Analytics, Demography, Latvia, Society, Statistics
International Internet Magazine. Baltic States news & analytics
Friday, 26.04.2024, 03:33
Latvian is mother tongue of 60.8% of the population of Latvia
The statistics for the population mother tongue is similar to that for ethnic composition – at the beginning of 2018 Latvians accounted for 62.2% of the population.
Mother
tongue of population of Latvia
(as % of total population)
|
2000 Population
and Housing Census data |
2017 External
Migration Survey results |
Latvian |
58.2 |
60.8 |
Russian |
37.5 |
36.0 |
Other |
4.3 |
3.2 |
(as % of total population)
Not always people speak their mother tongue at home. Results acquired in 2017 show that 61.3% of the country’s population spoke Latvian at home, while the share of population speaking Russian accounted for 37.7%. The proportions have not changed notably since 2011, when statistics for the language mainly spoken at home was acquired in the Population and Housing Census.
Change of the language mainly spoken at home sometimes is related to having spouse of different nationality. Official marriage statistics shows that 37% of marriages in Latvia are registered by Latvians having spouse of different nationality.
Compared to the results of Population and Housing Census 2011, the share of people at home mainly speaking Latvian has risen by 1.9 percentage points, while the share of people speaking mainly Russian has dropped by 2.6 percentage points.
At the end of 2017, 1.9% of Latvians indicated that at home communicate in Latvian and 7.5% indicated that speak Russian. Out of Russian population, 90.7% indicated that at home mainly speak Russian and 8.5% indicated that use Latvian.
Regional breakdown of statistics for the language mainly used at home is similar to the mother tongue statistics – the largest share of population mainly using Latvian is recorded in Vidzeme (91.4%) and the smallest in Latgale (38.6%) and Riga (42.7%). In Kurzeme, Latvian in used by 78.4%, in Pierīga by 75.9%, and in Zemgale by 75.8% of the population. The greatest difference between the mother tongue and the language mainly used at home may be observed in Latgale – Russian is mainly used at home by 4.8 percentage points more people than the share having it as mother tongue.
(as % of total population)
(as % of the total population in the respective age group)