Sociolinguistic; Language Shift and Maintenance
Hi, there! It's been a while! I have so many things to do due to the graduation of High School. Yes, I've been working on Yearbook School Projects this year, so my Dad and I have been busy taking care of two yearbooks. The deadlines are on June. So, that is why I barely update this blog. Anyway, I will post something about Sociolinguistic. It is always fun to learn about language-changing in society, don't you think? So today I will post my paper about Sociolinguistic; Language Shift and Maintenance. Check this one out!
Language
Shift and Language Maintenance
by Sekarlangit Umastuti
I.
Introduction
The existence of language surely cannot
be separated from our daily life. Through language, the interaction among
tribes and religions can be delivered smoothly. As a system of communication, language
also helps humans to complete all of their activities without facing the
scarcity in understanding of one’s another language. That is under the
condition they share the same knowledge of a certain language and utter it as
the medium of communication. They also share the same understanding in all of their
vernacular aspects, like the grammatical, structure, and the choice of words
(either it is formal or not). And they should
have agreed about some puns and slangs that are allowed to use in the middle of
conversation. But how about people from different ethnic groups or tribes
understanding what people from out of their groups say? Are they going to face
difficulties as the result of not having clear mind about the dominant language
they find in society?
If
there are some people from certain countryside, like Boyolali, came to the city
and they still speak using their own vernacular, that’s when we know the
language shifting occurs eventually. While in the city, like Jakarta for
example, the percentage of languages used by people is 60% Bahasa Indonesia and
the rest is Betawi. There must be language shift occurs when people from
Boyolali have interacted with people from Jakarta. The dominant language that
is used in Jakarta can be so hard to understand for people from any tribes at
the first time. This is because Indonesia has almost 1.128 tribes spread all
over the nation, we can’t expect they can understand the dominant language used
in the big city like Jakarta. There must be language shift and language
maintenance which is like two sides of the coin. One side of it is a language
that dominates bigger scope due to the big number of people using it in daily
life, while another one is a language that can be shifted by the first one. Either
the other one is opened or closed; these two features have some consequences
for sociolinguistic change.
II.
Content
Language
shift occurs when the people in a particular culture or sub-culture change
their primary language for communication. It is also the process by which a
speech community in a contact situation which is consisting bilingual speakers
gradually stops using one of its own vernaculars in favor of the other. The
casual factors of language shift are generally considered as social needs in
the era of globalization, where people speak using more modern language, like
English and Bahasa Indonesia with more improved spelling. That will link to the
social status or prestige of the speakers. The more often they speak with
dominant language, the easier they get along with people with higher status
social. Language seems to show how well-educated you are and that is why we can
see the importance of being good at English language nowadays. What about the
dialects possessed by people from different communities then? The only way to
answer that is by preventing for the vernaculars to die. This is why the role
of language maintenance is important. However, there are three different
communities that may get a chance for their vernaculars shifted;
Migrant
Minorities: People from
Cirebon (born and raised at) come to Jakarta to stay for a long time. Then at
the first time they will still speak using Cirebon dialect when they meet other
Cireboneses. But when they have to interact with other than Cirebonese, the
language shift occurs between them. They will gradually stop using their former
vernaculars due to the social need (to live their life in Jakarta). But
Cirebonese can’t easily get rid of their dialects (like the intonation). This
is also why some people even make their own community in Jakarta and often
gather around together so that they can freely use (maintain) their own
vernaculars. Whatever city they might go, they will always find their own
‘people’ in order to be what they used to be before they moved to big city.
That can be one of satisfactory ways to cure the longing of going back to their
hometown too.
Non-migrant
Community: Non-migrant
community can also experience language shift as the result of today’s world era
which is forcing a new term of a good life. The new term here means, if you
want to get a good job and beautiful wife, then you have to be able to speak
English fluently. Speaking English fluently will bring you a better job and
that also resulting in a better life. That also creates new fact of why English
language is important in globalization era these days.
Migrant
Majority: This is quite
rare to be found in Indonesia. For smaller scope, we can almost find
Minangkabau people in Java Island. They came moderately in order to have a
better life in big city, like Jakarta. But they can’t be considered as migrant
majority until the population of them in an area is bigger than the former
population. But for broader example, we can see how the Whites came to America
which formerly inhabited by Indian tribes. They came as migrant majority and
brought their own language, that is English language and later on it became the
first language used by them up until now. This is because they killed the
Indian people (almost all of them) until their language became extinct, leaving
only Wichita language as a moribund Caddoan language spoken in Oklahoma.
