Language Maintenance and Shift (Sociolinguistics)

I

Introduction

A.    Background

There are many different social reasons for choosing a particular code or variety in a multilingual community. But what real choice is there for those who speak lesser-used languages in a community where the people in power use a world language such as English? How do economic and political factors influence language choices? The various constraints on language choice faced by different communities are explored, as well as the potential longer-term effects of these choices language shift or language death.

B.     The Formulation of The Paper

The formulation of this paper is formulated into three questions, namely:

1.   What do language maintenance and shift mean?

2.   How is language shift in different communities?

3.   What do language death and language loss mean?

C.    The Aim of The Paper

The aim of this paper is divided into three points, namely:

1.      To explain language maintenance and language shift

2.      To describe language shift in different communities

3.      To explain language death and language loss

II

Discussion

A.  Language Maintenance and Shift

1.    Language Maintenance

Language maintenance is a term used in sociolinguistics, referring to the extent to which people continue to use a language once they are part of a community in which another language has a dominant position. For example, immigrant groups may maintain their language, out of a sense of language loyalty, despite the dominance of the language of their host country (as has often happened language maintenance in the USA); or a community may continue with its language successfully despite the presence of a conquering nation (as happened with English after the Norman Conquest). Thus, language maintenance is the way of people to survive their own language or mother language or dominant language to become a main language.

2.    Language Shift

Language shift is a term used in sociolinguistics to refer to the gradual or sudden move from the use of one language to another, either by an individual or by a group. It is particularly found among second- and third-generation immigrants, who often lose their attachment to their ancestral language, faced with the pressure to communicate in the language of the host country. Language shift may also be actively encouraged by the government policy of the host country. Thus, language shift is people stop speaking a certain language they start to speak another language (language transfer). It’s happens when the language of the wider society (majority) displaces the minority mother tongue language over time in migrant communities or in communities under military occupation. Therefore when language shift occurs, it shifts most of the time towards the language of the dominant group, and the result could be the eradication of the local language.

B.  Language Shift in Different Communities

There are three scenarios in language shift in different communities.  They are migrant minorities, non-migrant communities, and migrant majorities.

1.    Migrant Minorities

Maniben is a young British Hindu woman who lives in Coventry. Her family moved to Britain from Uganda in 1970, when she was 5 years old. She started work on the shop floor in a bicycle factory when she was 16. At home Maniben speaks Gujerati with her parents and grandparents. Although she had learned English at school, she found she didn’t need much at work. Many of the girls working with her also spoke Gujerati, so when it wasn’t too noisy they would talk to each other in their home language. Maniben was good at her job and she got promoted to floor supervisor. In that job, she needed to use English more of the time, though she could still use some Gujerati with her old workmates. She went to evening classes and learned to type. Then, because she was interested, she went on to learn how to use a computer. Now she works in the main office and she uses English almost all the time at work.

Maniben’s pattern of language use at work has gradually shifted over a period of ten years. At one stage she used mainly Gujerati; now she uses English almost exclusively. Maniben’s experience is typical for those who use a minority language in a predominantly monolingual culture and society. The order of domains in which language shift occurs may differ for different individuals and different groups, but gradually over time the language of the wider society displaces the minority language mother tongue. There are many different social factors which can lead a community to shift from using one language for most purposes to using a different language, or from using two distinct codes in different domains, to using different varieties of just one language for their communicative needs. Migrant families provide an obvious example of this process of language shift.

In countries like England, Australia, New Zealand and the USA, the school is one of the first domains in which children of migrant families meet English. They may have watched English TV programmes and heard English used in shops before starting school, but at school they are expected to interact in English. They have to use English because it is the only means of communicating with the teacher and other children. For many children of migrants, English soon becomes the normal language for talking to other children – including their brothers and sisters. Because her grandparents knew little English, Maniben continued to use mainly Gujerati at home, even though she had learned English at school and used it more and more at work. In many families, however, English gradually infiltrates the home through the children. Children discuss school and friends in English with each other, and gradually their parents begin to use English to them too, especially if they are working in jobs where they use English.

