Language policy and smaller national languages : the Baltic States in the new millenium

Language policy in the post-independent Baltic States Estonia, Latvia and Lithuania has attracted considerable political and academic interest. Regaining their independence in 1991 after half century of Soviet rule, the Baltic States have pursued a range of language policy initiatives to ensure this status, even though at the time of renewed independence the countries had sizable portions of their population who did not know the national languages in each case - Estonian, Latvian, Lithuanian. This chapter investigates these competing responses to Baltic language policy politically and institutionally, tempering this with a historical and sociolinguistic analysis that shows that the complex language practices and attitudes of Baltic residents often differ sharply from the political rhetoric.