The Heritage Language Variation and Change project (Nagy 2009, 2011) is based on intergenerational comparisons (i.e., how many generations since the family immigrated to Toronto?) of speakers in language diaspora in Toronto. I will discuss some differences between the results of experimental studies and our variationist sociolinguistic studies based on spontaneous speech. The focus will be on the picture we see of intergenerational differences, as well as homeland vs. heritage variety differences. In general, greater linguistic stability is illustrated by the variationist approach than by experimental methods. The data are from studies of Voice Onset Time (VOT), case marking, and null subject pronoun variation. The languages discussed include Cantonese, Faetar (a Francoprovençal variety spoken in southern Italy), Italian, Korean, Polish, Russian and Ukrainian.