Picture this true story, which happened many years ago in small town Ontario and likely plays out in similar ways many times in many places:
A young woman was visiting her sister-in-law for a few days and speaking with her mother on the phone. Our young lady was Canadian born to recently arrived Latvian parents so she grew up speaking Latvian and English, in that order. Out of respect or habit, she often spoke Latvian with her parents. It’s understandable if you are unfamiliar with Latvia, a very small country on the Baltic Sea that was, when this scenario played out in the late 1970s, an involuntary part of the Soviet Union with less people than Toronto. This sister-in-law’s family had been in Canada for generations and may not have known, or cared to know, the language her visitor spoke on the phone. Fair enough. When our young lady hung up the phone, though, her sister-in-law asked, “Did you understand anything you just said?”
