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Introduction

Heritage Languages, Heritage Speakers, Heritage Linguistics

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  04 November 2021

By
Silvina Montrul  and
Maria Polinsky
Edited by
Silvina Montrul  and
Maria Polinsky
Silvina Montrul
Affiliation:
University of Illinois, Urbana-Champaign
Maria Polinsky
Affiliation:
University of Maryland, College Park
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Summary

Heritage languages are minority languages learned in a bilingual or multilingual environment.1 They include languages in diaspora spoken by immigrants and their children, aboriginal or indigenous languages whose role has been diminished by colonizing languages, and historical minority languages that coexist with other standard languages in diverse territories. All these examples indicate that in any given context a heritage language instantiates one of the languages in a bilingual society; thus, heritage languages fall under the rubric of bilingualism. Bilingualism is not a new phenomenon, socially, demographically, or linguistically, but attention to heritage languages has been relatively new in bilingualism research, with first mentions of heritage speakers in English research studies dating back to the 1990s (Cummins 1991).

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Chapter
Information
The Cambridge Handbook of Heritage Languages and Linguistics , pp. 1 - 10
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2021

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References

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