Russian and Turkish are the most frequently spoken and intensively investigated heritage languages in Germany, but contrastive research on their development in early childhood is still missing. This longitudinal study compares the trajectories of expressive lexicon development in Russian (n = 70) and Turkish (n = 79) heritage speakers and identifies predictors for their lexicon size at preschool age. Heritage lexicon size was tested with two comparable tests assessing the expressive lexicon at four test points between the mean ages of 3.3 (range: 25–49 months) and 5.6 (range: 54–78 months) years. The influence of language-related factors, such as input quantity, parents’ heritage language proficiency and age of onset (AoO) of German, and other potential predictors, i.e., intelligence and socio-economic status, is evaluated. Results show that the Turkish group’s abilities grow slower but are similar at the last test point. Common predictors for lexicon size are input quantity from siblings and AoO. Group-specific influences are parental input quantity in the Russian group and siblings’ proficiency in the Turkish group. Our findings emphasize the interplay of input quantity and society language AoO for heritage lexicon development. The relevance of our results for the usage-based theory of language acquisition is discussed.

The 'Russian language proficiency test for multilingual children' is a linguistically and psycholinguistically-grounded test for L1-Russian bilingual children of pre-school and elementary school age. It allows the evaluation of language proficiency in Russian for scientific, therapeutic, and pedagogical purposes. The test is based on preliminary norms: data of 167 German-Russian bilingual children between the ages of 3 years and 6 years 11 months were evaluated. Bilingual children's proficiency is examined in the following language domains: - productive and receptive lexicon for verbs and nouns - production of morphological marking on verbs (first and second-person singular present verbal inflection) and nouns (accusative and dative case singular) - comprehension of grammatical constructions on the sentence level The test should be administered by a competent – ideally native – speaker of Russian, and takes approximately 60 minutes to administer. In addition to the test itself, the 'Russian language proficiency test for multilingual children' contains a questionnaire for gathering detailed information on the input situation as well as the child's previous linguistic and extra-linguistic development. The questionnaire is written in English and Russian and is intended to be filled out by the parents.

'Sprachstandstest Russisch für mehrsprachige Kinder' ist ein linguistisch und psycholinguistisch fundiertes Sprachstandsscreening für bilingual russisch-deutsche Kinder im Vorschul- und Frühschulalter. Es ermöglicht die Einschätzung des Sprachstands im Russischen, auf der Basis vorläufiger Normen, zu wissenschaftlichen, therapeutischen und pädagogischen Zwecken. Der Test sollte von kompetenten, im Idealfall muttersprachlichen Sprechern des Russischen durchgeführt werden. Die Durchführungsdauer beträgt ca. 60 Minuten. 'Sprachstandstest Russisch' überprüft die Fähigkeiten bilingualer Kinder im Russischen in folgenden Bereichen: - produktives und rezeptives Lexikon für Verben und Nomen - Produktion morphologischer Markierungen an Verben (Verbflexion 1. und 2. Person Singular Präsens) und Nomen (Kasus Akkusativ und Dativ Singular) - Verständnis grammatischer Strukturen auf Satzebene Zur Interpretation der Testergebnisse werden vorläufige bilinguale Normdaten zur Verfügung gestellt. Sie basieren auf einer Stichprobe von insgesamt 167 deutsch-russisch aufwachsenden Kindern von drei bis sechs Jahren. Zusätzlich zum Test zur Feststellung der sprachlichen Kompetenzen enthält 'Sprachstandstest Russisch' einen Fragebogen, der die detaillierte Inputsituation sowie die bisherige sprachliche und nichtsprachliche Entwicklung des Kindes erfasst. Der Fragebogen ist russisch-deutsch verfasst und wird von den Eltern durch Ankreuzen ausgefüllt.

The present study traces longitudinal trajectories of narrative comprehension in L2 German in 57 Russian- and Turkish-German bilingual children, for two age groups with a mean starting age of 3;6 and 4;3, respectively. The children answered comprehension questions from the Multilingual Assessment Instrument for Narratives in their L2 German. They were tested three times with a one-year interval in between, so that by the last time children had a mean age of 5;6 and 6;2, respectively. Comprehension questions targeted two types of elements of macrostructure, goals and internal states, in two modes, telling and model story. Results showed a significant improvement of narrative comprehension over time in both age groups. The steepest slope of development was found between three and five years. By age five, the children were able to answer the majority of comprehension questions, whilst after that, a plateau in the development was observed. Generally, goals were easier to comprehend than internal states, at all test times, for all groups and elicitation modes. The study enriches our knowledge of L2 bilingual trajectories of the comprehension of goals and internal states by showing that these two components of macrostructure require different inferencing skills and that goals are cognitively easier to infer as compared to internal states.

The present study examined the development of lexical abilities in German in Turkish-/Russian-German bilinguals. In particular, the effect of the age of onset and the socio-economic status, identified through self-reported parental education and occupation, on the productive and perceptive lexicon – verbs and nouns – was investigated. Two groups, one with 39 Russian-German and one with 55 Turkish-German simultaneous and sequential bilinguals from Berlin nursery schools, participated in the study. The age range was 26 to 47 months (mean age: 38.5 months, Standard Deviation (SD) = 5.8). The age of onset ranged from 0 to 39 months (mean age of onset: 21.0 months, SD = 9.9) and did not differ significantly in both investigated groups. The mean length of exposure to German was 17.5 months (SD = 9.3). The results showed that age of onset negatively impacts the productive lexicon of both groups. Russian-speaking children were somewhat better in the development of the perceptive lexicon in German. No effects for parental education and occupation were found. The results are discussed with respect to sensitivity and age of acquisition, and possible differences in the home language environment of Turkish and Russian bilinguals.