Original scientific paper
Types of heritage speakers
Zrinka Jelaska
orcid.org/0000-0001-6189-2485
; Faculty of Philosophy, University of Zagreb, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Heritage speakers were raised in homes where the non-majority language was spoken and the dominant language of their larger (national) society was also acquired. In order to be a heritage speaker or learner in an educative enviroment, a person has to possess some language proficiency, at least receptive, in addition to cultural knowledge. This makes their language development different from foreign language students (those who do not understand the language of their parents, grandparents or other ancestors should be called predački ancestral learners, and later on, ancestral speakers, as their language development is the same as that of foreign language students).
Several groups of heritage languages are proposed so far, the best known are probably J.\ Fishman's (2001) indigenous, colonial and immigrant languages, to which refugee languages were added (Cummis 2005). This paper proposes Croatian terms for three types of heritage speakers according to the influences their linguistic and state environment has on their language development. English equivalents are also offered for use in international scholarly papers. They are chosen from English synonymic terms which may have different meanings in different English-speaking societies, some of which may be considered incorrect or not entirely appropriate in one country and quite appropriate in another.
The criterion for categorization is the original country where the language is the dominant language spoken by its native speakers (many of them monolingual in the strict meaning of the word), the country where the heritage speakers currently live and the country where the heritage speaker previously lived during their language acquisition. Three types are proposed: The first type consists of those who were born and are living in the native speakers' country (indigenous speakers), the second consists of those whose parents or other ancestors had moved to a different country (emigrant speakers), and the third one consists of those who were first emigrant heritage speakers and then moved to the native speakers' country (eng.\ re-emigrant speakers). Indigenous speakers had always been living in the country where their language was spoken and they are native speakers of that language --- no one speaks it `better'. However, if the majority or the official language of the country is their dominant language while their indigenous language is spoken as a minority language and restricted as (one) of the home languages, they are indigenous heritage speakers. The offspring of emigrants that were born in a `new' country where they are a minority (including very young children that were born before emigration) are emigrant heritage speakers. Reemigrants have been acquiring their heritage language in some emigrant communities and then have moved back to the `old' country where their ancestors had been living before migration.
Indigenous speakers may be urođenički `aboriginal' heritage speakers, which means that they are the first known nations living on that land (i.e.\ Australian Aboriginals, Basks) or domorodački `autochthonous' heritage speakers, which means that they are the oldest people living there, although it is known that they migrated there from some other place (i.e.\ Maoris in New Zealand, South Slavs).
Emigrant speakers are given the term in relation to the native speakers of that language living in their own country. But as their heritage language is defined in terms of the majority language of the country they migrated to, they may be useljenički `immigrant' heritage speakers, naseljenički `settlers' or historical minority speakers, kolonijalni `colonial' speakers, or selioci `migrant' speakers.
Reemigrant heritage speakers may be preseljenički `resettled' speakers if they moved from their home country where they acquired their typically minority language as a heritage language to the country where it is a majority language. They are povratni `returning' speakers if they were born in the majority language country and lived there for some years, then moved to another country where they were acquiring their language as a heritage language, and then moved back to the country where they were born.
With regard to the reasons for migration from or to the native language country, people could migrate of their own free will (gladly or because they were persuaded), unitentionally as little children do, or because they were forced to migrate. Forced migration includes escapees, deportees or banished people and kidnapees (mainly children). Deported people could be just deported out of a certain country, or those who had banished them could also dictate where they would go. Hence they could be raseljeni `displaced' --- banished to different places so that they do not maintain their family, ethnic or linguistic features; prebačeni `transfered' if they were placed somewhere where they could not leave easily, premješteni `translocated' if they were forcibly moved to the country their ancestors came from. As can be seen, colonial and immigrant languages would be considered subtypes of emigrant languages, whereas refugee languages would not, as heritage speakers of refugee languages are the children of the refugees (born prior to or after fleeing), and, as such, they would be considered immigrant heritage speakers.
Keywords
heritage speakers; indigenous speakers; emigrant speakers; reemigrant speakers
Hrčak ID:
148301
URI
Publication date:
1.10.2014.
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