Language shift, also known as language transfer or language replacement or language

assimilation, is the process whereby a community of speakers of a language shifts

to speaking a completely different language, usually over an extended period of
time. Often, languages that are perceived to be higher status stabilise or spread
at the expense of other languages that are perceived by their own speakers to be
lower-status. An example is the shift from Gaulish to Latin that occurred in what
is now France during the time of the Roman Empire.

Contents [hide]
1 Mechanisms of language shift
1.1 Prehistory
1.2 Indo-European migrations
2 Examples
2.1 Liturgical language
2.2 Austria
2.3 Belarus
2.4 Belgium
2.5 China
2.6 Egypt
2.7 Ethiopia
2.8 Finland
2.9 France
2.9.1 Alsace and Lorraine
2.9.2 French Flanders
2.9.3 Basque Country
2.9.4 Brittany
2.9.5 Corsica
2.9.6 Occitania
2.10 Germany
2.10.1 Southern Schleswig
2.11 Hong Kong
2.12 Hungary
2.13 Ireland
2.14 Italy
2.14.1 Germanic languages
2.14.2 Sardinia
2.14.3 Veneto
2.15 Canada
2.16 Malta
2.17 Philippines
2.18 Singapore
2.19 Spain
2.20 Taiwan
2.21 Turkey
2.22 United Kingdom
2.22.1 Scottish Gaelic
2.22.2 London
2.23 United States
2.24 Vietnam
3 Reversing
4 See also
5 Notes
6 References
7 Sources
8 Further reading
9 External links
Mechanisms of language shift[edit]
Prehistory[edit]
For prehistory, Forster et al. (2004)[2] and Forster and Renfrew (2011)[3] observe
that there is a correlation of language shift with intrusive male Y chromosomes but
not necessarily with intrusive female mtDNA. They conclude that technological
innovation (the transition from hunting-gathering to agriculture, or from stone to
metal tools) or military prowess (as in the abduction of British women by Vikings
to Iceland) causes immigration of at least some males, who are perceived to be of
higher status than local males. Then, in mixed-language marriages with these males,
prehistoric women prefer to transmit the "higher-status" spouse's language to their
children, yielding the language/Y-chromosome correlation seen today.

The process whereby a community of speakers of one language becomes bilingual in

another language, and gradually shifts allegiance to the second language is called
assimilation. When a linguistic community ceases to use their original language,
language death is said to occur.

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 are used to
measure the use of a given language in the lifetime of a person, or most often
across generations within a linguistic community.

Indo-European migrations[edit]
Main articles: Indo-European migrations and Indo-Aryan migration theory
In the context of the Indo-European migrations, it has been noted that small groups
can change a larger cultural area.[4][5] Michael Witzel refers to Ehrets
model[note 1] "which stresses the osmosis, or a "billiard ball," or Mallorys
Kulturkugel, effect of cultural transmission."[4] According to Ehret, ethnicity and
language can shift with relative ease in small societies, due to the cultural,
economic and military choices made by the local population in question. The group
bringing new traits may initially be small, contributing features that can be fewer
in number than those of the already local culture. The emerging combined group may
then initiate a recurrent, expansionist process of ethnic and language shift.[4]

David Anthony notes that the spread of the Indo-European languages probably did not
happen through "chain-type folk migrations," but by the introduction of these
languages by ritual and political elites, which are emulated by large groups of
people.[6][note 2] Anthony explains:

Language shift can be understood best as a social strategy through which

individuals and groups compete for positions of prestige, power, and domestic
security [...] What is important, then, is not just dominance, but vertical social
mobility and a linkage between language and access to positions of prestige and
power [...] A relatively small immigrant elite population can encourage widespread
language shift among numerically dominant indigenes in a non-state or pre-state
context if the elite employs a specific combination of encouragements and
punishments. Ethnohistorical cases [...] demonstrate that small elite groups have
successfully imposed their languages in non-state situations.[7]

Anthony gives the example of the Luo-speaking Acholi in northern Uganda in the 17th
and 18th century, whose language spread rapidly in the 19th century.[8] Anthony
notes that "Indo-European languages probably spread in a similar way among the
tribal societies of prehistoric Europe," carried forward by "Indo-European chiefs"
and their "ideology of political clientage."[9] Anthony notes that "elite
recruitment" may be a suitable term for this system.[9][note 3]

Examples[edit]
Liturgical language[edit]
Historical examples for status shift are the early Welsh and Lutheran Bible
translations, leading to the liturgical languages Welsh and Standard German
thriving today.[11]
Austria[edit]
Until the mid 19th century, southern Carinthia in Austria had an overwhelming
Slovene-speaking majority: in the 1820s, around 97% of the inhabitants south of the
line Villach-Klagenfurt-Diex spoke Slovene as their native language.[12] In the
course of the 19th century, this number dropped significantly. By 1920, already a
third of the population of the area had shifted to German as their main language of
communication. After the Carinthian Plebiscite in the 1920s, and especially after
World War II, most of the population shifted from Slovene to German. In the same
region, today only some 13% of the people still speaks Slovene, while more than 85%
of the population speaks German. The figures for the whole region are equally
telling: in 1818, around 35% of the population of Carinthia spoke Slovene; by 1910,
this number dropped to 15.6% and by 2001 to 2.3%.[13] These changes were almost
entirely the result of a language shift in the population, with emigration and
genocide (by the Nazis during the Second World War) playing only a minor role.

Belarus[edit]
Despite the withdrawal of Belarus from the USSR proclaimed in 1991, use of the
Belarusian language is declining.[citation needed] According to a study done by the
Belarusian government in 2009, 72% of Belarusians speak Russian at home,[citation
needed] and Belarusian is used by only 11.9% of Belarusians.[citation needed] 52.5%
of Belarusians can speak and read Belarusian. Only 29.4% can speak, read and write
it.[citation needed] According to the research, one out of ten Belarusians does not
understand Belarusian.[citation needed]

Belgium[edit]
Main article: Frenchification of 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.[14][15]
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 began
to predominate over the (mostly) bilingual Flemish inhabitants.[16] Only since the
1960s, after the establishment of the Belgian language border and the socio-
economic development of Flanders took full effect, could Dutch use stem the tide of
increasing French use.[17] French remains the city's predominant language and Dutch
is spoken by a minority.

China[edit]
Historically, an important language shift in China has been the near disappearance
of the Manchu language. When China was ruled by the Qing dynasty, whose Emperors
were Manchu, Chinese and Manchu had co-official status, and the Emperor heavily
subsidized and promoted education in Manchu, but the fact that most of the Manchu
Eight Banners lived in garrisons with Mandarin speaking Han Bannermen located
across Han Chinese civilian populated cities meant that most Manchus spoke the
Beijing dialect of Mandarin by the 19th century and the only Manchu speakers were
garrisons left in their homeland of Heilongjiang. Today there are fewer than 100
native speakers of Manchu.

At the current time language shift is occurring all across China. Many languages of
minority ethnic groups are declining, as well as the many regional varieties of
Chinese. Generally the shift is in favour of Standard Chinese (Mandarin)- but in
the province of Guangdong the cultural influence of nearby Hong Kong's has meant
local dialects and languages are being abandoned for Cantonese instead[18] and in
cities such as Zhongshan, Shunde, Nanhai District, Panyu and Dongguan, younger
native residents mostly communicate in Cantonese, instead of their mother-tongue.
Egypt[edit]
In Egypt, the Coptic language, a descendant of the Afro-Asiatic Egyptian language,
was in decline in usage since the time of the Arab conquest in the 7th century. By
the 17th century, it was eventually supplanted as a spoken language by Egyptian
Arabic. Coptic is today mainly used by the Coptic Church as a liturgical language.