Language Shift Research Articles

STRATEGI DALAM PEMERTAHANAN BAHASA MADURA DI PONDOK PESANTREN SYEKH ABDUL QADIR JAILANI BESUKI

This study aims to describe the strategy of Islamic boarding schools in maintaining the Madurese language. The object of this research is the Syekh Abdul Qadir Jailani Islamic Boarding School which is located in Belimbing Village, Besuki District, Situbondo Regency. This study is a qualitative descriptive analysis model with primary and secondary data sources. The results of this study indicate several strategies for the Syekh Abdul Qadir Jailani Islamic Boarding School in maintaining the Madurese language, including; 1) Holding Madurese language activities/competitions, 2) Not eliminating Islamic boarding school culture such as reciting Kitab, 3) Familiarizing students with the Madurese language every day. The factors that can influence the Madurese Language Shift are; 1) There is formal education, 2) There are students/teachers from outside the region.

Language Shift Analysis of Javanese Language in South Tangerang

This study aims to present language shift analysis of javanese language that is happened in South Tangerang. This study uses case study qualitative method that collects the data from 3 subjects about language shift that related to some theories and sources. The object of the study is language used of javanese language that provides subjects who have language shifting in their daily speaking. As a result, the research can claim that the Java language shift is influenced by bilingualism, migration, and economic, value, and attitude factor and the reason for the Java language shift into the Indonesian language is the status Indonesian language.

Digital Language Use in Bangka as Contribution to Digital Culture and Heritage

This research aims to find out how the bilingual speakers of Khek and Malay in Bangka communicate using the messaging app, find out regarding what shifts that could be identified in the use of the languages, and find out what the attitudes of the Bangkanese people are towards Khek and Malay. The method is approaching a descriptive qualitative design which involves some screenshots of WhatsApp chat to analyze as well as a questionnaire for the participants to answer. The results show that they indeed use the certain codes while performing a digital communication such as language shift, code switching, code mixing, and unique words. Moreover, they have a positive attitudes toward both Khek and Malay for some reasons. The most important part is that through the digital communication have they spread the cultures from both Chinese-Indonesian and Malays by using Khek and Malay as well as the fact that the languages used during the process of digital communication have exposed their heritage and identity. This research needs to be further investigated about the language preservation due to the fact that some people cannot speak one of those particular languages actively. With further investigation will reveal the current condition of those languages.

Some reasons behind the change of languages and dialects in a South Transdanubian area of Hungary, with special regard to Völgység

Various national minorities have lived in the South Transdanubian region of Hungary over the centuries. Within this area, the Völgység is a small part of Hungary, belonging partly to Tolna and partly to Baranya counties, a loessy hilly area bordered by rivers. The paper deals with the language and dialect of the ethnic groups still living here after 1945. After WW II, the Germans and Serbs who remained here were joined by Szeklers from Bukovina, Hungarians from Upper Hungary and from other Hungarian areas. To- day, most of the Germans and Serbs have merged with the majority Hungarians, and the (minority) language learnt by young Hungarians is mostly the standard version of the given language. The dialect of the resettled Szeklers from Bukovina, Hungarians from Upper Hungary and other Hungarian-speaking groups can be characterised as converg- ing with the Hungarian vernacular. All these communities are characterised by mixed marriages, which also influence language usage and, in the case of Germans and Serbs, may lead to language shift . The dialect of the above-mentioned Hungarian-speaking groups (as with other Hungarian dialects) is withdrawn from the public language area. The Hungarian dialects (and the German and Serbian dialects in Hungary) have a lower prestige than the vernacular, their use is limited to a more restricted environment, and they are nowadays the language of family use and the language of the more restricted community. The paper reviews the historical background and current status of these languages and language varieties and presents data on their speakers.

An Open-Access Toolkit for Collaborative, Community-Informed Dictionaries

ABSTRACT: In this article, we discuss the development of a relational lexicography framework and an open-access toolkit for collaborative, community-informed dictionaries. We explain how the relational lexicography toolkit supports envisioning, developing, and publishing dictionaries that meet the cultural, linguistic, and educational goals of Indigenous communities who, despite ongoing language shift, are working to strengthen their languages. This framework recognizes the many relationships that are present in community-based language projects, including relationships between speakers, dialects, academics, communities, and the dictionary itself. The toolkit, which comprises two online Knowledgebase of Indigenous language dictionaries and lexicography technologies, documents how these relationships have been represented in existing work and provides a centralized platform to refer to and compare resources. Overall, this article provides background context on our methodology, project development, aspects of the resulting resources, and the anticipated benefit of creating such an open-access framework in support of community-based lexicography.

