She worked with 31 Chinese-Canadian immigrants from both second and third generations to learn how bilingual schools impact heritage language abilities. University of Alberta alum, June Cheung, focused on this growing issue for her thesis titled, “ The Impact of a Bilingual School Program on Generational Heritage Language Loss,” published earlier this year. Bilingual programs for language maintenance Some third-generation immigrants must find various ways to communicate with their grandparents in their heritage languages. Her other suggestions consisted of, “Interaction with friends in the heritage language, reading, Skype with relatives in the home country and extra-curricular activities in the heritage language.” To promote heritage language usage, attendance of heritage language schools was top of her list. “ discredit that this is their heritage, this is their whole foundation, and the more we learn about children, the more we learn about how important family and cultural identity is,” says Daignault.ĭaskalaki stresses that on top of limited opportunities to speak the language, immigrant children don’t always have resources for formal instruction in their heritage language, like bilingual or immersion programs. Daignault, who is taking a minor in child psychology and often works with ethnic immigrant children, sees the negative effects of losing heritage languages on a regular basis.
This can be detrimental - not only to family ties, but to children’s overall wellbeing, says both Daskalaki and Daignault.ĭaskalaki says important things, such as being able to tell stories, play, argue and express emotions to their family, are lost when a child is unable to speak their mother tongue. “The use of the heritage language, on the other hand, is more limited both in quantitative and qualitative terms: it is typically used at home with few speakers on topics concerning the everyday routine.” “If we think about it, immigrant children use the majority language in a variety of contexts, with a variety of speakers, for a variety of purposes,” says Daskalaki. This causes an incessant cycle of gaining and losing languages.Įvangelia Daskalaki, an assistant linguistics professor at the University of Alberta, says immigrant families are losing their heritage languages faster simply due to limited opportunities to speak those languages.
While this increasing immigrant population means an increase in the number of heritage languages brought into the city, the general trend is that these languages are often lost by the third generation. Since 1981, this population has increased by almost 600 per cent. The process for approving those programs in Calgary is complicated and one that requires substantial community support - something many groups might have a hard time garnering.Īccording to Statistics Canada’s most recent census data, Calgary was home to 404,700 immigrants in 2016, making up approximately 30 per cent of the city’s population. Preserving heritage languages through resources like bilingual school programs can be critical for maintaining immigrants’ ethnic identities. As a second-generation immigrant who doesn’t speak her heritage language, her story is similar to many others who are born to immigrant families across Canada. “I feel very isolated from that cultural group.”ĭaignault isn’t alone. What is being Indo-Carribean? What is being Trinidadian? … I don’t know,” says Daignault. Now, at 23 years old, Daignault finally understands the important things she lost along with her mother tongue: a connection to her culture, a sense of belonging and even the confidence to identify as an ethnic woman. When her Indo-Carribean mother and grandmother immigrated to Canada, they made a decision many do when they immigrate: to let go of the Hindi language and learn English. Like many children of immigrants, growing up without her heritage language was normal for Katarina Daignault.
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