Abstract

BILIć, Josip Bruno; CUNEO, Paola  and  FRANIć, Ivana. Croatian as a Heritage Language in Argentina: Between Vulnerability and Linguistic Maintenance. Íkala [online]. 2023, vol.28, n.1, pp.86-104.  Epub Apr 23, 2023. ISSN 0123-3432.  https://doi.org/10.17533/udea.ikala.v28n1a05.

In the South American context, migrant population makes up for a large share who, in most cases, stop using their heritage language. This work aims to report on the results of a study that inquired in the status of Croatian language as a heritage language in South America, viewed from the strain between linguistic displacement and maintenance. The analysis focused in Argentina, where an estimated 250 000 and 500 000 group of people come from Croatian descent. The study was based upon a corpus of Croatian speech from second- and third-generation migrants, gathered during J. Bilić’s fieldwork as a part of his doctoral research work “Croatian Language as a Heritage Language in Southern Santa Fe (Argentina)”, and from official and non-official records, gathered by authors. Findings suggest that there are signs of linguistic attrition on phonological, morphosyntactic, and lexical levels. Meanwhile, language awareness identity and strengthening play a significant role for the maintenance of the ancestral language in the migrating context. This work contributes to the study of minority and endangered languages, and helps understanding the dynamic processes influencing the vitality of heritage languages.

Keywords : Croatian language; linguistic displacement; language strengthening; language identity; heritage language; language and migration..

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