Mount Parnassos and the Labyrinth: From Korinthos to Knossos, from Zakynthos to Halicarnassus

This paper revisits the Greek *-nthos- and *-ssos/*-ttos names and analyzes them in the context of the language contacts between the Pre-Proto-Greek peoples arriving in Greece and the Pre-Greek populations already in place. It starts overviewing the prehistoric process of formation of the Greek language from Proto-Indo-European. A few concepts are defined, such as Pre-Proto-Greek, Proto-Greek, Common Greek and Pre-Greek. After an update on the main hypotheses regarding the dates of entry into Greece, the author stresses the role of the Pre-Greek substratum in the shaping of Proto-Greek due to the implicit phenomenon of language shift completed by the Pre-Greek population, and proceeds to an initial analysis, on the basis of the limited data available, of the Pre-Greek language(s), making use of Pre-Greek onomastics as the main, albeit indirect, source of information. With these names on the table, it is postulated that the phonological structure of the Proto-Greek plosive consonants (the fact, in particular, that the inherited voiced aspirated plosives appear as voiceless aspirated plosives in Greek) may show the effect of Pre-Greek, whose linguistic affiliation has given rise to several conflicting theories and many doubts. Even if the Anatolian hypothesis has seduced many researchers, a non-Indo-European option seems preferable. After considering different Pre-Indo-European proposals (Beekes, Facchetti, Schrijver), conclusions are drawn about possible coincidences between the Pre-Greek and Etruscan phonological systems and what this may imply. Schrijver’s recent suggestion that perhaps the language of the Minoans could be distantly related to Hattic is also considered. This could constitute an alternative explanation to the toponymic coincidences between the two regions: they could be sharing a pre-Indo-European substratum.

Digital Technologies, Social Media, Global and Local Languages in Southeast Asia

This article aligns with the theme, “Overcoming Adversity, Embracing Change: Addressing Challenges in Language and Culture in Asia”, and with the call for papers for this conference. It takes an optimistic but critical stand on questions of digital technologies, including social media in multilingual societies. The telephone, radio, television and more recently the internet were all in their turn (wrongly) seen as heralding the demise of normal face-to-face communication, and as threatening the continued existence of minority indigenous languages in multilingual nations. But the Chinese traditional saying, “A crisis is an opportunity riding a dangerous wind”, remains relevant in the pandemic and post-pandemic era. Technologies are not in themselves language-specific, nor are they necessarily biased towards powerful, global languages. Social media platforms such as WhatsApp, Instagram and others do not force users to shift towards Spanish, Mandarin, Arabic or English. I discuss examples of mixed language use in Southeast Asian social media contexts, taking up the point raised by Deterding (2020, 175) in his article based on his keynote presentation at the previous conference in this series: “perhaps trying to analyse the different languages in Brunei as distinct entities is flawed. In the modern globalised world, languages no longer belong in distinct boxes that can be neatly labelled”. The key argument is that the mixing of local vernacular and powerful global languages does not necessarily signal an impending language shift. On the contrary, such hybrid discoursal practices in social media may be viewed as a minority language maintenance and survival strategy.

MONSIGNOR PROFESSOR SIMON O ANYANWU'S CALL FOR A DAILY CATHOLIC NEWSPAPER IN SOUTHEAST NIGERIA: IMPLICATIONS FOR IGBO LANGUAGE PROMOTION

Msgr Prof Simon Anyanwu, in his work, Igbo Catholicism on the Move, called for a daily Catholic newspaper in Southeast Nigeria. This paper investigates the implications of that call for Igbo language promotion. Specifically, it aims to portray how implementing that clarion call would promote Igbo language documentation, preservation, maintenance, development, propagation, revitalisation, renaissance, and hybridisation. The primary data sources are the work mentioned above and interviews, while the library and the internet are the secondary sources. The theoretical framework is Joshua Fishman's theory of revising language shift. The data analysis and interpretation methods are descriptive, analytical, and hermeneutical. However, the finding indicates his advocacy for a daily Catholic newspaper is implicitly Igbo language-promoting. Thus, this paper recommends that the proposed newspaper promote the Igbo language unreservedly and simultaneously translate to running Igbo and English versions.

