Current projects

The Heritage Language Cooperative seeks to document and promote all non-English languages spoken in the Chicago area. Click on the links below to see resources related to each language. If you can contribute expertise on any language listed or not listed here, please contact the Director, Dr. Kim Potowski. We hope to continually add languages and resources.

Arabic
Chinese
French
Hindi/Urdu
Lithuanian
Polish
Spanish

Specific projects include the ones listed below. You can visit the webpage of each language to learn more.

* Creating online corpora of digital recordings of speakers for free public access to researchers wishing to analyze any number of linguistic features or sociolinguistic characteristics. We currently have 70 Spanish interviews and are gathering interviews in Lithuanian and Polish. If you would like access to these corpora, please contact Dr. Potowski.

* A survey of student attitudes in Lithuanian and in Polish Saturday schools in the Chicago area.

* A quantification of the amount of Spanish use between U.S.-born Latino high school students and recent arrival Spanish-speaking immigrants.

* The creation of a Summer 2009 French program at Sunlight African Community Center for a mixed student body of African francophone heritage speakers and second language learners.