engleski

The role of community organized activities in the maintenance of Croatian as a heritage language

The Republic of Croatia is a rather small country, with 4.5 million inhabitants, and with an estimated diaspora population of similar size (approx. 3 million people). Since 1880, when the first major group of emigrants left the country, the Croatian community abroad has been well connected, organised and actively engaged in maintaining language and cultural identity. In many countries with large numbers of Croatian immigrants, Croatian language classes organised by the community are primarily and often the only way of teaching Croatian. Classes are commonly held in community centres, local schools or Catholic churches after regular school classes, or on weekends. Teachers are predominantly volunteers, who are members of the community with good knowledge of the Croatian language (Cvikic, Novak Milic & Aladrovic Slovacek, in press). Aware of the importance of language in maintaining identity (see Park 2011, Cvikic, Jelaska & Kanajet Simic 2010) the Croatian community has made significant efforts in the advancement of Croatian language classes - from publishing necessary textbooks to organising workshops for volunteer teachers (Turza-Bogdan & Kanajet Simic, 2015). Despite this long tradition in language and traditions maintenance, so far there has been no research exploring the results of these efforts among Croats abroad. In this paper the authors discuss the role of various cultural and language activities among the Croatian diaspora aimed at the maintenance of national, cultural and linguistic identity among individual members of the community, and Croatian communities as a whole. Based on Carreira’s model (2001) and the results on online questionnaire, conducted among Croatian emigrants and their ancestors in various countries, the authors discuss several issues: the influence of organised cultural activities and Croatian language classes on language proficiency and its use, and attitudes towards formal Croatian classes and the relationship between individual involvement in community organised activities and one’s own identity. It is expected that both involvement in community cultural activities and attendance of language classes will be proven as equally important factors to the maintenance of Croatian identity.

Croatian as L2; heritage language; culture; language maintenance

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