Abstract Migration events splitting speaker communities and establishing novel contact situations are among the major drivers of language variation and change. While the precise processes that lead to change cannot usually be determined for past events with any certainty, the study of minority and heritage language usage in apparent time may provide insight into the contribution of the linguistic behavior underlying the dynamics. We capitalize on this and compare parts of speech usage in Pear Story renarrations across Gheg Albanian speakers of three generations in German-speaking environments, applying methods from information theory. The results suggest that the changing conventions in parts of speech usage across generations and places of residence can be attributed to changing linguistic behavior within the speaker community in the migration setting. These findings highlight the impact of changing sociocultural embedding and the roles of vertical and horizontal transmission in language change.