Changes in the attitude towards the state language of the representatives of the national minorities of the Dniester and Danube rivers

The article deals the results of the analysis of language biographies of speakers of the Gagauz and Albanian languages who live in the south of Odesa region, between the Dniester and Danube rivers, as well as observations of the language situation in this region after February 24, 2022. A comparison of the obtained results with the results of previous studies carried out at the end of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st centuries showed that the language and educational policy of Ukraine since the beginning of the Russian aggression in 2014, especially the active phase of the Russian aggression, caused a language shift associated with a change in attitude to the Ukrainian language as a state language, namely, as a language of international communication. The Russian language, losing its positive evaluative qualities in the polylingual South Bessarabian region, as the language of the aggressor, is no longer perceived positively either from an aesthetic point of view or in terms of prestige. Instead, the Ukrainian language acquires a positive evaluation based on these signs that, in addition to the laws aimed at protecting the Ukrainian language as a state language (Article 10 of the Constitution of Ukraine, the Law of Ukraine “On Education” of 2017, the Law of Ukraine “On Ensuring the Functioning of the Ukrainian Language as a State Language” of 2019), causes the emergence of a real need for representatives of national minorities to have a highquality knowledge of the state language in order to use it unhindered as a means of interethnic communication. Keywords: attitude to languages, language behavior, national minority languages, Gagauz language, Albanian language, Ukrainian language, language of international communication.

Postcolonial analysis of educational language policies of Ireland, Singapore, and Malaysia

The aim of this paper is to compare the educational language policing in Ireland, Singapore, and Malaysia. While distant geographically, the three countries experience similar linguistic processes when it comes to anglicisation, and propose different solutions to the issue of balancing linguistic rights, and promotion of English as the language of globalisation.
 This comparison aimed to find out what influences language policing in postcolonial countries, and in what ways language shift can be prevented. The aspects of language policing strategies are presented as a way of protecting linguistic human rights, but also as a way of dealing with the aftermaths of the policies implemented by the British Empire.
 Similarities and distinctions in the language policies of Ireland, Singapore, and Malaysia prove that the weak position of native languages originates not in the “natural” decline of a language, but rather in the policy of promoting English by the colonial forces. Ethnic and linguistic discrimination favouring English speakers in Ireland, Singapore, and Malaysia, originates in similar, imperial linguistic ideologies, which are still reflected in the current language policies of countries of colonial past. While the countries approach their bilingual educational policing in different ways, ultimately the outcomes seem similar when it comes to linguistic attitudes and prestige.

A Sociolinguistic Assessment of Language Shift in Hyam

This paper dubbed “A Sociolinguistic Assessment of language shift among Hyam speakers”
 examines the sociolinguistic concepts of language shift and its resultant effect of language death or extinction. This is against the backdrop that like many other minority languages, the Hyam language is still in competition with other more sophisticated and standard linguistic codes. To achieve this aim, a total of two hundred (200) structured questionnaires are administered to both the home and the Diaspora populations respectively. findings reveal that even though people speak the language with their children and still have native-like competence, a greater number of them still speak or prefer other language varieties. They equally do not use the language with their friends or non-native speakers because it is not mutually intelligible. Nevertheless, the degree of solidarity and loyalty for the Hyam language are still very high regardless. It is however disturbing to say that the language is not standardized, literatures are very much lacking in the language, making teaching and learning in it somewhat challenging; and it is still incapable of performing modern functions typical of a metropolitan variety. It is on this light that this research is quick to state, and also by way of recommendation, that if something is not done soon and fast particularly in the area of instruction, documentation and standardization, the shift though gradual for now, may become irreversible and language death may therefore become inevitable.

Introducing a Polynomic Approach in Ryukyuan Language Learning

The polynomic model as a model of language codification treats regional and social variation within language as inherently good and does not hierarchise this variation. This research is an argument in advocating the application of a polynomic model in Ryukyuan language learning, focussing on Okinawa Ryukyuan. The Ryukyuan languages consist of a minimum of 5 abstand languages that are spoken in the Ryukyuan island chain in southern Japan. The Ryukyuan languages have no standard languages and show internal variation. A monolingual language ideology implemented since the annexation of the Ryukyus by Japan in the late 19th century has caused a language shift towards Japanese, rendering all Ryukyuan languages endangered. A small revitalisation of the Ryukyuan language has been taking place since the early 21st century, necessitating the development of an infrastructure for language learning. In this research, I give reasons why the application of a polynomic model would allow for an inclusive language revitalisation that respects local language practices and identities in the Ryukyus, without reproducing the colonialist attitudes towards language that led to language endangerment in the first place.

