Linguists Collective Conference & International Mother Language Day IMLD Celebration
Linguists Collective Conference & International Mother
Language Day Celebration
Saturday, 21st February 2026
Refugee Children and Mother Tongue Loss
When children and adolescents are relocated from the environment where their mother tongue is spoken, their language development can be disrupted, often leading to rapid language loss. This deterioration can be made worse by trauma and sudden changes in surroundings. Refugee children tend to assimilate quickly into their new culture and language, often without realising that they are forgetting their home language until communication with family members becomes difficult or impossible. In this talk, Professor Schmid will share insights from her research on German-Jewish Holocaust survivors and refugees from Ukraine, exploring how migration and trauma affect language retention and what the loss of a mother tongue means for identity, family bonds, and the possibility of return.
About Monika
Professor Monika S. Schmid is Head of the Department of Language and Linguistic Science at the University of York. She earned her PhD in English Linguistics from Heinrich-Heine Universität Düsseldorf in 2000, focusing on first language attrition among German Jews in English-speaking countries. Before joining York, she held academic posts at VU University Amsterdam, the University of Groningen, and the University of Essex. A Fellow of the British Academy, the Academy of Social Sciences, and the Academia Europaea, she is recognised internationally for her work on first and second language attrition and bilingualism. Professor Schmid is the author of two monographs, several edited volumes including The Oxford Handbook of Language Attrition, and over fifty research papers supported by leading European research councils.