eogrāfiski raksti folia geographica xii - Ģeogrāfijas un Zemes zinātņu ...

Preface
This is the second issue of Ģeogrāfiski raksti/Folia geographica published entirely in
English. As the journal of the Latvian Geographical Society, it contains a selection of recent
work by Latvian scholars, or foreign scholars interested in Latvia. Latvian is one of the “small”
languages of the world, as the Finnish geographer Jussi S. Jauhiainen writes in the lead essay of
this volume. Therefore Latvian geographers, like their counterparts working in many other
small languages (when compared to French, German, or Chinese), have to break out of their
small, circumscribed linguistic domain and publish in English, in order to share with the entire
world their general research findings and those specific to Latvia.
Obviously English is the lingua franca of the world and thus the avenue most open to the
world for small nations or for any small linguistic entity. It is an avenue even more significant
for Latvia after joining the European Union, if Latvians are to be fully participating members of
the Union. But it does not mean that Latvian geographers will abandon working in their own
language. As Jauhiainen argues in his essay, particular geographic knowledge is significant in
local cultural contexts and local “geographical concepts are often best expressed in the mother
tongue”.
Edmunds V. Bunkše
Guest Editor