist with no plans to close them. So what are your reasons to keep teaching it in Lithuanian schools? To make more kids lazy or miserable?

I know what they're saying and I regret it. Because as soon as I start to explain to non-russian speakers how absolutely fucked up MOST russians are I get called names. So what's the point of knowing that language lol

By shooting their dicks off

You do understand off course that a large group of eastern Europeans know Russian as a second language, because... History. It can be useful even without going to Russia.

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Redditors live in a magic world where learning new languages is easy and cheap, so it doesn't matter if the language itself has any practical application.

For me its different. I took English and then German ( remember 0 German) but I work in logistics in Sweden and the amount off times Im sent to communicate with truck drivers with my extremely limited russian is insane. I wish I actually studied it. The amount of Ukrainian, Belarusian, Estonian, Latvian drivers are crazy, even the older Polish ones.

yeah, a lot has changed these past few decades. With the sanctions that started a long time ago, a lot of businesses has reorganised from working with russia to working within EU and western world, and obviously "the money is in the west".

Probably the biggest industry that I can think of that Russian language is still needed is logistics - someone has to know Russian to speak to the drivers that majority comes from the East and they don't speak English.

Yes, but I think that Lithuanian students have better options for education to choose from than African or Chinese students overall.

Language is a weapon of war for Russia. It's used as a scapegoat to excuse imperialism, at the same time, Ukraine has a very signifigant Russian speaking, and often Russian ethnic population who have absolutely no loyalties to Russia. who reject Russia's ethnostate bullshit.

Russia found that out the hard way when they tried to Waltz troops into Kharkiv, and got obliterated.

Yep, there's plenty of cases where kids would like to learn German, but the school does not have a German teacher, but they definitely have a Russian one.

I hope that with the access to remote learning at some point kids will be able to choose whatever language they want and learn it remotely.

I meant as second foreign language, sorry!

Yes. I do speak Russian. The times that I needed it were when I was travelling through former USSR countries where English is not that prevalent and when talking to some Ukrainian refugees if they don't speak English.

If I could trade knowing russian to any western language (not even western, basically any) I would, in a heartbeat.

The Russians complaining about this are like Americans who complain about the locals in Cancun not knowing English and then yelling at the taxi driver and calling it discrimination against English speakers.

Lmao "central asians should follow suit" really is something someone that doesnt know about central asia would say,banning the russian language would be a sure way to cause a explosion of interethnict civil wars

>choosing russian in 90ies and up to 2010 was done because knowing russian was better than not knowing it since it was akin to second language and was useful at job hunting.

Excuse me, but are you from some different, alternate universe version of Lithuania?

Russia has the softest soft power rn, #1

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Queue Russians crying about persecution when all that's happening is their language will be treated exactly like dozens of others and simply not be given any special consideration.

Thanks to Putin, the economic reasons to learn Russian have evaporated. Learning it for conversation with family is still important for some people, but I would imagine that Russian language tutoring (which still exists in Lithuania) would be a faster and more efficient way to get conversational fluency than several years of school classes.

Forgive me for coming off as ignorant, being an American I usually am, but what is the reasoning behind teaching English that early in Lithuania?

It just surprises me the hear that English is that taught so early in a country that many, many, of my fellow countrymen couldn't find on a map if their lives depended on it.

Unlike the Germans though, Russia has continuously been aggressive towards the baltics for hundreds of years.

English is taught pretty early in most countries as it is recognized as an international language - I'm Lithuanian and all of the jobs I've had post school have required at least some fluency in English, with other languages being considered as bonuses.
To clarify, it being taught in kindergarten is not the norm - most people only start learning it in 2nd grade.

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Because English is basically Lingua Franca nowadays. You can communicate in it pretty much anywhere in the world and a lot of businesses have English and their main language.

My cousin's regular public kindegarten has English lessons and he's not yet 5 years old. When I was in kindegarten over 20 years ago my mom allowed me to take an English class once a week too. It's not uncommon.