“Some Don’t Even Know Where South Is!”: Linguistic Strategies for Spatial Reference and Seasons in Ishigaki Yaeyaman and Their Disappearance

Many inhabitants of the Yaeyama Archipelago continue to hold a low status view towards their heritage language despite current efforts to halt language shift. An ideology of inferiority stemming from the colonization of the mind renders them psychologically dependent on being Japanese and unable to see their own language as valuable. The problem is further compounded by the lack of ethnolinguistic and sociolinguistic research on the knowledge concepts of the language including the reference system despite it being a profound feature of the language. This paper first rectifies this by describing the unique conceptualizations in the orientation systems as well as the seasonal terms of Yaeyaman. The focus is then shifted to the situations and frequency of their use in Yaeyaman and in Ishigaki-substrate Japanese to look for how language shift has impacted these spatial and environmental viewpoints in the minds of Yaeyaman speakers. I show through the words of the speakers, while describing their use of these systems, how their minds have been unconsciously colonized and how this drives an automatic behavior of language accommodation towards the Japanese. I argue that language accommodation to speakers of Japanese is largely responsible for the disuse of the unique Yaeyaman worldview concepts as well as the decrease in domains where the language is spoken. As a consequence, a unique way of looking at the world and a feature to take pride in is falling into disuse.

Grammatikai vonatkozású kontaktusjelenségek a mezőségi nyelvhasználatban

The paper discusses the grammatical aspects of language contact in the language use of Hungarian communities in the Transylvanian Plain on the basis of living language data. The database has been created as part of a larger, more extensive research in the course of which the language shift processes of the Hungarian-Romanian bilingual speakers living in the diasporic communities of the Transylvanian Plain are being analysed and which has been continuously increased in the past three years. The research has been carried out by narrative interviews recorded in nine communities by now, with native Hungarian speakers of different ages who also speak Romanian to a certain extent. These communities have provided a varied field for bilingual researches from a demographical point of view but in terms of linguistic environment and the extent of bilingualism as well. Up to now the language contact researches have mainly been directed towards lexical and phonetical aspects, and for a while they have been extended to semantical aspects too, but as far as grammatical contact phenomena are concerned, we have quite few results at the moment. On basis of the data presented in the paper the analysed phenomena can be explained in certain cases with the influence of the dominant second language, respectively the Romanian, or with the uncertainty rising from the running of two language systems at the same time. The phenomena occuring most often as results of the Romanian language effect are the syntactical phenomena and those regarding word order, the use of plurals in a different way from the standard use, suffix confusions, suffix borrowings, redundancy and missing elements. Redundancy phenomena contain the use of unnecessary articles, special double negation, redundancy of negative particles, missing elements mean the lack of the modal verb in conditional structures. In certain cases, for example at the phenomenon of suffix borrowing, the parallel structures can be found in Romanian as well, so this can be considered language contact phenomenon, just like the lack of modal verbs in conditional structures. Other phenomena, such as the specific SVO word order characteristic of the Romanian language, or specific use of plurals are viewed as relative language contact phenomena, as these can be observed in the language use of monolingual Hungarian speakers too, though more rarely than in the language use of bilinguals. In order to completely understand the processes of language contacts further researches of the grammatical contact phenomena are needed.

Newspaper advertisements as an indicator of verticalization

Comparing advertisements published in both the English and German versions of the Eureka Post, a newspaper from Eureka, South Dakota, this study explores one avenue of potential language shift under the verticalization model and aims to gauge external influences on this one particular community-controlled institution. By assessing advertising language in two parallel publications, external and internal community influences should be visible over time. If external factors are attributing to a shift of the print language from the community-dominant language (which is non-dominant in broader society) to the dominant language, this should be evidenced in an increase of advertisements in the non-dominant community language. However, the results indicate that at a time where verticalization processes are changing the publishing landscape in other areas of the Midwest, in Eureka, South Dakota, the opposite appears to be true. The community-dominant language, German, sees an increase in advertisements published in German and a decrease in those published in English.

Language and identity in the East Frisian-American (postvernacular) heritage community

This article reports initial results from an online survey in the East Frisian heritage community in the United States, inquiring about remaining cultural and linguistic practices. Answers from 31 participants indicate a generally positive attitude towards the Low German heritage language, despite low self-reported productive and receptive proficiency. Community members show awareness of the ongoing and inevitable language shift to English but feel unable to stop the trend. This also manifests in terms of identity construction: while autochthonous minority language communities have been shown to employ emblematic language use as a postvernacular identity marker, East Frisian heritage in the U.S. is constructed mostly around church affiliation, food and tea traditions, shared values, and being “German.” Thus, this study opens the door for additional (comparative) studies on the development of postvernacular communities and the (diminished) role of language use in these groups.

