Latvian language
The history of the Latvian language (cf. below) has placed it in a peculiar position for a language of its size whereby it is spoken by a large number of non-native speakers as compared to native speakers. The immigrant and minority population in Latvia is 700,000 people: Russians, Belarusians, Ukrainians, Poles, and others. The majority of immigrants came to Latvia between 1940–1991; supplementing pre-existing ethnic minority communities (Latvian Germans, Latvian Jews). In a recent survey, 60% of Latvia's ethnic minorities described their knowledge of Latvian as fluent. Fluency in Latvian is prevalent among the younger generations of the minorities.
Latvian language
During the Soviet occupation (1940–1991), the policy of Russification greatly affected the Latvian language. Throughout this period, many Latvians and Latvia’s other ethnicities faced deportation and persecution. A massive immigration from the Soviet republics of Russia, Ukraine, Belarus and others followed, largely as a result of Stalin's plan to integrate Latvia and the other Baltic republics into the Soviet Union by means of Russian colonization. As a result, the proportion of the ethnic Latvian population within the total population was reduced from 80% in 1935 to 52% in 1989. In Soviet Latvia, most of the immigrants who settled in the country did not learn Latvian. Today, Latvian is the mother tongue of more than 60% of the country's population.