Heritage Language Blog ~ by HL Global Think Tank & FOHLC Europe

By Renata Emilsson Peskova Each year on February 21, people around the world celebrate International Mother Language Day (IMLD), in memory of the fight of Bengali people for the recognition of their mother tongue Bangla in 1952. In 2026, IMLD symbolizes the fight for maintaining and encouraging linguistic diversity, closely linked to access to education in a language that children speak or understand (UNESCO, n.d.). This blog post aims to help inform parents and educators, to help them understand the linguistic human rights of children. A better understanding of linguistic rights may help decisions to be made that make schools and communities more welcoming and supportive of heritage languages – and multilingualism at large. Group picture from the FOHLC Café about linguistic rights on February 5, 2026. In honour of IMLD 2026, the Forum of Heritage Language Coalitions (FOHLC Europe) organized a FOHLC Café on February 5 to reflect on the concept of linguistic human rights. It was attend...

In this blog post, we hear from Jana Aguilar Marquez and Michaela Martínez Pauker about a truly fun and creative way to stimulate home language use around the holiday time. These educators run a Czech heritage language project " Pinčlata"  in Germany and have some great tips for parents home with the children over the winter break. They describe celebrating Christmas and work with children who are developing the Czech language, but the idea of getting a magical helper to spawn exciting conversations with your children can also be adapted to other contexts and languages. Many thanks to Jana and Michaela for this fantastic contribution! You may have noticed that in recent years, a new mysterious item has appeared in stores before Christmas: tiny elf doors . They usually hang discreetly among all the artificial garlands, sometimes accompanied by miniature brooms and buckets, skis, and rolling pins. These are accessories for Christmas elves, who have started making their way to u...

A slide showing the history and growth of the Czech School of Dublin . “Parents think it will be easy for their children to pick up multiple languages — because children are like little sponges,” said guest speaker Ivana Rocca Kovářová at the most recent FOHLC Café ( Forum of Heritage Language Coalitions in Europe ). “But then their children start school in Ireland and they see what a challenge it is.” Participants of FOHLC Café. Seeing the need for extra support, Ivana and her colleague founded the Czech School Dublin little more than ten years ago. “We started in the garden of a friend’s house, with five children,” she recalled. Not long after, the school gained access to a community center and the local library for its classes. “ We know children need to move at this age to learn and stay focused. ” Ivana manages the preschool section which contains two groups: “Talking with preschoolers” for children aged 3 to 5 and “Zero Year” for children aged 5 to 7 which she also leads as a te...

From October 23 to 26, 2025, educators, researchers, and community leaders from across the world gathered to discuss Justice and Social Inclusion in the Teaching of Portuguese as a Heritage Language (SEPOHL) in Brussels, Belgium. The symposium celebrated the power of language to connect, resist, and empower, especially when community initiatives and universities work together to create a more equitable educational landscape. Some attendees from the final day of the VII SEPOLH in Brussels, 2025. From multiverses to multivoices The opening address by Dr. Ana Souza invited us to imagine the “multiverse ” of Portuguese as a Heritage Language — diverse, overlapping, and ever-evolving. She reminded participants that “the identity of POLH reflects the identity of its teachers”, and that linguistic justice depends on redistribution and political representation. Her words resonated strongly with the experiences of community educators across Europe, many of whom operate independently, often with...

Interview and text by Naoko Yamamoto, originally posted on HLE Network site “There just aren’t any good Japanese textbooks for kids living abroad!” That’s how the Ohisama Project , a team based in the Netherlands, began developing Ohisama , a Japanese language textbook designed specifically for heritage language learners. Since its release in 2018, the series — which now includes the Ohisama Workbook  — has sold over 20,000 copies worldwide and become a trusted resource for families and schools raising multilingual children. The project’s creators — Junko Ueno, Emi Yamamoto, and Yoshie Mera — talk about how they built this groundbreaking textbook series from scratch. Junko Ueno (left), Emi Yamamoto (center), and Yoshie Mera (right) of the Ohisama Project  team ~ Photo: Ohisama Project 　　 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Profile: The Ohisama Project The Ohisama Project promotes high-quality Japanese language education for multilingual childre...