Word.ws English Dictionary

heritage speaker

heritage speaker noun: someone who speaks a heritage language (“a minority language that one acquires as a first language but uses and/or is exposed to less later in life”).

Noun

heritage speaker (plural heritage speakers)

  1. Someone who speaks a heritage language (“a minority language that one acquires as a first language but uses and/or is exposed to less later in life”).
    • At UCLA, which is emerging as a leader in the field, separate classes already are available for heritage speakers of Chinese, Korean, Russian and Spanish.2002 November 27, Stuart Silverstein, “A Heads-Up Approach to Teaching Spanish”, in Los Angeles Times, Los Angeles, L.A.: Los Angeles Times Communications LLC, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the...
    • Kagan's survey of California college students found many "heritage speakers" wished to study their home language at school to connect with their culture, build their literacy, and strengthen their bonds with relatives.2015 October 27, Melinda D. Anderson, “How Politics and Bilingualism Collide in the Classroom”, in The Atlantic, Washington, D.C.: The Atlantic Monthly Group, →ISSN, →OCLC, archived from the original...

Forms of heritage speaker

pluralheritage speakers

Questions about heritage speaker

What does heritage speaker mean?
Heritage speaker means someone who speaks a heritage language (“a minority language that one acquires as a first language but uses and/or is exposed to less later in life”).
What part of speech is heritage speaker?
Heritage speaker is a noun.
What is the plural of heritage speaker?
The plural of heritage speaker is heritage speakers.

Words near heritage speaker in the dictionary

  1. heritage languages
  2. heritage railway
  3. heritage railways
  4. heritage river
  5. heritage rivers
  6. heritage speaker
  7. heritage speakers
  8. heritage tomato
  9. heritage tomatoes
  10. heritage tree
  11. heritages

Source and license

Adapted from Wiktionary: heritage speaker (page history and authors). Text available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 license. Word.ws reformatted the entry and added links. Wiktionary data of 2026-09-02.

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