There is pressure from the wider society too. Immigrants who look and sound ‘different’ are often regarded as threatening by majority group members. There is pressure to conform in all kinds of ways. Language shift to English, for instance, has often been expected of migrants in predominantly monolingual countries such as England, the USA, Australia and New Zealand. Speaking good English has been regarded as a sign of successful assimilation, and it was widely assumed that meant abandoning the minority language. So most migrant families gradually shift from using Gujerati, or Italian or Vietnamese to each other most of the time, to using English. This may take three or four generations, but sometimes language shift is completed in just two generations. Typically migrants are virtually monolingual in their mother tongue, their children are bilingual and their grandchildren are often monolingual in the language of the ‘host’ country. We can observe the shift by noting the change in people’s patterns of language use in different domains over time.

2.    Non-Migrant Communities

Armeen is an Iranian teacher of English. He is concerned that Farsi, the official language of Iran, is displacing his native language Azeri. One piece of evidence supporting his concern about Azeri is that the streets of his home town Tabriz are full of signs in the Farsi language. What is more, people are not taught to read and write Azeri, despite the fact that there is a rich literature in the language, some of it housed in books in the Tabriz library. So there is a vicious circle. People don’t use Azeri in public signs because they know that literacy in Azeri is almost non-existent.

Language shift is not always the result of migration. Political, economic and social changes can occur within a community, and this may result in linguistic changes too. For this community the home is the one most under any family’s control, language may be maintained in more domains than just the home.

As Iran struggles to achieve national unity, Farsi, the language of the largest and most powerful group, the Persians, can be considered a threat to the languages of the minority ethnic groups. Iran is a multi-ethnic country of 74 million people, and in principle minority ethnic languages are protected by the Iranian Constitution. But the reality is that they are not taught in schools, and speakers of even the largest minority language, Azeri, are shifting to Farsi in a number of domains. Farsi has official status and it dominates the public space in Tabriz, and this sends a clear symbolic message about its significance and relevance in Iran, and about the irrelevance of Azeri from the perspective of the government. In a recent political speech, the Governor of East Azerbaijan code-switched frequently and rapidly between Farsi and Azeri, even when addressing an Azeri audience. Though it is in no immediate danger, the long-term prognosis is not good for Azeri unless some assertive action is taken to maintain it.

In Oberwart, an Austrian town on the border of Hungary, the community has been gradually shifting from Hungarian to German for some time.

Before the First World War the town of Oberwart (known then by its Hungarian name, Felsöör) was part of Hungary, and most of the townspeople used Hungarian most of the time. However, because the town had been surrounded by German-speaking villages for over 400 years, many people also knew some German. At the end of the war, Oberwart became part of Austria, and German became the official language. Hungarian was banned in schools. This marked the beginning of a period of language shift.

In the 1920s, Oberwart was a small place and the peasants used Hungarian to each other, and German with outsiders. As Oberwart grew and industry replaced farming as the main source of jobs, the functions of German expanded. German became the high language in a broad diglossia situation in Oberwart. German was the language of the school, official transactions and economic advancement. It expressed formality and social distance. Hungarian was the low language, used in most homes and for friendly interaction between townspeople. Hungarian was the language of solidarity, used for social and affective functions. It soon became clear that to ‘get on’ meant learning German, and so knowledge of German became associated with social and economic progress. Speaking Hungarian was increasingly associated with ‘peasantness’ and was considered old-fashioned. Young people began to use German to their friends in the pub. Parents began to use German instead of Hungarian to their children. In other words, the domains in which German was appropriate continued to expand and those where Hungarian was used contracted. By the 1970s, God was one of the few addressees to whom young people still used Hungarian when they said their prayers or went to church.

3.    Migrant Majorities

The examples discussed so far have illustrated that language shift often indicates the influence of political factors and economic factors, such as the need for work. People may shift both location and language for this reason. Over the last couple of centuries, many speakers of Irish, Scottish Gaelic and Welsh, for instance, have shifted to England, and consequently to English, primarily in order to get work. They need English both for their job success and for their social well-being – to make friends. But we find the outcome is the same when it is the majority group who do the physical moving.

When colonial powers invade other countries their languages often become dominant. Countries such as Portugal, Spain, France and Britain have generally imposed their languages along with their rule. This has not always resulted in linguistic subjugation and language shift. Multilingualism was too well-established as normal in countries like India and Papua New Guinea, and in many African countries. It was not possible for a single alien and imported language to displace and eradicate hundreds of indigenous vernacular languages. But when multilingualism was not widespread in an area, or where just one indigenous language had been used before the colonisers arrived, languages were often under threat. In this context, English has been described as a ‘killer language’. Where one group abrogates political power and imposes its language along with its institutions – government administration, law courts, education, religion – it is likely that minority groups will find themselves under increasing pressure to adopt the language of the dominant group.

