Dear friends,
As we mark the Official Language Day today, I urge you to contemplate what our beloved Latvian language means to each of us.
For most of us, it is our first language. A language that can exist only here in Latvia, and nowhere else in the world, because our country is the place where we live and our culture comes from.
Language is the value we identify by. It allows us to get in touch with our Latvianness. Latvian language is the expression of what we think and feel in our hearts.
Learning other languages is important and necessary, too, to avoid becoming someone who does not really know any languages and gives off the impression of a half-educated person.
The future of the Latvian language, and thus also our state, is in your hands.
Language can only exist when there are people reading and thinking, speaking and writing in it. It is a living organism.
Let us celebrate our language. Congratulations on the Official Language Day everyone!