Process Of Language Shift Research Articles

The Column Para noče de šabat as a Local Strategy of Memory of the Judeo-Spanish Tradition

The article elaborates on the attempts of the editors of the Jewish weekly Jevrejski glas (published in Sarajevo in 1928–1941) to support fostering of the Sephardi tradition and Judeo-Spanish language during the period in which an inevitable process of language shift took place among the Sephardi citizens of Bosnia. The column Para noce de sabat, created with the help of the weekly’s readers, was one of the means serving that purpose. In the majority of the texts the main characters were Sephardi women, especially of the older generation, the women called tijas (aunts). For that reason, the paper presents how the authors showed female characters in the context of memory of “the true Sephardi spirit and tradition.” Additionally, we provide basic information on the gathered texts: linguistics and sociolinguistics of the language of the prose (its condition, lexis and local features), as well as the characteristics of narration.

Between Simplification and Complexification. German, Hungarian, Romanian Noun and Adjective Morphologies in Contact

This paper explores patterns in the integration of Hungarian and Romanian nouns as well as adjectives in the German dialect of the speech community of Palota, a German Sprachinsel in North-West-Romania. The main focus of the study is on both inflectional and derivational noun and adjective morphologies and on how they behave in the case of some more or less distantly related contact languages. Based on a select number of examples from first hand data and following standard code-mixing models such as that of Muysken (2000) and Myers-Scotton’s (1993, 2002) mlf model, it establishes a typology of code-mixing morphology ranging from more matrix language-like, i.e. German-like to more embedded language-like, i.e. Hungarian- and Romanian-like patterns and bare forms, suggesting an ongoing shifting process in the local German dialect of Palota towards a fused lect (Auer 1998). In terms of linguistic complexity, the present paper argues that this language shift process favour simplification of morphology in some domains, but also complexification in some other domains, supporting the idea that languages in long-term intensive contact settings become linguistically more complex (Trudgill, 2010, 2011; Fenyvesi, 2005; de Groot, 2005, 2008).

As emoções e a transmissão linguística intergeracional: um estudo de caso

Desde meados do século XIX, as línguas de imigração passaram a fazer parte de muitas sociedades no Brasil. Apesar de pressões nacionalistas, a transmissão linguística intergeracional conseguiu dar sobrevida a algumas dessas línguas, sobretudo pelo seu apelo emocional nos ambientes mais íntimos. Com base nos estudos sobre a relação entre língua e emoção (AVERILL, 1982; HARKINS; WIERZBICKA, 2001; DEWAELE; PAVLENKO, 2002; DEWAELE, 2013; PAVLENKO, 2012), apresentamos um estudo de caso que exemplifica uma situação real de transmissão lexical motivada por emoção. Durante um empreendimento comum, o deslocamento de uma casa de madeira, um grupo de pessoas conversa entre si em uma variedade do Português Brasileiro (PB) influenciada por traços da língua vêneta. Quando algo de errado acontece, as emoções afloram e o protagonista da cena pragueja na língua de seus ancestrais, numa demonstração de que práticas linguísticas podem permanecer no seio de comunidades de descendentes de imigrantes, mesmo que a língua tenha sofrido o processo de language shift, e que tais práticas têm maior probabilidade de se manifestar se motivadas por momentos que evocam emoção.

AN ETHNOGRAPHY STUDY ON LANGUAGE SHIFT OF MIGRANT FAMILIES

The objectives of this research are to describe the process and the factors of language shift in the migrants at Sugihwaras Village, Deket Subdistrict, Lamongan Regency. This ethnography research explores the observable and learned patterns of behavior, customs, and ways of life of a culture-sharing group. The writer emphasizes on the language shift as the part of culture. In this research, the writer presents the data by describing and analyzing the data based on the language shift as the social phenomenon and it also studied from the point of view of Sociolingustics studyThe subject of this research is two migrant families, who stay in Sugiwaras Village, Deket Subdistrict, Lamongan Regency. The first family is Madurese, and the second is Bugisnese. The research found that the process of language shift in the migrant at Sugihwaras Deket Lamongan occurs gradually. The migrant use Indonesia as their bridge to communicate with the society previously.Keywords: language shift, migrant family

