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.
Russians in the Baltic states
In 2011 pro-Russian groups in Latvia collected sufficient signatures to initiate the process of amending the Constitution to give Russian the status of an official language. On 18 February 2012, constitutional referendum on whether to adopt Russian as a second official language was held. According to the Central Election Commission, 74.8% voted against, 24.9% voted for and the voter turnout was 71.1%. The non-citizen community (290,660 or 14.1% of Latvia's entire population) was non entitled to vote.