The Cambridge Handbook of Heritage Languages and 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.