Heritage language maintenance and management across three generations: the case of Spanish-speakers in Israel

ABSTRACT

Spanish in Israel has been the heritage language (HL) of some 130,000 Spanish speakers. The uniqueness of this immigrant community lays in the evolution, existence and maintenance of Spanish as the (HL). This study showcases Spanish speakers as an example of a well-integrated minority. The results of this study showed that the two first generations maintained Spanish as a means of communication with their families and immigrant friends, but at the same time quickly learned Hebrew to communicate in their wider professional and social circles. The usage, efforts, values, benefits, and motivation to maintain and foster the HL is mostly enforced by the older members of the family. The second – the ‘transitional’ – generation strive to maintain the HL but are cognizant of its sustainability for the generation above and below. The third generation – the young – finds practical and instrumental benefits in the HL particularly for communicating with older family members. We conclude by recognizing that though families are the propelling force for HL, the role of the educational system should be more central and greater efforts must be made to make it a dominant transfer agent of HL policy and practice.

KEYWORDS:

• Heritage language
• maintenance
• loss
• inter-generational
• migration
• language policy

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Notes

1 According to the 1922 Mandate for Palestine: ‘English, Arabic and Hebrew shall be the official languages of Palestine’.

2 According to The Law and Administration Ordinance No. 1 0f 5708-1948, ‘Any provision in the law requiring the use of the English language is repealed’.

3 The probability that any two people of the country selected at random would have different mother tongues. The highest possible value, 1, indicates total diversity (that is, no two people have the same mother tongue) while the lowest possible value, 0, indicates no diversity at all (that is, everyone has the same mother tongue) (Ethnologue).

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Anat Stavans

Anat Stavans, an associate professor in applied linguistics in the English Department at Beit Berl.

Maya Ashkenazi

Maya Ashkenazi, a teacher trainee in the English Department.