ABSTRACT
This chapter examines the situation and teaching of heritage languages, first indigenous heritage languages in the United States (US) and Ecuador, and then immigrant heritage languages in the United Kingdom (UK). Heritage language speakers typically have a historical link to an indigenous language or an immigrant language, which is not normally taught in the mainstream school system of the host society. The chapter presents the situation of Navajo, a Native American language in the US, and of Quichua, an indigenous language in Ecuador, and then at a number of immigrant minority languages taught within the UK complementary school system. It provides more examples from the literature which reveal the dominance of the standard language and purist ideologies in heritage language education. The chapter discusses heritage language education in a more general way with reference to the European Union (EU) policy of multilingualism.
