Mother tongue maintenance among North American ethnic groups

Research among groups of immigrants to the United States and Canada has iso lated a number of possible factors for both loss and persistence of the mot her tongue in subsequent generations. These include practice of the religio n of the homeland, residential concentration, within-group marriage, occupa tional specialization, visits to the homeland, and others. The research rep orted in this article is based on data in the Human Relations Area Files fr om I I immigrant groups to North America. The research suggests that reside ntial pattern and religious practice are the principal factors accounting f or mother tongue maintenance into the third generation. Appeal is made to t he childhood language socialization paradigm in explaining this finding.