Open Access

Heiko F. Marten

• This chapter investigates differences in language regards in Latvia and Estonia. Based on the results of a survey that had about 1000 respondents in each country, it analyses general views on languages and language-learning motivation, as well as specific regards of Estonian, Latvian, Russian, English, German and other languages. The results show that languages and language learning are generally important for the respondents; language-learning motivation is overwhelmingly instrumental. Besides the obvious value of the titular languages of each country, English and Russian are to differing degrees considered of importance for professional and leisure purposes, ahead of German, Finnish (in Estonia) and French, whereas other languages are of little relevance. In more emotionally related categories, differences are more salient. L1-speakers of Russian differ in their views from L1-speakers of Estonian and Latvian, indicating that the linguistic acculturation of society in Estonia tends to be more monodirectional towards Estonian, whereas in Latvia there are more bidirectional tendencies as both Latvian and Russian L1-speakers regard each other’s languages as at least moderately relevant.