Language Shift, Language Death, and Language Maintenance

Introduction

Language and culture are two fields that cannot be separated to each other. They are always related and dependent one another. In the field of Language and Culture, there are several terminologies that perhaps some of you are not familiar, however, they are used and customized in our society in the course of the time. In this article, author would like to share some of them; they are Language Shift, Language Death, and Language Maintenance.

Linguist have been searching and researching the development of language contact. They also successfully found the languages that are shifted, died, or maintained by the origin speakers. In this essay, the elaboration of language shift, language death, and language maintenance are related to each other particularly in the examples.

Language Shift

Generally, when the speakers of a language consider that their own language is not really suitable to be spoken anymore, it usually follows with the changing of the origin language to another language that is more appropriate for them. “When a group progressively abandons its language of origin, at the same time adopting the language of the socially or economically dominant group” (Fishman 1971, Baker-Jones 1998). While Andersen stated that “the language shift is a process in which successive generations of speakers, both at individual and at community levels, gradually lose proficiency in their mother-tongues or the language of their speech community in favour of other languages” ( 2009, p. 1) The language is shifted highly in the bilingual and multilingual nations (Jagodic, 2011, p. 195).

A clear idea of the occurrence of language shifting is made Fishman (1964, 1991) with his Domain Theory. “When one language gets an expanded domain of use over others there is the tendency for bilingual speakers to shift to it”. There is also the possibility that the speakers tend to use the prestigious-considered language instead of their mother tongue with the reason it makes them have higher status in the society.

 

A well-known language shifting example is the “English only” in America where most of Native Americans were forced to use English instead of using their mother tongue (Janse, 2002, p. 352). It was started from the amendment of Arizona that proposed the “English only” in 1988 and adopted by Utah government to force their people to use English. Thus, the government policy is one of the factors of language shifting as well as the language maintenance.

Another example of language shifting is from Anderson (2009) in his study of Ghanaians language. He found that the Ghanaian parents exposed their children to use English, their ex-colonial language, in every day language and in the school. “These parents believe that the acquisition of English as a first language would enhance their children’s intellectual, social, and economic development” (Anderson, 2009, p. 7).

Language Death

Simple understandings of language death noted from the language shifting is that when the speakers leave their mother tongue and use other language, the mother tongue, slowly or quickly disappear. Campbell (1994, p. 1961) described the language death as “the loss of a language due to gradual shift to the dominant language in language contact situations”. There are four types of language death from Mesthrie and Leap (1995, p. 254):

1. Gradual death: gradual replacement due to language shift
2. Sudden death: rapid extinction, e.g. Tasmanian
3. Radical Death: due to severe political repression, e.g. the massacre of thousand Indian in El Salvador
4. Bottom-to-top death: not used in conversation, but survives in special use e.g. religion or folk songs.

English is also one of the major causes of the death other language. Cornish in England was disappeared after the speakers moved their mother tongue away to English (Mesthrie & Leap (1995, p. 253). While the case of Ghanaian language, some of Ghanaian regional languages were disappeared such as Nabit, Sisaala, and Likpapkaln because of English authority (Andersen, 2009, p. 11).

Language Maintenance

In order to avoid the phenomena of language shift and language death occur, language maintenance needs to be planned and executed in a nation. Language maintenance is the revitalization of a dying or endangered language. Mesthrie and Leap (1995, p. 253) describe the language maintenance as the continuing use of a language in the face of competition from a regionally and socially more powerful language. Many countries such as Australia, Japan, Taiwan, Canada, Scandinavia, Papua New Guinea, and others have initiated to revitalize their origin languages after the wars ended (Janse, 2002, p. 353).

Ways of maintaining the language such as education, documenting the language can be the alternative decision to revive the language. In Ghanaian case, their regional languages are maintained by the use of Media. Most of the radio announcers in Ghana use their mother tongue to deliver the news (Andersen, 2009, p. 2). They keep using the regional languages because they can give the news and their views clearer. The Media policy of Ghana also promotes all the television stations to use the regional languages to maintain their unity.

 

References

Anderson, J. (2009). A kente of many colours: Multilingualism as a complex ecology of language shift in Ghana. Sociolinguistic Studies. Pp. 1-20.

Baker, C., & Jones, S.P. (1998) Encyclopedia of bilingualism and bilingual education. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters

Campbell, L. (1994). Language death. Asher & Simpson 1994. 4. pp. 1960-1968

Fishman, J. (1971) The sociology of language. Rowley, MA: Newbury House

Janse, M. (2002). Introduction language death and language maintenance: problems and prospects. (http://www.blonline.nl). pp. 9-20.

Jagodic, D. (2011). Between language maintenance and language shift: the slovenian community in italy today and tomorrow. ESUKA – JEFUL. Pp. 195 – 213.