Tamati lives in Wanganui, a large New Zealand town. He is 10 years old and he speaks and understands only English, though he knows a few Maori phrases. None of his mates know any Maori either. His grandfather speaks Maori, however. Whenever there is a big gathering, such as a funeral or an important tribal meeting, his grandfather is one of the best speakers. Tamati’s mother and father understand Maori, but they are not fluent speakers. They can manage a short simple conversation, but that’s about it. Tamati’s little sister, Miriama, has just started at a pre-school where Maori is used, so he thinks maybe he’ll learn a bit from her.

In New Zealand, Maori people have overwhelmingly moved from monolingualism in Maori in the late nineteenth century, through bilingualism in Maori and English, to monolingualism in English in the second half of the twentieth century. Although the 2006 Census figures report a small increase in the number of Maori people who claim to be able to speak Maori, surveys of the health of the language indicate that fewer than 10 per cent of  Maori adults can speak Maori fluently, and there are very few domains in which it is possible to use the language.

Most Aboriginal people in Australia, and many American Indian people in the USA, have similarly lost their languages over four or five generations of colonial rule. The indigenous people were swamped by English, the language of the dominant group, and their numbers were decimated by warfare and disease. The result of colonial economic and political control was not diglossia with varying degrees of bilingualism, as found in many African, Asian and South American countries, but the more or less complete eradication of the many indigenous languages. Over time the communities shifted to the coloniser’s language, English, and their own languages died out.

When language shift occurs, it is almost always shift towards the language of the dominant powerful group. A dominant group has little incentive to adopt the language of a minority. The dominant language is associated with status, prestige and social success. It is used in the ‘glamour’ contexts in the wider society – for formal speeches on ceremonial occasions, by news readers on television and radio, and by those whom young people admire – pop stars, fashion models, and DJs (disc jockeys). It is scarcely surprising that many young minority group speakers should see its advantages and abandon their own language.

C.  Language Death and Language Loss

1.    Language Death

When all the people who speak a language die, the language dies with them (Holmes: 1992).  A language dies when nobody speaks it any more (Crystal: 2003). Language death is a term used in linguistics for the situation which arises when a language ceases to be used by a community; also called language loss or obsolescence, especially when referring to the loss of language ability in an individual. The term language attrition is sometimes used when the loss is gradual rather than sudden. Thus, language death is speakers passed of a given language variety is decreased, so there are no native speaker or fluent speakers of the variety. The language death happens through two steps, namely gradual language death and radical language death. Gradual language death is when language change begins in a low level environment, such as at home. Radical language death is there is no really native speakers or fluent speakers.

In 2011, British newspapers reported that Ayapaneco, an indigenous language of Mexico, was in danger of dying out as the only two remaining fluent speakers (aged 75 and 69) refused to talk to each other.

Needless to say, this report conceals a much more complex reality. Firstly, the name Ayapaneco for the language was given by outsiders; the two men actually call it Nuumte Oote (‘True Voice’). Secondly, no one actually knows why the two men do not speak to each other. There may be cultural reasons for their behavior, e.g. an ‘avoidance relationship’, as appropriate in some Australian Aboriginal cultures. Thirdly, and most relevantly for the discussion in this chapter, the reasons for the disappearance of Ayapaneco can more accurately be linked to factors such as the increasing urbanization of the population, and the political decision to introduce compulsory education in Spanish, rather than to the lack of communication between these two old men.

Nevertheless, it is generally true that when all the people who speak a language die, the language dies with them. Sometimes this fact is crystal clear. In 1992, when Tefvik Esenç died, so did the linguistically complex Caucasian language Ubykh. Manx has now completely died out in the Isle of Man – the last native speaker, Ned Maddrell, died in 1974. Despite recent attempts to revive it, most people agree that Cornish effectively disappeared from Cornwall in the eighteenth century when Dolly Pentreath of Mousehole died in 1777. Less than half of the 250–300 Aboriginal languages spoken in Australia when the Europeans arrived have survived, and fewer than two dozen are being actively passed on to younger generations. Many disappeared as a direct result of the massacre of the Aboriginal people, or their death from diseases introduced by Europeans. In Tasmania, for instance, the whole indigenous population of between 3000 and 4000 people was exterminated within seventy-five years. Their languages died with them. These are cases of language death rather than language shift. These languages are no longer spoken anywhere.

