Learning shift has become the world phenomena that has endangered many

local and national languages of the world? By the end of the 21st century, half
the languages spoken in the world today may have disappeared. Many
language communities have approached the point of no return. Discuss in the
light of language shift and language maintenance.

Ans: Background

As stated by Aristotle, human beings are social animals which means that humans tend to
interact with one another in order to share their ideas, thoughts, and emotions through language.
People around the globe have different languages where some are spoken by a large community
of people while others are used in smaller groups. A language can dominant another language
depending on its social-political status and usage in the society. As in the 21st century, more and
more mode of communications is being introduced like social websites, better means of
transportation and advance communication application, the world is now a global village. As a
result, language shift has been noted more than ever which is expected to result in the extinction
of more languages by the next century.

Introduction: Language Shift

The term language shift, as the name suggests, refers to the phenomena of shifting from one
language to another. Usually, when a community eventually stops using one language and
prefers to use other language; it is regarded as Language shift. The shift of language is also
referred as language transfer, language assimilation or, at times, language replacement.
Moreover, the dynamic phenomenon of this shift of language is a result of social change which
occurs due to the linguistic diversity and human interaction. Similarly, as the world today is
expending and more people are now communicating without any hurdles, many languages are
now being replaced with English or other dominating languages. Furthermore, as the group of
people start using the second language, the first language dies out.

Language Death
As stated by David Crystal in his book Language Death, 6000 plus language are at the verge of
death. When a community starts using a language more than their personal language, language
shift occurs. It is due to this language shift that one language dominants the other language and
as a result, the first language gradually loses its speakers and disappear from the society as the
communicators number reduces to an extend that no native user is left. Throughout history,
language shift and dying out or extinction of languages have been noted and many languages that
were once used by people are replaced with other languages. For instance, Latin language died
out with the collapse of the roman empire and was replaced by English. Likewise, the Indo-
European language, Sanskrit, is now considered as a dead language as the number of the users
reduced as language transferred took place.
Factors Contributing to Language Shift
According to Hoffmann, (1991) language shift is when a community no longer maintain its
actual language and eventually replaces it with another one. Mostly, people belonging to one
group are influenced or compelled to use another language more frequent for purposes like trade,
power and education. Majority of the time this shift is due to factors influencing the society are
likely economic, social and political factors including demographic factors too.

 The Economic Factor

The first and foremost influencing factor is economic factor as people around the world
communicate for economic gains. Thus, countries which dominate the trade market, its language
also dominates over the other languages. Additionally, developed countries like European
counties which offer better paid jobs and opportunities compels people to adopt their native
language such as English. Therefore, language shift occurs as more and more people prefer to
attain proficiency in that language rather than their own language.

 Social Factor

When a population tends to communicate in a language other than their mother tongue for social
reasons like status in society, education and survival, language shift occurs. Mainly, people who
migrate from one country or city to another acquire the language for settling in that particular
community. Gradually, their native language is replaced by the language of the new country or
city. For example, majority of the Pashto speaking families, now residing in countries like
Canada and Australia no longer use Pashto, rather they use English. A similar research as
conducted by

 Political Factor

In order to gain political power in the world, many people prefer to acquire language and tend to
replace with the mother tongue. This political factor is more evident as the government selects a
particular language as the language of state. For example, Urdu is the national language of
Pakistan and all the ethnic groups, when communicating or addressing the general public, have
to use Urdu rather their local language like Pashto, Punjabi etc.

 Demographic Factor

As people travel from one locality to another, language transfer also takes place. People
belonging to rural areas when shift to Urban areas or when the interference between the two
occurs, language changes occur too. In addition, this shift of linguists is more apparent in urban
areas. Moreover, the demographic factor is also depended upon the size of a group of language
users. Lastly, interracial marriages also give space to language shift more often.

Language Maintenance
On the contrary, many people and ethnic groups still opt to maintain their language. The practice
of using a language while it is being forced to be replaced with a language that is more dominant.
These users try to protect their language by various ways such as producing more written
literature and by teaching it. As put up by Van Herik (2012) language maintenance is regarded as
the study of how languages tend to survive in the society despite the consent threat of a more
powerful language.

Conclusion
In a nutshell, as the mode of communication and interactions are expending with the
advancements of the technology, weaker languages are being replaced with more dominating
languages and people prefer to use a language that is more convenient for the communication.
Therefore, a large number of languages will eventually extinct as the people will adopt the
language which would offer better chances to them. By the end of 21st century, languages which
belong to minority group may not survive and would be replaced.