Switching the majority language: The case of heritage Greek in North and South America

This study aims to understand how cross-linguistic influence (CLI) and heritage language (HL) use influence children’s HL acquisition of vocabulary, reference, and word order. To this end, we compared elicited production data collected from two groups of child heritage speakers: a group of Greek-English bilingual children (Mean Age: 10;11) residing in North America and a group of Greek-Spanish bilingual children (Mean Age: 10;09) residing in South America. Because Greek is closer to Spanish than to English in all three domains of interest, the ‘Greek-English’ and ‘Greek-Spanish’ dyads are ideal for the study of CLI and its role on HL acquisition. Regression analyses revealed that the South American group outperformed the North American group, despite receiving an overall lower amount of Greek input. Thus, above and beyond input, the typological proximity with the ML may boost children’s HL performance across domains of HL development.