However, the tribes offer classes to revitalize the language and works in
partnership with Wichita Documentation Project of the University of Colorado,
Boulder. Either the Minangkabau have to kill all of Javanese people in certain
area or they will never be migrant majority which have rights to shift or
switch the vernacular into Minang language. But that is just so hard to imagine,
right?
We can see clearly some factors contributing
language shift from those explanations are economic, political, social, demographic,
attitude and values. Those three can be elaborated in deeper explanations, like
below here;
Economic: This is when people see the importance
of learning the second language for a better job and living. For instance, most
of Indonesians eagerly learn English and Mandarin because those two languages
share a great contribution in economic and political aspects. Holmes says that
job seekers see the importance of learning a new language which is widely used
in business (60). This is resulting in bilingualism which makes language shift
occurred. The high demand from industries for employees with fluent English has
successfully encouraged job seekers to equip themselves with English. In fact,
being competent in English leads to well-paid jobs. We can see from here, what
we repeatedly do will become new habit.
Political: In a multilingual country, the authority
usually chooses one language as the lingua
franca to unify various kinds of ethnic groups. Consequently, the number of
ethnic language speakers decreases. As an example, the political situation in
1947 led to the partition of India. Sindhi Hindus fled from the Sind. They
spoke Sindhi at home but had to adopt the local languages. This process has led
to language displacement leading to language loss among the Sindhis (Bayer,
2005).
Social: The dominant language is always
associated with social status and prestige. As stated by Holmes, young people
are the fastest to shift languages (60). This is why a lot of teenagers are in
race for being updated with everything from Western, including the language. It
is a good thing, though sometimes it can be like two sides of a coin too, which
the other side offers them negative things while they are absorbing new stuff
from Western. They still need to maintain their own mother tongue and filter
everything they absorb from Western. For another example, where a migrant minority group moves to a predominately
monolingual society dominated by one majority group language in all the major
institutional domains – school, TV, radio, newspaper, government
administration, courts, work – language shift will be unavoidable unless the
community takes active steps to prevent it.
Demographic: This factor plays the role in the process
of language shift. When there is a community of speakers moving to a region or
a country (urbanization) whose language is different from theirs, there is a
tendency to shift to the new language. Every time an immigrant learns the
native language of the new country he/she will pass it down to their children
and replace the old language with a new one. For example, Tutik was born in
Banyuwangi so her mother tongue is Javanese which was used as the language in
her former neighborhood and the medium of instruction in her elementary school.
She moved to Jakarta in 2009. Since then, she only uses Javanese at home with
her sister only and her Javanese neighbors (though it is quite rare). Because
there is a high frequency of contact with people coming from different ethnic
groups who use Bahasa Indonesia, she gradually shifts from Javanese to Bahasa
Indonesia. She also goes to UNPAM, which makes her to speak and communicates
with her friends using Bahasa Indonesia. At times she uses her vernacular when
she is with her boyfriend who is a Javanese too. This is an evidence the size
of the group can be one of critical factors; the bigger the group size, the
more they seem to resist the language shift.
Attitude and Values: Language shift is slower among
communities where the minority language is highly valued, therefore when the
language is seen as an important symbol of ethnic identity, it will be
maintained longer and vice versa. People with other vernaculars like Javanese,
Balinese, Sundanese, etc., should be proud in using their vernaculars as it
tends to slow down the language shift.
How about language maintenance? According
to baker {2000}, language maintenance is the protection and promotion of the
first or native language in an individual or within a speech community,
particularly among language minorities {e.g. bilingual education}. The term is
often used with reference to policies that protect and promote minority
languages. To put it simply, language maintenance is a process where a speech
community decides to continue speaking using their vernaculars rather than shift
it for some other languages. With well-planned efforts in education, political,
government and law institutions, minority languages can be maintained very
well. There are other ways to maintain minority languages, like some below
here;
A
language can be maintained and preserved, when it is highly valued as an
important symbol of ethnic identity for the minority group. (1)
If
families from a minority group live near each other and see each other
frequently, their interactions will help maintaining the language. (2)
For
emigrate individuals from a minority group, the degree and frequency of contact
with the homeland can contribute to language maintenance. (3)
Intermarriage
within the same minority group is helpful enough to maintain the native
language. (4)
Ensuring
that the minority group language is used at formal setting such as schools or
worship places will increase language maintenance. (5)
An
extended normal family in which parents, children and grandchildren live
together and use the same minority language can help maintaining it. (6)
Institutional
support from some domains, such as education, law, administration, religion and
the media can make a difference between the success and failure of maintaining
a minority group language. (7)
When
the speakers in a speech community feel their vernaculars are in danger and
they become more aware that their language can disappear in no time is actually
the perfect time to do revitalizing to the language loss. This moment when
people get awareness about the language loss, can also be called as language
revival. There are some examples of language revival conducted by some tribes,
like in Israel, Hebrew language was formerly used for religious ceremonials,
but the government decided to use it as their national language. The Hebrew
language has been already saved from language loss. Because of the preexistence
of frequency and people who use the language makes this language remains alive.
