[nj923f]

> There are no major cultural or ethnic similarities.

Apart from food, folklore, traditions, musical and literatal traditions, grammar and punctuation?

> The language is so different it doesn't even belong to the same branch in the language tree. (compared to family of Slavic languages - Ukrainian, Belarusian, Slovak, Polish, Czech, etc)

Actually it's common Balto-Slavic branch. I'm not kidding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balto-Slavic_languages

> Latvians do not want anything to do with Russia or it's culture or it's politics.

Politics - wery true, culture - not much so. Older people might not want to have anything to do with Russian culture, but they don't really have much choice, as there isn't much going on in Latvia and they don't speak English. Thus every old lady in the country knows what's going on between Pugacheva and Kirkorov (old Russian pop-figures) and pretty much everyone is watching Russian TV (because there is no alternatives entertainment-wise).

[stackallocator]

I'll repeat. For the most part, there are no major cultural and ethnic similarities.

The damage and the marks the Soviet regime has left is undeniable however.

If you have heard Latvian, Lithuanian or Estonian language you'll quickly notice just how different they are and bunching them together with Slavic languages makes absolutely no sense in any shape or form.

Baltic languages are very clearly distinct from Slavic ones: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/1b/Slavic_l...

They are on a completely separate branch which - for some odd reason - in this particular interpretation is held by a common root. The decision to have an encompassing "Balto-Slavic" group is questionable at best and is often disputed.

Even the Wikipedia source says as much: "Some linguists, however, have recently suggested that Balto-Slavic should be split into three equidistant groups: Eastern Baltic, Western Baltic and Slavic."

Anecdotal evidence time!

All older ladies I know do not watch Russian television and don't understand Russian language well enough to do so.

Saying that everyone is watching Russian TV is objectively false. There are alternatives entertainment-wise! Latvia is in top10 by average internet speed. 70-80% of the population use the internet fairly regularly. Most households in Latvia do have an internet connection. Even out in the country!

Even if a person doesn't speak English, there still is a huge difference between watching Russian TV and watching downloaded American movies and TV-series over-dubbed in Russian.

Latvian youth almost exclusively consumes media in English.

[ni923f]

> Baltic languages are very clearly distinct from Slavic ones

No, they are not and you're picture is not an argument for this claim. There are differences between Baltic and Slavic languages, sure, but grammatically they are very close. Rules of conjugation/declension are similar, word formation works the same, punctuation rules are almost exactly same, capitalization is similar, word order is close enough that it can be used interchangeably. It's easy to see how that could happen, given long shared history. Denying facts because of your political points is just ridiculous.

> All older ladies I know do not watch Russian television and don't understand Russian language well enough to do so.

You're right, I shouldn't have used that hyperbole. Of course not everyone is watching Russian TV, but in Riga most older people definitely do. And by older I mean >40 years, not necessary seniors. If you live in Riga and haven't met any of them, you probably just are very picky about people you communicate with.

[stackallocator]

You presented the wikipedia article (which contained the image clearly showing two distinct branches) as an argument to begin with. Now it's not good enough anymore?

There are differences between Polish and Russian language. Between Latvian and Russian language - for all intents and purposes - there is nothing common. Oh, but both languages have free-word order!

There is no shared history. Latvia has been part of Germany or Swedish Empire and Polish Livonia far longer than it has ever been under Russian Empire/occupation.

I communicate with people who speak either in Latvian or English.

It seems like you're talking here about the older Russian minority living in Riga. They might be watching Russian TV, who could have thought?

I literally don't know a single Latvian - old or young - who watches Russian TV. I do know older people (>40) people who don't know English well enough (and are too lazy to learn), so they would occasionally watch downloaded American movies or TV-series over-dubbed in Russian.

I think it's pretty clear by now on whose behalf you are posting here. I'm done here.

[nj923f]

I presented wiki article, which did not consist of single image. There were, you know, words grouped in coherent sentences. If you read them, you'd see that the image you showed is just a visual representation of language taxonomy. Languages are divided in families, branches and groups. Indoeuropean language family has among others balto-slavic language branch which consists of presumably older Baltic and younger Slavic languages.

In the comment I originally responded you claimed that Latvian "language is so different it doesn't even belong to the same branch in the language tree". I pointed you that nope, actually it's the same branch. I understand that it's too much details and nuancé for some, but I presumed this being technical website people here would be accustomed to being precise. My appologies.

> There is no shared history. Latvia has been part of Germany or Swedish Empire and Polish Livonia far longer than it has ever been under Russian Empire/occupation.

Nations can have shared history even if they are ruled by different people. During most of the history there were no borders and people would move freely. Later they started to trade. Sholars and some richer people would travel intentionally to see different places. Government agents had to go where they were told. All this facilitated cultural exchange between different ethnic groups that lived in Baltic region. It's easy to see how this could influence languages, especially while languages were only used for oral communication.

> I communicate with people who speak either in Latvian or English.

At least half of Riga population has Russian as one of their mother languages. This percentage is pretty much the same across different communities, sexes and age groups. It was the same among my peers in schools, universities and workplace. If you truly don't know anyone that speaks Russian, you must really hate diversity.

> It seems like you're talking here about the older Russian minority living in Riga. They might be watching Russian TV, who could have thought?

Nope, it's older Latvian population I'm talking about. On a side note, how often do you access internet from different places? Try clearing your cookies and going to YouTube, it will show you what's trending among people in this area. Wherever you try this, no matter what ISP or accesspoint, there will be about half videos from Russia.

