Minority Language Transmission in Early Childhood

Official language policies in Sweden were assumed to facilitate the transmission of minority language to the next generation. Parents with main languages other than Swedish were investigated in three successive surveys in order to map parental intentions during pregnancy and compare them with parental language use when their children are two and a half and four years old, respectively. Generally, parents tend to continue to speak minority languages, although there are differences between groups. In the last survey, language transmission is measured, defined as the child's active use of a minority language in communication with a parent. Given that the mother uses the minority language exclusively, home language support in child day care can promote minority language transmission. There is, however, an ever increasing gap between official language policy and realities as regards home language support.