Multilingual La La Land

Home to immigrants from more than 140 countries speaking over 180 languages, Los Angeles is a microcosm of the world. While Los Angeles' ethnic enclaves have been the subject of study by researchers from a wide range of fields, these enclaves remain under-researched from a linguistic standpoint. Multilingual La La Land addresses the sociolinguistic landscape of the Greater Los Angeles (GLA) area, providing in-depth accounts of the sixteen most spoken languages other than English in the region. Each chapter introduces the history of the language in the L.A. region, uses census figures and residential densities to examine location-based and network-based speech communities, and discusses the patterns of usage that characterize the language, including motivations to maintain the language. How these patterns and trends bear on the vitality of each language is a central consideration of this book.

Claire Hitchins Chik is Associate Director of the Title VI National Heritage Language Resource Center at UCLA.

Introduction - Arabic in Greater Los Angeles: Many Varieties, One Community By Afaf Nash - Armenian in Greater Los Angeles: Negotiating Intralinguistic Diversity in a Diaspora Epicenter By Shushan Karapetian and Hagop Gulludjian - Chinese: Multiple Varieties in a Changing Greater Los Angeles By Ming-Hsuan Wu, Claire Hitchins Chik, and Andrew Simpson - Filipino: Language Practices and Affective Connections in Greater Los Angeles By Nenita Pambid Domingo, Claire Hitchins Chik, and Maria Carreira - French in Greater Los Angeles: Challenges and Opportunities By Mina Soroosh, Claire Hitchins Chik,and Fabrice Jaumont - German: The Invisible Language Minority: The Historical, Political, and Linguistic Dimensions of the German Language Landscape in Multilingual La La Land By Britta Bothe - Hebrew and Yiddish in Greater Los Angeles: Bilingualism, Metalinguistic Communities, and Ethnolinguistic Infusion By Sarah Bunin Benor and Netta Avineri - Japanese: Language Practices and Cultural Exposure over Multiple Generations in Greater Los Angeles By Mary Ann Triest, Asako Hayashi Takakura,and Claire Hitchins Chik - Khmer Language Use and Presence in the Linguistic Landscape of Greater Los Angeles' Cambodia Town By Wayne E. Wright and Virak Chan - Korean in Greater Los Angeles: Negotiation between the Individual and Ethnolinguistic Community Across Generations By Hannah Saeyoung Lim - Languages of South Asia in Greater Los Angeles: Diversity Diversified By Gyanam Mahajan and Claire Hitchins Chik - Persian Language Use and Vitality in Tehrangeles By Amy Malek - Russian in Greater Los Angeles: A Changing Landscape By Susan Kresin, Dante Matero and Susan Bauckus - Spanish: Never a Foreign Language in Greater Los Angeles By Maria Carreira - Thai as a Diasporic Language in Greater Los Angeles By Shoichi Iwasaki and Jenjit Gasigitamrong - Vietnamese: Language Use in Little Saigon and Other Greater Los Angeles Neighborhoods By Natalie A. Tran, Bang Lang Do, and Claire Hitchins Chik