How does a medium-sized city like Oldenburg deal with the diversity of languages spoken there, and how is it characterized by the multilingualism of its people? Oldenburg Slavicists and their students are investigating this question alongside HWK – Institute for Advanced Study Fellow Yaron Matras in Delmenhorst.
The linguistic diversity in the world’s metropolises, such as New York City, Sydney, and Berlin, is well documented. But what about medium-sized cities? What about Delmenhorst, for example? That was the question asked by Hamburg linguist Prof. Dr. Yaron Matras and Oldenburg linguist Prof. Dr. Jan Patrick Zeller when they met at a conference a few years ago. This question led to a joint teaching and research project, now in its third semester, funded by the HWK – Institute for Advanced Study in Delmenhorst.
During his research stay in Delmenhorst at the end of 2022, Matras overheard snippets of Romani conversations here and there. Romani is the language of the Sinti and Roma, and it is one of Matras’s areas of research. His interest in the city’s linguistic diversity was piqued. He and Zeller developed the idea of investigating the multilingualism of the people of Delmenhorst in more detail. In the summer of 2025, the University of Oldenburg funded the project as part of their “forschen@studium” program, and students from Slavic Studies, English Studies, German Studies, and Social Sciences participated. Matras also temporarily returned to the HWK as an Associated Fellow for research purposes.
They quickly made contact with two high schools in Delmenhorst. Inspired by the project, the two schools created a joint seminar subject, “Multilingualism,” which they have offered for 11th and 12th grade students since the beginning of this school year. The project’s most recent highlight is a survey on language skills and use, carried out by 11th grade students at IGS Delmenhorst in their school and family environments as part of a statistics unit in math class taught by teacher Nicola Sager.
First Survey on Language Diversity in a German City in 20 Years
According to Matras and his Oldenburg colleagues, Zeller and Dr. Maxim Makartsev, this is probably the first statistical data on linguistic diversity in a German city in 20 years and possibly the first ever relating to a medium-sized city. “In any case, we’re not aware of anything comparable,” says Zeller. According to the HWK, it was also the first survey of its kind to be planned and conducted jointly by researchers and young people.
540 pupils, aged between 10 and 19, were surveyed. They were also able to provide information on the language skills and use of their family members and friends. According to the HWK, the data collected will be used in the coming months to produce an extrapolation that will allow statements to be made about the population of Delmenhorst as a whole.
Young People Have an Average Knowledge of Three to Four Languages
The 10 to 19-year-olds surveyed stated that they spoke three to four languages on average. In addition to German and English, they speak one or two languages of origin and sometimes another foreign language taught in school, such as French or Spanish. More than 45 percent of respondents stated a language other than German as their language of origin. The most frequently mentioned languages of origin spoken at home were Turkish, Arabic, Russian, Polish, Kurdish, Romanian, Aramaic, Albanian, Ukrainian, and Bulgarian. According to the survey, children and young people most frequently speak their languages of origin with their mothers, followed by their fathers, and least frequently with siblings and friends.
“The survey shows that multilingualism is an integral part of young people’s everyday lives. At the same time, the survey on language use among different generations showed that use of languages of origin is increasingly limited to the family sphere while interest in foreign languages is growing,” says Matras. Zeller adds, “Knowledge of heritage languages does not come at the expense of language skills in other languages.”
Despite all the multilingualism, English remained particularly widespread among the respondents: More than 80 percent of them said they knew English. Many use it in everyday life with friends and for media consumption. Media consumption in the languages of origin is particularly prevalent among those who speak Polish, Russian, Romanian, Arabic, and Turkish. Therefore, it appears that such consumption plays an important role in the preservation of heritage languages.
Teaching Project at University of Oldenburg to Continue in Fall
To conclude Matras’s research at the HWK, project participants plan to present further analyses based on survey data and interviews at the end of September. The interviews form the core of student research in the project and are with people who deal with language diversity in migration counseling, schools, religious communities, Sunday schools, football clubs, and as so-called integration guides in Delmenhorst.
“In addition to quantitative research, this is also about qualitative research,” says Zeller. “We want to know how people deal with linguistic diversity? What communication strategies do they use? What strategies do communities use to pass on their language of origin to their children? Where do people meet if they want to speak Polish or Kurdish, for example?” In short, “What does the city do with linguistic diversity, and what does linguistic diversity do in the city?” The Slavicists Zeller and Makartsev’s teaching project at the University of Oldenburg is set to continue in the coming winter semester.
Editor: Deike Stolz (redaktion@uol.de)