2.    Language Loss

Language loss is the loss of proficiency in a language at the individual level. For instance, a community, such as the Turkish community in Britain, may shift to English voluntarily over a couple of generations. This involves the loss of the language for the individuals concerned, and even for the community in Britain. But Turkish is not under threat of disappearing because of this shift. It will continue to thrive in Turkey. But when the last native speaker of Martuthunira, Algy Paterson, died in 1995, this Australian Aboriginal language died with him. Indeed it was predicted that almost all Australian Aboriginal languages would be extinct by the year 2000, a prediction which fortunately has not been completely fulfilled.

When all the people who speak a language die, the language dies with them. Sometimes this fact is crystal clear. When a language dies gradually, as opposed to all its speakers being wiped out by a massacre or epidemic, the process is similar to that of language shift. The functions of the language are taken over in one domain after another by another language. As the domains in which speakers use the language shrink, the speakers of the dying language become gradually less proficient in it.

Annie at 20 is a young speaker of Dyirbal, an Australian Aboriginal language. She also speaks English which she learned at school. There is no written Dyirbal material for her to read, and there are fewer and fewer contexts in which she can appropriately hear and speak the language. So she is steadily becoming less proficient in it. She can understand the Dyirbal she hears used by older people in her community, and she uses it to speak to her grandmother. But her grandmother is scathing about her ability in Dyirbal, saying Annie doesn’t speak the language properly.

Annie is experiencing language loss. This is the manifestation, in the individual’s experience, of wide-scale language death. Because she uses English for most purposes, her vocabulary in Dyirbal has shrunk and shrunk. When she is talking to her grandmother she keeps finding herself substituting English words like cook in her Dyirbal, because she can’t remember the Dyirbal word. She can’t remember all the complicated endings on Dyirbal nouns. They vary depending on the sound at the end of the noun, but she uses just one ending -gu for all of them. For other words she simply omits the affix because she can’t remember it. Her grandmother complains vociferously about her word order. Annie finds herself putting words in the order they come in English instead of in the order her grandmother uses in Dyirbal. It is clear that Annie’s Dyirbal is very different from traditional Dyirbal.

Because English is now so widely used in her community it seems unlikely that Dyirbal will survive in a new form based on the variety Annie speaks. It is on its way to extinction. When Annie’s generation die it is pretty certain Dyirbal will die with them. The process of language death for the language comes about through this kind of gradual loss of fluency and competence by its speakers. Competence in the language does not disappear overnight. It gradually erodes over time.

With the spread of a majority group language into more and more domains, the number of contexts in which individuals use the ethnic language diminishes. The language usually retreats till it is used only in the home, and finally it is restricted to such personal activities as counting, praying and dreaming. The stylistic range that people acquire when they use a language in a wider range of domains disappears. Even in the contexts where the language is still used, there is a gradual reduction in the complexity and diversity of structural features of the language – speakers’ sound rules get simplified, their grammatical patterns become less complex and their vocabulary in the language gets smaller and smaller.

In the wider community, the language may survive for ritual or ceremonial occasions, but those who use it in these contexts will be few in number and their fluency is often restricted to prayers and set speeches or incantations. In many Maori communities in New Zealand, for instance, the amount of Maori used in ceremonies is entirely dependent on the availability of respected elders who still retain some knowledge of the appropriate discourse. Maori is now used in some communities only for formal ceremonial speeches, prayers for the sick and perhaps for a prayer to open a meeting.

III

Conclusion

Language maintenance is the degree to which an individual or groups continues to use their language, particularly in bilingual or multilingual area or among immigrant group whereas language shift is the process by which a new language is acquired by new community usually resulting with the loss of the community’s first language. Language maintenance refers to the situation where speech community continues to use its traditional language in the face of a host of condition that might foster a shift to another language. If language maintenance does not occur, there can be several results. One is language death; speakers become bilingual, younger speakers become dominant in another language, and the language is said to die. The speakers or the community does not die, of course, they just become a subset of speakers of another language. The end result is language shift for the population, and if the language isn't spoken elsewhere, it dies.

References

Crystal, David. 2008. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics Sixth Edition. UAS: Blackwel Publishing Ltd.

Holmes, Janet. 2013. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics Fourth Edition. London: Routledge.

Holmes, Janet. 1992. An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Edinburgh: Person Education