This book presents new empirical findings about Germanic heritage varieties spoken in North America: Dutch, German, Pennsylvania Dutch, Icelandic, Norwegian, Swedish, West Frisian and Yiddish, and varieties of English spoken both by heritage speakers and in communities after language shift. The volume focuses on three critical issues underlying the notion of ‘heritage language’: acquisition, attrition and change. The book offers theoretically-informed discussions of heritage language processes across phonetics and phonology, morphology, syntax and semantics and the lexicon, in addition to work on sociolinguistics, historical linguistics and contact settings. With this, the volume also includes a variety of frameworks and approaches, synchronic and diachronic. Most European Germanic languages share some central linguistic features, such as V2, gender and agreement in the nominal system, and verb inflection. As minority languages faced with a majority language like English, similarities and differences emerge in patterns of variation and change in these heritage languages. These empirical findings shed new light on mechanisms and processes.

The contributions in Moribund Germanic Heritage Languages in North America advance the ever-expanding research program in formal and theoretical treatments of heritage language grammars through in-depth empirical investigations. The core focus on moribund varieties of heritage Germanic languages extends beyond the exploration of the individual heritage language grammars and contributes to larger discussions in the field of Germanic linguistics.

Heritage languages are minority languages learned in a bilingual environment. These include immigrant languages, aboriginal or indigenous languages and historical minority languages. In the last two decades, heritage languages have become central to many areas of linguistic research, from bilingual language acquisition, education and language policies, to theoretical linguistics. Bringing together contributions from a team of internationally renowned experts, this Handbook provides a state-of-the-art overview of this emerging area of study from a number of different perspectives, ranging from theoretical linguistics to language education and pedagogy. Presenting comprehensive data on heritage languages from around the world, it covers issues ranging from individual aspects of heritage language knowledge to broader societal, educational, and policy concerns in local, global and international contexts. Surveying the most current issues and trends in this exciting field, it is essential reading for graduate students and researchers, as well as language practitioners and other language professionals.

A celebration of cultural inheritance and the evolution of language. Mapping the language, literature, and history of Icelandic immigrants and their descendants, this collection, translated and expanded for English-speaking audiences, delivers a comprehensive overview of Icelandic linguistic and cultural heritage in North America. Drawn from the findings of a three-year study involving over two hundred participants from Manitoba, North Dakota, Saskatchewan, and the Pacific West Coast, Icelandic Heritage in North America reveals the durability and versatility of the Icelandic language. Editors Birna Arnbjörnsdóttir, Höskuldur Thráinsson, and Úlfar Bragason bring together a range of interdisciplinary scholarship to investigate the endurance of the “Western Icelander.” Chapters delve into the literary works of Icelandic immigrant writers and interpret archival letters, newspapers, and journal entries to provide both qualitative and quantitative linguistic analyses and to mark significant cultural shifts between early settlement and today. Icelandic Heritage in North America offers an in-depth examination of Icelandic immigrant identity, linguistic evolution, and legacy.

This book provides a detailed but accessible introduction to the development of the German language from the earliest reconstructable prehistory to the present day. Joe Salmons explores a range of topics in the history of the language, offering answers to questions such as: How did German come to have so many different dialects and close linguistic cousins like Dutch and Plattdeutsch? Why does German have 'umlaut' vowels and why do they play so many different roles in the grammar? Why are noun plurals so complicated? Are dialects dying out today? Does English, with all the words it loans to German, pose a threat to the language? This second edition has been extensively expanded and revised to include extended coverage of syntactic and pragmatic change throughout, expanded discussion of sociolinguistic aspects, language variation, and language contact, and more on the position of German in the Germanic family. The book is supported by a companion website and is suitable for language learners and teachers and students of linguistics, from undergraduate level upwards. The new edition also includes more detailed background information to make it more accessible for beginners.

A pioneering study of heritage languages, from a leading scholar in this area of study world-wide.

The first book-length treatment of the phonetics and phonology of heritage languages, spanning a range of linguistic areas and communities.