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 grammar
Unlike, for example, Romance languages where conjugation classes are assigned based on thematic vowels (e.g., "-are", "-ere", "-ire" forming, respectively, the 1st, 2nd and 3rd conjugation in Italian) Latvian verbs are classified in conjugations regardless of whether they end in "-āt", "-ēt", "-īt", "-ot" or "-t". The classification depends on whether the verb stem has a thematic vowel, and if so, whether it is retained in present tense.