Pandemic Pressures on Linguistic Diversity: Rethinking Migrant and Minority Language Maintenance and Education After COVID-19

The COVID-19 pandemic disrupted many aspects of human life, including language use and interaction dynamics in vulnerable minority communities worldwide. Yet comparatively little research has examined its sociolinguistic consequences (e.g., Gao, 2022; Zaini et al., 2025), and existing findings remain inconclusive. Temporary closures of bilingual and heritage-language schools, social-distancing measures, the cancellation of community activities, and the shift to predominantly online communication outside the immediate family reduced opportunities for in-person interaction within immigrant and minority communities. These changes often hindered integrational language learning and, in some cases, accelerated shifts toward dominant languages. However, such dynamics vary widely depending on language status and digital presence, community demographics and sociolinguistic background, national context, and the languages in contact (Meir et al., 2026). Paradoxically, some studies have reported positive impacts of COVID-19 on language maintenance, as children spent more time at home speaking their home language with parents (Zaini et al., 2025). Additionally, some minority language communities faced challenges in accessing vital pandemic information (e.g., Bhandari et al., 2021; Pandey et al., 2021).

Within the drawn context, this Research Topic focuses on the post-pandemic consequences of COVID-19 for minoritised languages in contact and offers a platform to rethink both documented and emerging post-pandemic trends in language maintenance and use. Empirically, we place particular emphasis on migrant, colonial, and indigenous heritage languages (Fishman, 2001), including both languages brought by mobile populations (languages in motu) and minority languages in situ with regional status but historically marginalised. In doing so, we invite studies covering a broad spectrum of typologically diverse languages across continents and communities that are minoritised in different multilingual settings.

By assembling a sample of linguistic diversity, this Research Topic examines the challenges communities faced in maintaining communication and preserving their home languages during and after the pandemic, as well as the strategies used to cope with and overcome linguistic barriers created during periods of social distancing and restricted mobility. In doing so, we aim to understand how and to what extent migrant, colonial, and indigenous heritage languages have been affected in the longer term. The Research Topic further seeks to identify factors that support the maintenance of (often endangered) minoritised languages in multilingual contexts and thereby contribute to the development of an explanatory theoretical model of language maintenance versus shift in times of global crises such as pandemics or wars.

While contributors may adopt their own theoretical frameworks, the editors aim to assemble a collection that highlights linguistic diversity and identifies factors that support language maintenance, intergenerational transmission, and community resilience in times of crisis and recovery.

Relevant themes include, but are not limited to:
· language maintenance and shift during and after lockdown periods
· digital communication practices and online language use
· intergenerational transmission under conditions of restricted mobility
· linguistic resilience and community strategies
· comparative perspectives across languages and regions
· theoretical reflections on language practices during and after crises

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Article types and fees

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Conceptual Analysis
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• ... View all formats

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Article types

This Research Topic accepts the following article types, unless otherwise specified in the Research Topic description:

• Brief Research Report
• Conceptual Analysis
• Curriculum, Instruction, and Pedagogy
• Data Report
• Editorial
• FAIR² Data
• FAIR² DATA Direct Submission
• General Commentary
• Hypothesis and Theory
• Methods
• Mini Review
• Opinion
• Original Research
• Perspective
• Policy and Practice Reviews
• Policy Brief
• Review
• Systematic Review

Keywords: minority languages learning and maintenance, COVID-19 and languages, migrant and minority languages, indigenous languages, maintenance and learning of migrant, minority, indigenous, and heritage languages, official languages learning by migrants

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.