Stable and vulnerable domains in Germanic heritage languages

This paper provides an overview of Germanic languages as heritage languages, i.e. acquired naturalistically by children in parts the world where these are not majority language. Summarizing research on different types speakers Danish, German, Icelandic, Norwegian, and Swedish, we identify certain stable vulnerable domains. We focus so far best studied areas, word order grammatical gender, adding evidence from other lesser domains, such definiteness phonology. propose that addition to linguistic make-up phenomena question, size community and, relatedly, opportunities use language need be taken into account. The latter may explain, for example, why moribund varieties German Scandinavian North America appear less than second-generation Europe.