Heritage Language Long-Distance Acquisition in Remote Areas—Implementing Telecollaboration in Social Media to Increase Exposure to Polish Language and Culture

This paper reports on a study conducted during the implementation of the Polish language and culture promotion project, run by Maria Curie-Skłodowska University and financed by the Polish National Agency for Academic Exchange. In this project, Polish students were involved in telecollaboration with Brazilians from the Ijui region. The aim of this study was to investigate the possibilities of arranging heritage language acquisition through telecollaboration via social media. Due to the isolation of many communities, telecollaboration can be a useful method facilitating heritage language and culture acquisition across the world. This article used the case study method, in which the “Language Clinic” component of the project was taken under detailed scrutiny.
 The project showed language shift and translanguaging as it happened—initially, the students from Brazil used English as a lingua franca and as a classroom language; however, once they grew more confident, they replaced English with Polish as the target language. For Polish student assistants, participation in the project brought about many benefits: increased orthophonic awareness, gaining an understanding of how careless articulation and inappropriate intonation of the utterance may lead to communication breakdown.

Language Preference of the Indonesia Economic Subjects' toward Product Labeling

The shift of Indonesian Language to Foreign Languages also applies to the labeling of selling products in Indonesia. Economic actors have the choice of maintaining Indonesian language or using foreign language when labeling the product they are going to sell. This study aims to see the language attitude of economic actors towards the products to be marketed. In addition, this study was conducted to see the number of foreign and Indonesian languages used in the country when labeling the products they sell. This research method uses descriptive methods to make descriptions, descriptions, or paintings systematically, factually and accurately. The result obtained is that economic actors prefer to label products in foreign languages rather than Indonesian. From the data found, there are 50 product labels. There are 33 domestic products labeling their products in foreign terms and only 17 domestic products label their products in Indonesian terms.

Genetic admixture and language shift in the medieval Volga-Oka interfluve

The Volga-Oka interfluve in northwestern Russia has an intriguing history of population influx and language shift during the Common Era. Today, most inhabitants of the region speak Russian, but until medieval times, northwestern Russia was inhabited by Uralic-speaking peoples.1,2,3 A gradual shift to Slavic languages started in the second half of the first millennium with the expansion of Slavic tribes, which led to the foundation of the Kievan Rus' state in the late 9th century CE. The medieval Rus' was multicultural and multilingual-historical records suggest that its northern regions comprised Slavic and Uralic peoples ruled by Scandinavian settlers.4,5,6 In the 10th-11th centuries, the introduction of Christianity and Cyrillic literature raised the prestige status of Slavic, driving a language shift from Uralic to Slavic.3 This eventually led to the disappearance of the Uralic languages from northwestern Russia. Here, we study a 1,500-year time transect of 30 ancient genomes and stable isotope values from the Suzdal region in the Volga-Oka interfluve. We describe a previously unsampled local Iron Age population and a gradual genetic turnover in the following centuries. Our time transect captures the population shift associated with the spread of Slavic languages and illustrates the ethnically mixed state of medieval Suzdal principality, eventually leading to the formation of the admixed but fully Slavic-speaking population that inhabits the area today. We also observe genetic outliers that highlight the importance of the Suzdal region in medieval times as a hub of long-reaching contacts via trade and warfare.

Interpreting mismatches between linguistic and genetic patterns among speakers of Tanimuka (Eastern Tukanoan) and Yukuna (Arawakan).

Northwestern Amazonia is home to a great degree of linguistic diversity, and the human societies in that region are part of complex networks of interaction that predate the arrival of Europeans. This study investigates the population and language contact dynamics between two languages found within this region, Yukuna and Tanimuka, which belong to the Arawakan and Tukanoan language families, respectively. We use evidence from linguistics, ethnohistory, ethnography and population genetics to provide new insights into the contact dynamics between these and other human groups in NWA. Our results show that the interaction between these groups intensified in the last 500 years, to the point that it is difficult to differentiate between them genetically. However, this close interaction has led to more substantial contact-induced language changes in Tanimuka than in Yukuna, consistent with a scenario of language shift and asymmetrical power relations.