Spanish now showing strong retention in Oregon

Monday, October 15, 2012

Languages spoken by immigrants in the United States have tended to die out within a generation or two, as was the case with German and Polish, for example. Spanish did show this trend for quite some time but it seems to be disappearing as this study shows:
Rivera-Mills said the reason for this language retention was two-fold, a desire for cultural preservation by fourth- and fifth-generation Latinos; and in the case of more recent immigrants, economic and cultural benefits of being bilingual.

“These fourth- and fifth-generations are going back to acquire their roots and fighting against language loss,” Rivera-Mills said. “They feel a need to recapture the loss they experienced as children who primarily spoke English.”
The article says that the study was due to be presented on Friday (two days ago), but I don't see anything on the university website just yet.

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