Heritage language learning or heritage language acquisition is the act of learning a language by someone from the family heritage. According to a generally accepted definition by Valdés[1] (2000), heritage language is the language someone learns at home as a child which is a minority language in society, but because of growing up in a dominant language, the speaker seems to be more competent in the latter and feels more comfortable to communicate in that language. Polinsky & Kagan [2](2007) label it as a continuum that ranges from fluent speakers to barely speaking individuals of the home language. In some countries or cultures where they determine one's mother tongue by the ethnic group, a heritage language would be linked to native language
The heritage language learners differ from other types of language learners. Kagan & Dillon[3] (2003) provide us with distinctions among students of Russian as a native language, a heritage language or a foreign language.
| Language | Native | Foreign | Heritage |
|---|---|---|---|
| L1 or L2 (age) | L1 (child) | L2 (after the first language has been acquired) | L1/L2? |
| Exposure to target Language | Full language Community | Outside of community | Limited community |