This page's purpose is to provide support for a petition to Rosetta Stone to encourage the development and sale of a Lativan language edition of their Rosetta Stone language learning software. Previous inquries about the plans for a Latvian language edition have resulted in Rosetta Stone replying that there are "too few speakers" of the Latvian language to warrant development of a Latvian edition, yet multiple languages Rosetta Stone aleady offers have fewer speaker than Latvian.
According to the Wikipedia:
"Latvian (latvie%u0161u valoda) is the official state language of Latvia. It is also sometimes referred to as Lettish. There are about 1.4 million native Latvian speakers in Latvia and about 150,000 abroad. The Latvian language has a relatively large number of non-native speakers, atypical for a small language.
Due to the horrendous attrocities inflicted on Latvia during World War II by both the Nazis and the Soviets, many, many Latvians fled Latvia and thus there are huge numbers of first- and second-generation Latvians living outside of Latvia--many of whom would like to learn to speak the Latvian language.
In addition, the Latvian market is a growing section of Europe since Latvia has always been a "gateway" between the Baltic sea and points inland.
Join the cause to urge Rosetta Stone to help people learn Latvian! It will be a win-win for everyone! Rosetta Stone can make a fair profit while we all get to (finally) have an effective way to learn to speak Latvian. Please join our cause to get Rosetta Stone to develop the Latvian language edition!
