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.
Language policy in Latvia
It should be noted that Latgalian was not considered a language separate from Latvian in any census, whether during the Soviet period, or since the restoration of independence. Therefore, no specific data on the number of its native speakers were available until the 2011 census. Then, 8.8. % of the population indicated they use Latgalian, described as a variety of Latvian.
Other than native speakers of Latvian and Russian, the numbers of speakers of different mother tongues recorded in the 2000 census were: