Factors Encouraging Language Maintenance

Factors Encouraging Language Loss

Linguistic Factors

• Maintenance: Mother tongue is standardized and exists in written form

• Loss: Mother tongue is non-standard and/or not in written form

Linguistic Factors

• Maintenance: Use of an alphabet which makes printing and literacy relatively easy

• Loss: Use of writing system which is expensive to reproduce and difficult to learn

Linguistic Factors

• Maintenance: Home language has international status

• Loss: Home language of little or no international importance

Linguistic Factors

• Maintenance: Home Language literacy used in community and with homeland

• Loss: Illiteracy in the home language

Linguistic Factors

• Maintenance: Flexibility in the development of the home language (e.g. limited use of new terms from the majority language).

• Loss: No tolerance of new terms from majority language; or too much tolerance of loan words leading to mixing and eventual language loss.

A generalized scenario from Appel & Muysken (1987) follows:

‘The first generation (born in the country of origin) is bilingual. But the minority language is clearly dominant, the second generation is bilingual and either of the two languages might be strongest, the third generation is bilingual with the majority language dominating and the fourth generation only has command of the majority language.’

Cultural Factors

• Maintenance: Mother tongue institutions (e.g. schools, community organizations)

• Loss: Lack of Mother-tongue institutions mass media, leisure activities.

Cultural Factors

• Maintenance: Cultural and religious ceremonies in the home language.

• Loss: Cultural and religious activity in the majority language.

Cultural Factors

• Maintenance: Ethnic identity strongly tied to home language

• Loss: Ethnic identity defined by factors other than language.

Cultural Factors

• Maintenance: Nationalistic aspirations as a language group

• Loss: Few nationalistic aspirations

Cultural Factors

• Maintenance: Mother tongue the homeland language.

• Loss: Mother tongue not the only homeland national language, or mother spans several nations.

Cultural Factors

• Maintenance: Emotional attachment to mother tongue giving self-identity and ethnicity.

• Loss: Self-identity derived from factors other than shared home language.

Cultural Factors

• Maintenance: Emphasis on family ties and community cohesion.

• Loss: Low emphasis on family and community ties. High emphasis on individual achievement.

Cultural Factors

• Maintenance: Emphasis on education to enhance ethnic awareness or controlled by language.

• Loss: No emphasis on education to enhance ethnic awareness.

Cultural Factors

• Maintenance: Low emphasis on education if in majority language.

• Loss: Acceptance of majority language education.

Cultural Factors

• Maintenance: Culture unlike majority language.

• Loss: Culture and religion similar to that of the majority language.