Language Shift and Language Maintenance

With changes of season and weather comes growth and death, minority language communities
are similarly in a constant state of change. Such language shift may be fast or slow, upwards or
downwards, but never absent.
Generally, language shift is used in the language planning literature to refer to a downwards
language movement. That is, there is a reduction in the number of speakers of a language, a
decreasing saturation of language speakers in the population, a loss in language proficiency, or a
decreasing use of that language in different domains. The last stages of language shift are called
language death.
Language maintenance usually refers to relative language stability in number and distribution
of its speakers, its proficient usage by children and adults, and its retention in specific domains
(e.g. home, school, religion). Language spread concerns an increase – numerically,
geographically or functionally – in language users, networks and use (Cooper, 1989).
However, there is a danger in the ways these terms are used. First, the terms are ambiguous and
may refer to the numerical size of the language minority, their saturation in a region, their
proficiency in the language or the use of the language in different domains.
Second, these are predominantly sociolinguistic concepts. Linguists have their own use of these
terms.
A variety of factors create language shift. For example, out-migration from a region may be
vital to secure employment, a higher salary or promotion. In-migration can be forced (e.g. the
capture of slaves) or voluntary (e.g. guest workers). Sometimes this movement of minority
language groups occurs within a particular geographical area. Within a country, marriage may
also cause a shift in bilingualism. For example, a bilingual person from a minority language
community may marry a majority language monolingual. The result may be majority language
monolingual children. Increasing industrialization and urbanization in the 20 th century has led to
increased movement of labor.
With the growth of mass communications, information technology, tourism, road, sea and air
links, minority languages seem more at risk.
Bilingual education, or its absence, will also be a factor in the retreat and flow of minority and
majority languages.
A relatively comprehensive list of factors that may create language maintenance and shift was
given by Conklin and Lourie. This list essentially refers to immigrants rather than indigenous
minorities, but many factors are common to both groups. What is missing from this list is the
power dimension.
This concludes the initial consideration of important factors in language shift. It has been shown
that such shifts are particularly related to economic and social change, to politics and power, to
the availability of local social communication networks between minority language speakers and
to the legislative and institutional support supplied for the conservation of a minority language.
While such factors help clarify what affects language shift, the relative importance of these
factors is debatable and unclear.
There are various levels of establishing causes of language shift, levels such as the political, the
economic, the psychological (e.g. at the individual or home level) and at the sociolinguistic level.
A list of the relative importance of these factors is simplistic because the factors interact and
intermingle in a complicated equation.

Such a list does not distinguish the more important factors in language shift. Nor does it reveal
the processes and mechanisms of language shift. It is thus difficult to predict which minority
languages are more or less likely to decline, and which languages are more or less likely to be
revived.
A frequent, if generalized, scenario for immigrants is given by García and Diaz (1992, p. 14):
‘Most US immigrant groups have experienced a language shift to English as a consequence of
assimilation into American life.
The first generation immigrants sustain their native or first language while learning English. The
second generation, intent upon assimilation into a largely English-speaking community, begin
the shift towards English by using the native language with first generation speakers (parents,
grandparents, others) and English in more formal settings. By slow degrees, English is used in
contexts once reserved for the first language. Violation of English into the domain of the first
language serves to destabilize the native language.

Eventually, third generation speakers discontinue the use of the native language entirely. The
shift completes when most of the third generation are monolingual English speakers’.  
However, a ‘three generation shift’ is not the only possible pattern. Paulston (1994) cites the
Greeks in Pittsburgh as experiencing a four generation shift. She attributes this slower shift to the
use of a standardized, prestigious written language; access to an institution teaching Greek
language and literacy (i.e. Greek churches in Pittsburgh); and arranged marriages with one
partner being a monolingual Greek speaker from Greece.
In contrast, the three generation shift among Italians in Pittsburgh is attributed to their speaking a
non-standard, non-written dialect of Italian with little prestige; no religious institutional support
as they shared English language Roman Catholic services with, for example, Irish priests, nuns
and laity; and marriage to Roman Catholics with religious compatibility being more important
than language compatibility.

A five stage shift from minority language monolingualism to majority language monolingualism
was found by Von Gleich and Wölck (1994) in Peru: (1) monolingualism in Quechua (Quichua),
(2) bilingualism but Quechua stronger than Spanish, (3) bilingualism with Quechua and Spanish
approximately balanced, (4) bilingualism but Spanish dominant over Quechua, (5)
monolingualism in Spanish.
Amongst Panjabi, Italian, Gaelic and Welsh communities in Britain, there are occasional ‘fourth
generation’ individuals who sometimes wish to revive the language of their ethnic origins.
For some, assimilation into the majority language and culture does not give self-fulfillment.
Rather, such revivalists seek a return to their roots by recovering the language and culture of
their ethnic heritage.
In Europe, with increasing pressure towards a European identity, language minority members
seem increasingly aware of the benefits of a more distinctive and intimate local identity.
The pressure to become part of a larger whole seems to result in a counter-balancing need to
have secure roots within a smaller and more domestic community.
A local language is valuable in this more particular identity. Bilingualism provides the means to
be international and local.