%0 Journal Article
%T Heritage languages are not weak! How bilinguals benefit from language diversity
%A Arnaus Gil, Laia
%A Stahnke, Johanna
%A Colaco, Isabel Silva
%A Müller, Natascha
%J Romanica Cracoviensia
%V First view
%N Tom 24, numer 3


%@ 1732-8705
%U https://ejournals.eu/czasopismo/romanica-cracoviensia/artykul/heritage-languages-are-not-weak-how-bilinguals-benefit-from-language-diversity
%X Bilingual children’s first two languages are often characterized as majority languages (ML) and heritage (HL) languages, since they can develop in a different pace: the HL becomes the ‘weak’ language with increasing age, especially when time outside the family increases. Our study compares longitudinal data of seven French-German/Italian children (age range 1;4-5;4) who acquire French as an HL or ML with the respective groups of monolingual peers. Language competence was assessed via MLU. The main results are: Surprisingly, HL French develops similarly to ML French and monolingual French. By contrast, German and Italian as HLs develop less target-like than their monolingual peers and as ML languages. We explain these results on the basis of language diversity and variety of contacts.