Sustainable bilingualism and language shift

In this paper, I introduce the longitudinal method in general, and more specifically, the method applied in a two-decade-long language shift research project conducted in a Romanian–Hungarian bilingual village, Kétegyháza (hereinafter LongBiLing: longitudinal study onbilingualism). I will primarily present the language choice changes occurring in the first decade (1990–2001) but I will also give a short review of the findings comparing the two decades. The aim of the project is to find out at what stage the Romanian-Hungarian language shift process is in the Hamers and Blanc’s (1989) unidimensional model of language shift and to what extent the process can be considered gradual (Mesthrie 2001). In a previous article I sought to find out in which bilingual national minority (out of the six) in Hungary sustainable bilingualism was the strongest (Borbély 2015). In this paper, I discuss language use domains (25 language choice situations) in a local community of Hungary’s Romanian national minority investigated with a longitudinal method. The aim was to learn about the differences among the linguistic domains in order to find out in which domain bilingualism was the most sustainable.

Bilingual Education in Guatemala

Language shift is a phenomenon by which one language is lost and replaced by another one. This project focuses on the language shift process happening in Guatemala, a country where the majority language, Spanish, coexists with 24 Indigenous languages. The objective of this project was to assess the role and development of the Intercultural Bilingual Education (IBE) model, which was implemented with the aim of promoting a type of education that would integrate the cultures and languages of the country. In order to carry out this project, teachers from different schools and members of the government and of the Academy of Mayan Languages were contacted. Data were gathered by means of informal, semistructured interviews. After analyzing the data, it became clear that the IBE model was not being implemented as it was supposed to be and, therefore, the language shift process continues following its course in the country.

Child-caregiver interaction in two remote Indigenous Australian communities.

This paper reports on a study in two remote multilingual Indigenous Australian communities: Yakanarra in the Kimberley region of Western Australia and Tennant Creek in the Barkly region of the Northern Territory. In both communities, processes of language shift are underway from a traditional language (Walmajarri and Warumungu, respectively) to a local creole variety (Fitzroy Valley Kriol and Wumpurrarni English, respectively). The study focuses on language input from primary caregivers to a group of preschool children, and on the children's productive language. The study further highlights child-caregiver interactions as a site of importance in understanding the broader processes of language shift. We use longitudinal data from two time-points, approximately 2 years apart, to explore changes in adult input over time and developmental patterns in the children's speech. At both time points, the local creole varieties are the preferred codes of communication for the dyads in this study, although there is some use of the traditional language in both communities. Results show that for measures of turn length (MLT), there are notable differences between the two communities for both the focus children and their caregivers. In Tennant Creek, children and caregivers use longer turns at Time 2, while in Yakanarra the picture is more variable. The two communities also show differing trends in terms of conversational load (MLT ratio). For measures of morphosyntactic complexity (MLU), children and caregivers in Tennant Creek use more complex utterances at Time 2, while caregivers in Yakanarra show less complexity in their language at that time point. The study's findings contribute to providing a more detailed picture of the multilingual practices at Yakanarra and Tennant Creek, with implications for understanding broader processes of language shift. They also elucidate how children's language and linguistic input varies diachronically across time. As such, we contribute to understandings of normative language development for non-Western, non middle-class children in multilingual contexts.