It will be different if all of the people who speak a certain vernacular die.
Then it can be considered as language death since the entire speakers die with
the language itself. As for the examples in Indonesia, have you ever heard of Chinese
ethnic groups in Peunayong, Banda Aceh? This ethnic group has inhabited Aceh
for a long time (6th centuries) and they keep speaking Mandarin
(Haak) in their daily life, even they inherit the language to their children.
This can be seen from the ability of children from Peunayong to speak both
Mandarin (Haak) and Aceh. Even
though they live as minority groups, they can still preserve their vernacular
very well.
III.
Conclusion
It
can be concluded that language shift is an interesting linguistic phenomenon.
This inevitable phenomenon will keep going as long as there are still humans in
this world. Remember that languages will die along with the speakers. So if
there is any language shift occurs it depends on the intention of the minority
languages speakers to prevent the languages from death. Just like today’s
conditions in Indonesia, people may think a person should be good in speaking
English, but if they come from countryside, they shouldn’t forget how their
vernacular was once become their pride. Therefore, language revitalization or
reversing language shift can be one of attempts to interested parties for
reversing the decline of a language or even reviving an extinct one. Some
parties like linguists, cultural or community groups or governments can be such
a help in revitalizing the almost-extinct languages. When there is no balance
both from language shift and language maintenance, the minority language will
suffer to death until it completely disappears like some of Indian languages in
the USA.
Almost
50% of 5.000 languages in the world are threatened with extinction or for every
two weeks, a language disappears. The speakers leave it and switch it with new
language which is advantageous in economic, political, social or even
psychology sides. In Indonesia, some vernaculars from Java, Bali, Banjar,
Lampung, Bugis, Makassar, and Toraja are facing language shifting each day. It
can be seen from the less of speakers contributing in preserving the languages
in their daily life. Other sources, like Tempo even mentioned that there are 10
dialects or vernaculars have been declared extinct, while dozens, even hundreds
dialects are endangered. Those 10 extinct dialects can be found in the Eastern
of Indonesia (9 dialects from Papua and 1 from Maluku Utara). Up until now,
Indonesia has already lost almost 700 dialects. Those languages are all
extinct.
IV.
References
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_shift
http://repository.upenn.edu/dissertations/AAI3405395/
http://www.wisegeek.com/what-is-a-language-shift.htm
http://www.oxfordhandbooks.com/view/10.1093/oxfordhb/9780195384253.001.0001/oxfordhb-9780195384253-e-28
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_death
http://blognyaalul.blogspot.com/2012/03/language-shift-and-language-maintenance.html
http://pkpp.ristek.go.id/_assets/upload/docs/393_doc_8.pdf
http://www.als.asn.au/proceedings/als2005/kurniasih-gender.pdf
http://sosiolinguistik.wordpress.com/
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Language_attrition
Bayer, Jennifer Marie. (2005).
Sociolinguistic Perspectives of Cultures in Transition Indian Tribal Situation.
Language in India. 5(March)
http://www.languageinindia.com
Hoffman, C. (1991). An Introduction to
Bilingualism. London: Longman
Holmes, Janet. (2008). An Introduction to
Sociolinguistics. London: Longman
Kuncha, Rekha. M and Hanoku
Bathula. (2006). The Role of Attitude in Language Shift and Language
Maintenance in a New Immigrant Community: A Case Study.
That is my essay which is entitled; Sociolinguistic; Language Shift and Maintenance. I hope you will be enlightened by reading my essay. I am so happy if you can share this and let other people know about the language shift which might happen to our vernaculars.
