Languaculture in the Superdiverse City Street-language as Intangible Heritage

Urban youth constantly produce and reproduce forms of community. Belonging consists of subjective feelings of inclusion, engagement and emotional attachment. Both what you are and what you do matter. We is thereby not defined in terms of stable national, ethnic, social or religious identities, but has a more diverse character. To understand the diverse character of present-day living together in cities it is helpful to address intangible heritage form the paradigm of superdiversity.A focus on superdiversity offers space for more diversification in heritage policies. It specifically addresses the phenomenon of street-language as intangible heritage that is carried by urban youth from different social, ethnic and geographical backgrounds. They find communality in an urban culture that is expressed in, among other things, language practices. Street-language eludes canonizing measures that dialects have to deal with, which keeps the intangibility and dynamics intact. The paradigm of superdiversity offers tools to study and analyse the continuities and changes of street-language .