Impact of Environmental Factors on Heritage Language Vitality

Switzerland features many so-called heritage languages. These are defined as indigenous or immigrant minority languages, usually spoken and transmitted within the family. Maintaining heritage languages has been shown by previous research to be vital for individual and community well-being. However, language maintenance comes with many challenges, especially for socially disadvantaged groups like minorities often are.

In her research project, Cristiana Lucchetti shows that many of the challenges facing heritage language maintenance are engrained in the spatial and social environment. Her study focuses on Bosnian/Croatian/Montenegrin/Serbian and Albanian in Switzerland. Among the environmental factors licensing shift away from the heritage language to the majority language, Cristiana Lucchetti has identified residential segregation, urbanization, access to infrastructure, local and transnational networks and others. These factors were identified based on interview, cognitive map and questionnaire data collected by Cristiana with the support of Jolina Saliquni (research assistant).

Cristiana has recently presented insights into her study at the University of Chicago, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, the Annual Meeting of the Linguistic Society of America and at the National Heritage Language Resource Center Conference at UCLA. Results from these talks are going to be submitted for publication in the Proceedings of the Linguistic Society of America and the Heritage Language Journal. Cristiana and Jolina will present further insights at ICLaVE 13 in June/July 2026 in Lausanne. Further updates will follow.