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 Latvia
Russians were the main ethnic group in the USSR both in number and in political influence. Under the conditions of Soviet Latvia, Russian culture dominated the whole non-Latvian population of the Republic. The Russian language also formed a new group of Russian-speaking Belarusians, Ukrainians, Poles, Jews and Germans of Latvia. In the period of 1959–1979 the number of ethnic Russians in Latvia increased by 47%, but the number of non-Russians considering Russian their mother tongue increased by 78%. A highly developed infrastructure was developed in Latvia on the basis of the Russian language: a broad system of secondary and higher education, science and mass media.