Family language policies, educational dynamics and Spanish as a heritage language in Germany

The transmission of Spanish among heritage speakers is shaped by communicative practices within the family, by their distribution across different geographical areas and the opportunities to use the heritage language in those settings and, finally, by the availability of educational programmes that reinforce the acquired competence. This article analyses how these three factors interact to support the maintenance of Spanish as a heritage language in Germany, the third-largest European country in terms of its heritage Spanish-speaking population. The study draws on demolinguistic data to reconstruct various speaker profiles and the linguistic environments in which they live and are educated, as well as a sociolinguistic survey designed to identify communication practices within households.