Language shift, sometimes referred to as
language transfer or
language replacement or
assimilation, is the progressive process whereby a speech community of a
language shifts to speaking another language. The rate of assimilation is the percentage of individuals with a given mother tongue who speak another language more often in the home. The data is used to measure the use of a given language in the lifetime of a person, or most often across generations within a linguistic community.
The process whereby a community of speakers of one language becomes bilingual in another language, and gradually shift allegiance to the second language is called
assimilation. When a linguistic community ceases to use their original language, we speak of
language death.
Examples
Alsace
In
Alsace,
France, a longtime
German-speaking region, German and
Alsatian, the native Germanic dialect, all but disappeared as useful languages after a period of being banned subsequent to the
Second World War, superseded by
French.
Brussels
In the last two centuries,
Brussels transformed from an exclusively
Dutch-speaking city to a bilingual city with
French as the majority language and
lingua franca. The language shift began in the 18th century and accelerated as
Belgium became
independent and Brussels expanded out past its original city boundaries.
[ "Wallonie - Bruxelles", Le Service de la langue française, 19/05/1997][ "Villes, identités et médias francophones: regards croisés Belgique, Suisse, Canada.", Université Laval, Québec] From 1880 on, more and more Dutch-speaking people became bilingual, resulting in a rise of monolingual French-speakers after 1910. Halfway through the 20th century the number of monolingual French-speakers carried the day over the (mostly) bilingual Flemish inhabitants.
[, BTNG-RBHC, XXI, 1990, 3-4, pp. 383-412, Machteld de Metsenaere, Eerst aanwezend assistent en docent Vrije Universiteit Brussel] Only since the 1960s, after the fixation of the Belgian
language border and the socio-economic development of Flanders was in full effect, could Dutch stem the tide of increasing French use.
French Flanders
French Flanders, which gradually became part of France between 1659 and 1678, historically was part of the
Dutch sprachraum; the native dialect being
West Flemish. The linguistic situation did not dramatically change until the
French Revolution in 1789, and Dutch continued to fulfil the main functions of a cultural language throughout the 18th century.
During the 19th century, especially in the second half of it, Dutch was banned from all levels of education and lost most of its functions as a cultural language. The larger cities had become predominantly French-speaking by the end of the 19th century. However, in the countryside, many elementary schools continued to teach in Dutch until
World War I, and the
Roman Catholic Church continued to preach and teach the
cathechism in Flemish in many parishes.
Nonetheless, since French enjoyed a much higher status than Dutch, from about the interbellum onward everybody became bilingual, the generation born after World War II being raised exclusively in French. In the countryside, the passing on of Flemish stopped during the 1930s or 1940s. As a consequence, the vast majority of those still having an active command of Flemish belong to the generation of over the age of 60.
Therefore, complete extinction of
French Flemish can be expected in the coming decades.
Ireland
Calvin Veltman ("Language Shift in the United States," 1983) has written extensively on the language shift process of a dozen minority language groups in the United States. Based on a 1976 study prepared by the Bureau of the Census, data show that rates of language shift and assimilation have been rising for the past fifty years in the United States. Immigrants of Spanish mother tongue are switching to English within two generations, and in the absence of continuing immigration, the language would not survive more than two generations.
Quebecois French, widely spoken by French-Canadian immigrants in
New England in the early 20th century, has more or less disappeared from the U.S., replaced by English; a similar process has occurred in
Louisiana, a former French colony. Data published in McKay and Wong's "New Immigrants in the United States" confirm this picture with data from the 1990 Census.
This process has also been observed in Canada outside of
Quebec, where the rates of shift for French language minorities presage their disappearance. Meanwhile, in Quebec itself, the decline of French has been reversed, and given high rates of emigration and substantial intermarriage with French Canadians, the English language is now faced with decline.
Before the 1930s,
Italian was the only official language of Malta, even though it was only spoken by the upper classes, with
Maltese being spoken by the lower class. However,
English was then added to the mix, and was made a co-official language alongside Maltese, with Italian being dropped as official. The English language has since grown in the country, and now threatens the status of Maltese. Interestingly, the number of speakers of Italian there has increased from when the language was official. A trend among the younger generations is to mix English and Italian vocabulary patterns, in making new Maltese words. For example, the Maltese word for library was originally "bibljoteka", but this has since been displaced by "libreria", formed from the English "library", and an Italian pattern ending. In addition to mixing English with Italian,
Maltenglish is an amalgam of English and Maltese that commonly occurs. This involves using English words in midset sentences of Maltese, or adding English vocabulary into Maltese. Trends show that English is not only becoming the language of choice for a larger and larger number of people, but is actually transforming the Maltese language itself.
In the
Philippines,
Spanish-speaking families have gradually switched over to
English since the end of
World War II until the former eventually ceased to be a practical everyday language in the country.
Another example would be the gradual death of the
Kinaray-a language of Panay as many native speakers especially in the province of
Iloilo are switching to
Hiligaynon or mixing both languages together.
Kinaray-a was once spoken in the towns outside the vicinity of
Iloilo City while
Hiligaynon was only limited in the eastern coasts and the city proper. However, due to media and other factors such as urbanization, many younger generations have switched from
Kinaray-a to
Hiligaynon, especially on the towns of
Cabatuan,
Santa Barbara,
Calinog,
Miagao,
Passi City,
Guimbal,
Tigbauan,
Tubungan, etc. Many towns especially the towns of
Janiuay,
Lambunao, and
San Joaquin still have a sizeable
Kinaray-a speaking population with the standard accent similar to that spoken in the predominantly
Karay-a province of
Antique. Even in the province of
Antique, the issue of "Hiligaynization" is something to be comfronted about as the province, especially the capital town of
San Jose de Buenavista is undergoing urbanization. Many investors from
Iloilo City brings with them
Hiligaynon-speaking workers who are reluctant to learn the local language.
One of the problems of
Kinaray-a is its written form, as its unique "schwa sound" is difficult to represent in orthography. As time goes by,
Kinaray-a has disappeared in many areas it was once spoken especially in the island of Mindoro and only remnants of the past remains in such towns as
Pinamalayan,
Bansud,
Gloria,
Bongabong,
Roxas,
Mansalay, and
Bulalacao in Oriental Mindoro and
Sablayan,
Calintaan,
San Jose, Oriental Mindoro, and
Magsaysay in
Occidental Mindoro, as
Tagalog became the standard and dominantly recognized official language of these areas.
Social consequences
Language shift can be detrimental to at least parts of the community associated with the language which is being lost. Sociolinguists such as
Joshua Fishman, Lilly Wong Fillmore and Jon Reyhner report that language shift (when it involves loss of the first language) can lead to cultural disintegration and a variety of social problems including increased alcoholism, dysfunctional families and increased incidence of premature death.
For example, Ohiri-Aniche (1997) observes a tendency among many
Nigerians to bring up their children as monolingual speakers of English and reports that this can lead to their children holding their heritage language in disdain and feeling ashamed of being associated with the language of their parents and grandparents. As a result of this some Nigerians are said to feel neither fully European nor fully Nigerian.
Reversing
Joshua Fishman has proposed a method of
reversing language shift which involves assessing the degree to which a particular language is disrupted in order to determine the most effective way of assisting and revitalising the language.
See also