Most of the young Latvians that I know, including those from the countryside, are better versed in Russian comedy than in US/English. Russian Comedy Club and projects related to it are extremely well known. Certain Russian music groups are extremely popular, especially among smarter Latvian kids, for instance Akvarium. Last summer they gave a free consert on Dome Square, which was announced just an hour in advance, - it gathered large and mostly Latvian-speaking crowd. You can ignore all this as "damage that Soviet regime left" all you want, but the truth is that this has nothing to do with USSR and just shows that many people choose their entertainment out of what they find interesting/amusing, not what more suits their political agenda.

[mk3]

Are you kidding me Balto-Slavic languages??? 1. Latvian and Estonian belongs to Baltic language family. 2. Estonian language has also nothing to do with slavic language also as it's a branch in Finno-Ugric languages.

Also using wikipedia as a source of information is questionable. As the pages related to post-soviet era countries are propoganda war zone for Russia and the countries itself to promote the point of view needed.

[asveikau]

> Actually it's common Balto-Slavic branch. I'm not kidding: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balto-Slavic_languages

I am American, and my father's parents were from Lithuania.

I noticed recently, within the last few years, that several English Wikipedia articles were edited by someone with a Slavic background to promote the idea that Baltic languages are more related to Slavic ones than I have heard anyone claim before. I would imagine this is a controversial claim in the Baltic states.

At any rate Baltic languages are famously more conservative than Slavic ones. They are of course related as all indo-european languages are. The only question is how far back in history you have to go for that to be a relevant matter. I do not think they are close enough that it is relevant.

[nj923f]

This hasn't been controversial in Latvia at all, at least in 90-00's (not that scientific theories should be judged by how controversial they are among laymen). The theory that I heard in several Latvian schools, is that lithuanians and latvians had a common language with slavs and they got separated somewhere in bronze age. Lithuanian language supposedly is the most archaic language alive (that is closest to proto-indo-european language by some measures). As far as I undestand there is consensus between linguists working in the field, that Baltic and Slavic languages are very close, the only questionable part is whether there was proto-balto-slavic language or whether these languages acquired similarities over time (also, some suggest that slavic languages separated from existing proto-baltic language).

Given tendency for revisionism and troubled past between Baltic states and Russia, one could see how it seems so alien to some people.

Btw, here is article on this topic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Proto-Balto-Slavic_language (also https://lv.wikipedia.org/wiki/Baltu-sl%C4%81vu_pirmvalodas_h... which is much shorter, but has different references), and it seems that theory itself actually has been proposed by western linguists.

[ldev]

Food - yes, a lot. Folklore, traditions, etc - no. The only reason why russian culture was in Lithuania in, lets say, 1980, it's because we were occupied? Mostly nothing left when we regained our independance...

[ni923f]

The post I was replying to, specifically mentioned Latvia. I mostly agree with your characterization of Lithuania. Well, I would add corruption and bureaucracy to the things that still make Lithuania look very familiar to many Russians.

[ice3]

Are you kidding me? I live and work in Lithuania.

Lithuania - corruption index 32/168 [1] Russia - corruption index 119/168 [2]

Regarding bureaucracy:

You do know that almost everything in Lithuania is done electronically? I can open a company in a couple of days without leaving my house. Same with my taxes.

And if I do need to sign something, I usually sign it with my e-signature and just send over the signed PDF.

I haven't seen much bureaucracy here in years.

Now try that in Russia.

Language-wise (another parent, but I'm too lazy to make a 2nd comment):

I speak both - Russian and Lithuanian... and while there are similarities, like next to no word order, structure, punctuation etc. There are more differences than similarities.

Roots of most words are different. There are more verb forms in Lithuanian [3] which slavic languages lack. Lithuanian still preserves a fully functional future tense, unlike say slavic languages that lost the future tense (like english) and have to use a compound future tense.

Lithuanian itself feels much more archaic.

Linguistically the baltic languages are as close to slavic languages as they are close to german languages[4]

[1]http://www.transparency.org/country#LTU [2]http://www.transparency.org/country#RUS [3]http://www.lituanus.org/1987/87_1_04.htm [4]https://elms.wordpress.com/2008/03/04/lexical-distance-among...

[nj923f]

> Lithuania - corruption index 32/168 [1] Russia - corruption index 119/168 [2]

Cool, I was really thinking of former ombudsman/Health Minister ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rimant%C4%97_%C5%A0ala%C5%A1ev... ), Transport Minister ( https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/5225-lithuania-former-ministe... ) and President ( https://www.occrp.org/en/daily/4991-lithuania-former-preside... ), which all have seen bribery-related scandals just this year, but corruption index there is better than in Russia, so I guess everything is fine.

As for bureaucracy, no I didn't know that you have functional electronic government, that's really awesome! My comment was based on experiences there in 2006-2009, I guess a lot have changed since then.

> There are more differences than similarities.

I guess, you realize that that's a really pointless statement. Russian speaker can understand meaning of some spoken sentences and some other words are understandable if you read them. Sure, there are differences, - that's why they are considered separate languages! But Russian speaker without prior knowledge wouldn't understand any sentence in German or Norwegian. I hope this makes sense. Also, speakers of one Slavic language do not necessary understand all other Slavic language speakers, so this just isn't what you should expect from linguistically close languages.

By the way, that picture you linked to (in [4]) clearly shows that Polish is relatively closer to Lithuanian (51-70 distance) than Lithuanian is to German (>=71), check out the diagram's legend.