Language shift of Taiwan's indigenous peoples: a case study of Kanakanavu and Saaroa

This study covers two issues: (1) the language shift process relating to two highly endangered aboriginal languages of Taiwan and (2) the correlations between some variables and their language shift. Both Kanakanavu and Saaroa peoples underwent two waves of migration: (1) a massive in-migration of another Formosan ethnic group (Bunun people) in the 1930s and (2) a massive out-migration of the Kanakanavu and Saaroa villagers to cities in the 1960s. Due to the lack of social compartmentalisation brought by the migrations, three linguistic varieties – the heritage languages (Kanakanavu and Saaroa), Bunun and Mandarin – compete for realisation in the Kanakanavu and Saaroa speech communities. Our study shows that a basic diglossic environment with Mandarin as H-variety and Bunun and Kanakanavu/Saaroa as L-varieties cannot be maintained. Instead, Mandarin ‘leaks’ into the domain previously reserved for vernaculars, while Bunun overrides the heritage languages by carrying a higher prestige. In the multivariate statistical analyses, three changing factors (intermarriage, education level and migration experience) presenting social decompartmentalisation are proved to be correlated to the language shift from the heritage languages to Bunun and/or Mandarin. The increasing intermarriage rates with the more populous Bunun people have resulted in a sub-diglossic situation among the vernaculars where Bunun becomes more prestigious than Kanakanavu and Saaroa.

Language Use and Language Attitudes of Pahari Speakers towards Punjabi language: A Sociolinguistic Study of District Bhimber

In this study, language attitudes of the Pahari speakers towards Punjabi language in district Bhimber were investigated. District Bhimber is a city of multidimensional civilizations. Here two groups of people namely Pahari people and Punjabi people are inhabitants. Pahari people have been living among Punjabi people for more than 65 years now, but they still hold a distinct identity. However, this identity appears to be in danger because of the changing socio-linguistic scenario of the area. Questionnaires were the research methods employed to collect the data. The sample comprised of Six families of Pahari people from Bhimber city. Descriptive as well as inferential analyses were carried out to measure the attitudes of the population of this study. The language attitudes were examined through four domains: family, friendship, transaction and religion. The results from the analysis demonstrate that Pahari people have positive attitudes towards Punjabi language and a process of language shift is taking place in the Bhimber city.

A reaction–diffusion model for competing languages

The extinction of many of the world’s minority languages is of great concern as language death can lead to the irrevocable loss of cultural information. This often occurs through a process of language shift, where individuals switch from speaking one language to a different, more dominant, language. To prevent the loss of language, it is necessary to determine whether language loss is inevitable or if languages can coexist. We address this question by constructing a nonlinear system of reaction–diffusion equations to model the spread of two competing languages, u and v, which vary temporally and spatially. Language u is assumed to confer a relative status advantage to its speakers, thus individuals may convert from language v to language u. The four constant system equilibria are found. Instability and stability conditions are found for each equilibrium. We conclude that the coexistence of both languages u and v is globally stable, subject to certain constraints on the growth rate of each language and the initial values of both u and v.

Language extinction and linguistic fronts

Language diversity has become greatly endangered in the past centuries owing to processes of language shift from indigenous languages to other languages that are seen as socially and economically more advantageous, resulting in the death or doom of minority languages. In this paper, we define a new language competition model that can describe the historical decline of minority languages in competition with more advantageous languages. We then implement this non-spatial model as an interaction term in a reaction–diffusion system to model the evolution of the two competing languages. We use the results to estimate the speed at which the more advantageous language spreads geographically, resulting in the shrinkage of the area of dominance of the minority language. We compare the results from our model with the observed retreat in the area of influence of the Welsh language in the UK, obtaining a good agreement between the model and the observed data.

Beyond diglossia? Language attitudes and identity in Reunion

The increased status that Creole has enjoyed in Reunion over the last decade, coupled with more positive attitudes towards the language, has led to suggestions that diglossia may be giving way to a more balanced French-Creole bilingualism. Building on recent research indicating that the new-found status may be largely symbolic, the present article makes use of a quantitative and qualitative survey of language attitudes amongst a group of university students in Reunion to demonstrate that the new appreciation resides predominantly in the ability of Creole to act as an overt marker of a distinct Reunionese identity that increasingly seeks to assert itself today. It argues that this function masks a paradoxical unwillingness to see Creole as an extended means of communication, which, together with a decline in transmission rates, may not signal a more favourable future for the language so much as the next stage of a slow but steady process of language shift to French.

