The document discusses language shift, which is a change from using one language to using another, more dominant language. This often occurs among immigrant families and communities. It provides examples of language shift occurring among Coptic speakers in Egypt and Hungarian speakers in Austria. Language shift happens for various social, economic, political and demographic reasons, and it can ultimately lead to language loss or even death if a language is no longer spoken. Maintaining positive attitudes about a minority language and frequent use of it can help prevent language shift.

1. Language Shift and Maintenance

2. Language Shift-
• also known as language transfer or language replacement or language
assimilation
• a change from the use of one language to the use of another language
• often occurs when people migrate from one country to another country where
the main language is different
• the speaker of the lesser-used language, gradually shifts from his/her native
language to the dominant language
• in order to restricting the number of languages used as media of instruction,
language shift may be actively encouraged by government policy
• may also occur when the main language of a region/country is needed for
employment opportunities and wider communication
• it should not be confused with Language Change

3. Example - The Coptic Language
In Egypt the usage of Coptic language was in decline since the Arab conquest in 7th
century.
# Today Coptic language survives only as the liturgical language of the Coptic Church

4. Coptic language continues….
• The language of the Copts, which
represents the final stage of ancient
Egyptian language, a descendent of
the Afro-asiatic language
• Is the latest stage of Egyptian
Language
• In the 1st century AD Egyptian
began to be written in the Coptic
alphabet- an adaptation of the Greek
script
• After the rise of Islamic power in 7th
century , Arabic replaced Koine-
Greek and Coptic as the sole
administrative language
• Today it exists only as the liturgical
language of the Coptic Church
The Coptic alphabet is an adaptation of
the Greek alphabet with some letters
inherited from Demotic scripts(developed
from ancient Egyptian scripts)

5. • Children of migrant families meet English at school.
• Influenced by TV programmes and interacting in English
with friends and in school
• English is the only means of communication with teacher
and other children
• Starts talking English at home.
• Gradually parents start speaking English with their
children.
Language shift process of the migrant families in English speaking
countries.

6. In many monolingual countries Speaking good
dominant language and abandoning the minority
mother tongue has been regarded as a sign of
successful assimilation
• Pressure from society also
has a vast effect in displacing
the minority language mother
tongue.
• Immigrants who sound
different regarded as
threatening by the majority
group
• A successful assimilation in
dominant language helps
making a tighter bond with the
dominant culture and society
• Gradually shifting may take
three or four generations.

7. Non migrant communities
Political, economic and
social changes within a
community may result in
linguistic changes too. For
example the community of
Oberwart ( Hungarian
name Felsöör) an Austrian
town on the border of
Hungary has been
gradually shifted from
Hungarian to German
language. Before World
War I Oberwart was part of
Hungary but after war
Oberwart became part of
Austria and German
replaced Hungerian as
official language.
Hungarian was also
banned from schools. This
marked the beginning of a
period of language shift.

8. Language shift in Migrant majority countries
• Language shift often reflects the influence of political and economic
factors
•The language of a colonial power often become dominant in invaded
countries.
• countries such as United Kingdom, Portugal, Spain and France have
generally imposed their language along with their colonial rule.
• as a result many languages of multilingual countries like India, Papua
New Guinea and in most African countries were under threat of extinction.
• After obtaining political power, a colonial country imposes language along
with its institutions- education, government administration, law court, etc
• Minority group find themselves under thriving pressure to adopt the
language of the dominant group

9. Language death and language loss
•The ultimate step of language shift is language death or language loss
• When all the people who speak a language die, the language dies with
them
• Shifting to the dominant language for couple of generations causes
language loss to the community.
• Language loss can be occur on two levels. Personal level or familial level
• Which is often the case with immigrant communities in monolingual
countries
• The entire language may be lost when it ceases to be spoken at all
•This scenario has become an all-too-common threat in indigenous
communities in the United States, because their languages are not spoken
anywhere else in the world.

10. Factors contributing to Language Shift
Social economic and political factors-
• In English- dominated countries people learn English to get a good job
•Demand for learning the dominant language results bilingualism- which is
always a necessary precursor of language shift
• when a specific community fails to take active steps to maintain their ethnic
language
• they may not see their native language is offering any advantages to their
children
• not realizing that the language is in danger of disappearing
• Giving excessive importance in learning dominant-language in order
assimilate into the dominant-society.

11. Demographic factors
• Language shift tends to occurs lot faster in urban areas than in rural areas
• Ukrainians in Canada who live out of town have maintained their ethnic
language better than those live in towns.
•Maoris of New Zealand who live in isolated areas still maintain their Maori
language and culture
• size of community or group is also a critical factor
• In Australia the largest groups of Maltese speakers had the lower rate of
shift towards English

12. Attitude and values
• Language Shift tends to be slower among communities where the minority
language is highly valued
• When language is seen as a symbol of ethnic identity, it is maintained
intensively
• Positive attitudes and international status of a language, helps people to
resist the pressure from the majority group to use their language
• It is easier to maintaining French in Canada and in the USA because it is
a language with immense international status
• Greek language has international prestige and immigrant Greeks are
proud of the contribution of Greek to Western philosophy and culture
• Immigrant Italians are also proud of their food, culture and art. They are
very emotional about their “mama” and mother tongue.

13. Language maintenance
The degree to which an individual or group continues to use their language,
particularly in a bilingual or multilingual area or among immigrant groups.
Factors that affect language maintenance
• Whether or not the language is an official language
• Whether or not it is used in the media, for religious purpose or for education
• How many speakers of the language live in the same area. In some places
where the use of certain language has decreased there have been attempts
at revival, e.g. of Welsh in Wales and Gaelic in parts of Scotland.

14. How Language can be maintained
• Families from minority group
need to communicate with each
other frequently
• this will help them to maintain
their language
•A frequent contact with the
homeland
• setting specific purpose school
or institution or club
Frequent nurturing of native culture ensures
language longevity. Picture : a Bengali cultural
program in the USA.

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