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

Authors: Dr Adeline Henry and Hannah Murphy A research team at Queen’s University Belfast  – led by Dr Emma Humphries and Professor Janice Carruthers –  is currently undertaking a project designed to make university admissions processes more equitable and inclusive with respect to home, heritage, and community languages (HHCLs). In this blog post, Dr Adeline Henry and Hannah Murphy (two members of the research team) demonstrate that tangible, practical measures can be implemented to address existing inequities and enhance the recognition and status of heritage languages.  These developments are especially relevant for heritage language programmes across the United Kingdom, which are well positioned to promote the Toolkit introduced in the project. Moreover, the initiative offers an instructive and inspiring model for institutions and policymakers in other global contexts. Across the UK, offers to study an undergraduate degree in a university are made on the basis of predi...

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...

The HL Global Think Tank and FOHLC Europe are joining forces — and we’re excited to announce that the Heritage Language Blog will now serve as the shared space for both! We expect this to become the go-to space for inspiring stories about community-based heritage language education. For years, people involved in heritage language education, especially for migrant minority languages, have often worked in isolation. These programs face obstacles, limited resources, and a lack of visibility, making it challenging to advocate for linguistic rights and recognition. Some regions had already built strong coalitions, creating networks to support programs locally. Thanks to the growing network of the HL Global Think Tank and FOHLC Europe, educators and coalitions are now connecting across borders and raising the profile of their work. This merger reflects that major development: heritage language education is becoming a more visible, recognized, and collaborative field. This image is from the p...

On the weekends you do your best for your community, you volunteer your time and hard work  –  and during the week you still attend your regular job. Or maybe you focus all of your time on your heritage community. Either way, you do it just because it is the right thing to do, the thing that helps so many people around you. You do not expect anything from it. Probably people do not even see all that you do. However, sometimes the hard work can show: we would like to congratulate our team member Jana Nahodilová, originally from the Czech Republic, who recently received a medal from the Czech Prime Minister for her long term support of the Czech community in the United Kingdom and for her extraordinary contribution to the development of the Czech language, culture, and historical heritage abroad. And what is Jana's long term contribution? Jana is not only member of the FOHLC Europe team, she started her own Czech and Slovak school "Okénko" in London more than 13 years ago. ...

When the Global Call to Action for Heritage Language Education  was launched in February 2024, it laid a comprehensive roadmap for protecting and promoting linguistic diversity. But maybe you were left wondering:  What can I personally do to help? Now, we’ve made it easier than ever to take action with a handy checklist. This simple guide breaks down some practical steps you can take to support heritage language education in your community. What you can do will depend on your role -- heritage language learner, parent, teacher, journalist, policymaker, etc. -- but we've got everyone covered! Download the checklist below and start making an impact today! Download a pdf By HLE Network

By Sabine Little and Aga Pedrak FOHLC Europe , or Forum of Heritage Language Coalitions in Europe, is an exciting new collaboration between several organizations involved with heritage language education in Europe. With the FOHLC Europe steering group being geographically dispersed, it is not often that we get a chance to meet face to face, so it was a rare pleasure when Aga Pedrak from Ireland and Sabine Little from England got a chance to meet up at Nottingham Trent University’s roundtable on “Engaging with Language and Heritage” in March 2023 . The one-day conference was organised as part of the university’s Knowledge Exchange programme, an opportunity to bridge the gap between academia and other organisations, to learn from each other, and to create knowledge together. The event included attendees from museums and libraries, NGOs, storytellers, and, of course, academics.  The concept of language and heritage was, unsurprisingly, interpreted in many different ways. Intangible cu...