Family language policy: sociopolitical reality versus linguistic continuity

Family language policy (FLP) has received increased attention over the last decade as researchers seek to understand questions such as: why (and how) do members of some transnational families maintain their language while members of other families lose their language? How is it that some children, growing up in a largely monolingual society, become bilinguals while other children, growing up in a bilingual environment, become monolinguals? What policies and practices do parents implement to promote or discourage the use and practice of particular languages? And how are these language policies and practices negotiated in private domains, and concomitantly, related to broader ideologies of language and language education policies? While emphasizing close analysis of family domains and relationships, FLP also recognizes the relevance and influence of economic, political and social structures and processes in a given society. In a complex nested relationship, FLP interacts with a wide range of socio-historical, political, cultural and linguistic variables and factors (Spolsky 2012; King and Fogle 2013). As such, the study of FLP not only contributes to our understanding of the processes of language shift and change, it also sheds lights on broader language policy issues at societal levels. Most importantly, the study of FLP can make visible the relationships between private domains and public spheres and reveal the conflicts that family members must negotiate between the realities of social pressure, political impositions, and public education demands on the one hand, and the desire for cultural loyalty and linguistic continuity on the other. FLP draws on theoretical frameworks of language policy, language socialization, literacy studies and child language acquisition (Caldas 2010; Curdt-Christiansen 2009, 2012a, 2012b; De Houwer 2009; Gafaranga 2010; King and Fogle 2006,

Language teaching and family linguistic transmission: two correlative factors in the Valencian Region (Catalan vs. Spanish)?

One of the last phases of the processes of language shift is the interruption of intergenerational linguistic transmission, to a large extent caused by the educational programme of linguistic submersion, which pursues the elimination of a recessive language. The inverse phenomenon to language shift, that of revernacularization (or revitalization), is also related to another educational programme, that of linguistic immersion, aimed at the recovery of the minority language. Our research work inquires into the correlation between these educational programmes and the phenomena of language loss and retrieval as manifested in the Valencian Region through a recessive language, Catalan, and a dominant one, Spanish. We can observe that education in one or another language is decisive because many parents transmit to their children the same language of schooling. Revernacularization, however, is difficult because the previous process of language shift is older (since the nineteenth century) and the immersion programme (since the 1990s) has only managed to stop the historical loss of Catalan speakers, but not to regain new ones.

Transitions and translations from Afrikaans to English in schools of the Helderberg area

This paper reports on the findings of a project that profiled the linguistic resources of learners with an Afrikaans-English bilingual background in order to determine features of a perceived process of language shift. The language repertoire and decisions on school enrollment of learners from Afrikaans homes that are registered in the English first language classes were investigated in a historically white, Afrikaans-only High School where recently English medium classes were introduced. During the past couple of years the language of learning and teaching in this school has been adjusted to fit the educational requirements of learners from linguistically and racially diverse backgrounds. Considering also the link between language and ethnicity, the linguistic preferences and patterns of language choice and language use of a selected group of 15- to 18-year-old learners were traced. Reported uses of English and Afrikaans in domains beyond the school, notably at home with relatives, are taken as indicative of linguistic identities. The patterns and preferences of learners from "coloured" communities indicate an extensive process of marginalisation of Afrikaans in families that formerly had a decidedly Afrikaans identity.

Bilingualism and language shift in Western Cape communities

This paper considers a number of pertinent sociolinguistic aspects of a distinct process of languageshift recently noted in some historically Afrikaans first language (L1) communities established in theCape Metropolitan area. Particularly, it considers qualitatively how a number of families madedeliberate choices to change the family language from Afrikaans L1 to English L1. It elaborates on anexploratory study undertaken in 2003, adding data collected in 2008 and 2009, investigating linguisticrepertoire and language choice in a number of families where there has been contact between Englishand Afrikaans over a number of generations. The aim, eventually, is to characterise the nature of theperceived process of language shift. The paper considers how widespread use of both English andAfrikaans in communities that until recently were predominantly Afrikaans, impacts on linguisticidentities. It reports on structured interviews with members of three generations of families whocurrently exhibit English-Afrikaans bilingualism where members of the younger generation are morefluent in English. It finds that there is evidence of language shift, it reports on the circumstances thatmotivate such shift, and concludes that the third generation presents either a monolingual Englishidentity where Afrikaans has a decidedly second language status, or a strong English-dominantbilingual identity.Keywords : bilingualism, family language, language shift, language identity

