ABSTRACT
All human beings, under normal circumstances, acquire language, and in ordinary day-to-day experience, language is taken for granted almost as much as the air with which reader give voice to their utterances. However, when the language they use faces challenge, the enormous complexity of the phenomenon and of our understanding of it begins to emerge. The foreign language traverses communication, and a dimension of home life, and of the culture that informed it, becomes almost inexplicably inaccessible. Nevertheless, a sense of connection with the home language frequently remains and informs the second and subsequent generation’s image of ‘home’ and of their place within it. The term ‘heritage language’ seeks to capture this sense of lasting connection with a language that holds personal significance, regardless of actual ability to speak it with any degree of fluency.
