Turkish Heritage language acquisition and maintenance in Germany

This chapter discusses the case of Turkish as a heritage language in Germany, considering the factors affecting heritage language maintenance and education, including parental and institutional perspectives. We contextualize this within a brief review of the history of Turkish migration to Germany, highlighting the relationship between the challenging integration process experienced by many Turkish immigrants to Germany, and the social, educational, and linguistic journey of the Turkish language within the Turkish community. Data from a recent research study presents empirical data examining associations between parental perspectives, including maintaining literacy, on Turkish heritage language maintenance in Germany and the linguistic outcomes of heritage language competence within the younger generation, presented here within the formalisms of Processability Theory (Pienemann 1998). We finish with a discussion on the lack of a uniform approach from German governments toward accommodating Turkish language within the mainstream education system and how this may affect the future of Turkish as a heritage language in Germany.