Inga Language and Culture Revitalization in Putumayo, Colombia

Increasing levels of Quechua–Spanish bilingualism and increased use of Spanish within indigenous communities and classrooms have given rise to concern about Quechua language maintenance (Hornberger, 1988, 1998, 1999; Hornberger & CoronelMolina, 2004). The present investigation is preliminary and explores the possibility of bilingual intercultural education to promote Quechua (Inga) language revitalization in the Putumayo region of Colombia. Because of the large role that schooling has played in the language shift process, Inga language revitalization efforts have focused on implementing use of the Inga language in schools. This paper offers suggestions based on research in second language acquisition (SLA), language revitalization, and bilingual intercultural education to improve recent efforts and overcome the many overt and covert challenges that exist to bilingual education implementation in Putumayo, Colombia. This article attempts to bring such forms of resistance to the surface and provide suggestions for overcoming them, in hopes of facilitating the grassroots-initiated language planning goals of culture revitalization and reversing language shift that are already in place.

The Phoneme /o/ in Opoja Albanian: Albanian-Slavic Contact and the Slavic Jers

The phoneme /o/ is often present in the Albanian dialect of Opoja in environments where it is absent elsewhere in Albanian. This paper explains /o/ in Opoja by reference to the Slavic substrate present in that area of Kosovo. Language shift from Slavic to Albanian took place in the late 16th and 17th centuries in Opoja, and I argue that during this process, Slavic /o/ was identified with Albanian /ə/. This identification was facilitated by the fact that the Slavic dialect of Opoja lay directly on a major isogloss of a crucial sound change in Slavic: the loss of hyper-short high vowels, also known as the jer shift. To the south of Opoja, the Slavic dialect of Gora has /o/ and /e/ from these hyper-short high vowels (known as jers in the Slavic literature), but to the north, the dialect of Prizren shifted both vowels to /ə/. This allowed Albanian /ə/ to be identified with the Slavic jer reflexes, which were then imposed on Albanian during the process of language shift.

Historical Demography and Historical Sociolinguistics: The Role of Migrant Integration in the Development of Dunkirk French in the 17th Century

AbstractWidespread minority language shift in Early Modern Europe is often ascribed to restrictive language policies and the migration of both majority- and minority-language speakers. However, without a sociohistorically credible account of the mechanisms through which these events caused a language shift, these policies lack explanatory power. Inspired by research on 'language histories from below,' we present an integrated sociohistorical and linguistic account that can shed light on the procresses taking place during a case of language shift in the 17th and 18th centuries. We present and analyze demographic data on the immigration and integration of French speakers in previously Dutch-speaking Dunkirk in this period, showing how moderate intermarriage of immigrants and locals could have represented a motive and a mechanism for language shift against a backdrop of larger language-political processes. We then discuss the modern language-shift dialect of Dunkirk in comparison with different dialects of French. The linguistic data suggests a large influence from the dialects of migrants, underlining their role in the language shift process. The combination of sociohistorical and linguistic evidence gives us a better understanding of language shift in this period, showing the value of an integrated 'from below' approach.

Languages and language varieties: Comparative research on the linguistic attitudes in four bilingual minority communities in Hungary

A central issue of this paper is to study the patterns invariation of attitudes toward minority language varieties in four minority communities from Hungary: German, Slovak, Serb and Romanian. This study takes part from the research which focuses on how to obtain significant information about the mechanism of the language shift process concerning autochthonous minorities in Hungary. The results demonstrate that in the course of language shift communities at an advanced stage of language shift have less positive attitudes toward their minority languages than individuals from communities where language shift is in a less advanced stage. In Hungarian minority groups speakers’ attitudes toward minority language varieties (dialect vs. standard) are the symptoms of language shift.